By Hilary White
LANCASTER, UK, March 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A proposal by the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) to allow abortionists to advertise on television comes straight “from the heart of the abortion industry,” the Catholic bishop of Lancaster has said.
In a statement issued March 26, Bishop Patrick O’Donohue called the proposed changes “deeply damaging” and warned that they would “result in the deaths of many more preborn children and cause untold harm to women” and threaten “yet another hammer-blow to the sanctity of human life in this country.”
The proposal comes as statistics continue to show rises in Britain’s teenage pregnancy and abortion rates.
Pro-life advocates have warned also that a requirement in the proposal that pro-life pregnancy counselling services must “make clear if they do not refer women for abortion” is a form of pro-abortion discrimination on the part of the ASA.
Bishop O’Donohue wrote, “As a society, we need to wake up and stop treating abortion as a quick-fix solution to pregnancy and offer compassionate and practical support to women facing crisis pregnancies.”
He recommends that those interested in helping women in crisis pregnancies donate their time or money to pro-life groups like the Cardinal Winning Pro-Life Initiative in Scotland.
“The killing of the innocent can never be a genuine solution to a problem,” the bishop wrote. He called on “all those who care about the sanctity of human life to voice their opposition to this proposal with one voice”.
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:
British TV Could Carry Advertisements for Abortionists
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09032601.html
To donate to the Good Counsel Network, a pro-life crisis pregnancy service:
15 Maple Grove,
London, England,
NW9 8RD
Phone: 020 7723 1740
To contact the Advertising Standards Authority:
Mid City Place,
71 High Holborn,
London,
WC1V 6QT, UK
Phone 020 7492 2222
Textphone 020 7242 8159
Fax 020 7242 3696
ASA website complaints form:
https://www.asa.org.uk/asa/how_to_complain/complaints_form/