Wednesday May 26, 2010
Shameless ‘Abortion Profiteers’: HLI Blasts Marie Stopes UK Abortion Ads
By Hilary White
LONDON, May 26, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Two more pro-life groups, Life and U.S.-based Human Life International, have blasted the decision to allow abortion advertising on British television funded by Marie Stopes International. Fr. Thomas Euteneuer, president of Human Life International, said that groups like Marie Stopes, one of the major players in the international population control movement, are nothing more than “abortion profiteers.”
“They literally have no shame. These profit-seeking commercials point out the lie that abortion is a ‘choice’ or an act of compassion. No, abortion is a grubby business, pure and simple,” Euteneuer said.
The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children is seeking legal advice to stop the ads airing, and the pro-life group Life has asked supporters to contact the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to ask that they be banned.
Criticism has also come from outside the pro-life community, with the campaign group Tibet Truth blasting the group for turning a blind eye to coercive abortion and sterilization practices in Asian countries. Several years ago, an official of Marie Stopes admitted at a public conference that their facilities commit illegal abortions in the developing world.
Euteneuer continued: “Marie Stopes shows us that the abortion industry targets women in their most vulnerable moments and offers them one solution—the killing of a baby.
“These women need loving concern. They need to be shown true, life-affirming options, not a false way out that not only results in the death of the child, but in multiple health and emotional problems for the mother.”
“Whether they are aborting babies in the UK or in the poorest countries of the world they make profit off the killing of God’s most precious children,” said Rev. Euteneuer. “The sad part is that now they are given space on prime time for these heinous ads.”
Michaela Aston, a spokeswoman for the pro-life charity Life, said, “To allow abortion providers to advertise on TV, as though they were no different from car companies or detergent manufacturers, is grotesque.”
“By suggesting that abortion is yet another consumer choice, it trivializes human life and completely contravenes the spirit of the 1967 Abortion Act, which was supposed to allow for a small number of legal abortions in a limited number of hard cases, but has been twisted and distorted to allow for mass abortion on demand,” Aston continued.
Life has provided a sample letter for supporters, asking the ASA that the ads be pulled.
The ASA allowed the ads, saying they fall within the rules because Marie Stopes International is registered as a charity.
Advertising for abortion for profit is prohibited. The Advertising Code states, “Ads must adhere to rules that are designed to protect children and vulnerable groups and prevent ads from causing serious or widespread offence. TV ads are checked against the rules before they are broadcast.”
“If the ASA does not have the courage to halt the broadcast,” a spokesman for Life said, “the very least we can expect is that the adverts will carry a health warning about the possible problems that abortion can cause for women.”