Abortion clinics are to be allowed to use the glamour and seductive power of advertising on radio and TV to encourage women to come to them for terminations, according to new rules announced recently. 

Clinics offering a range of "post-conception advice services" -- including counselling leading to terminations -- will be free to advertise in broadcast media because there is no justification to prevent it as long as they are not harmful, offensive or misleading, the Broadcast Committee of Advertising Practice (BCAP) said.

Its spokesman, Matt Wilson, denied there would be "some sort of free-for-all saying 'come to us to get an abortion' ... they have to promote an array of services", adding that pro-life counselling services would be able to advertise too.

But under the rules clinics will for the first time have to make it clear in their ads if they do NOT offer referral for termination -- a clear attempt to deter women from seeking pro-life pregnancy advice.

BCAP claims on its website that "this is a responsible and positive step that will help protect potentially vulnerable women from being misled at a time when a delay in accessing the information they need could increase the risk of health complications" -- in other words, increase the risk of having a baby. 

In a blogpost the Catholic peer Lord Alton of Liverpool described the green light to the for-profit abortion clinics to advertise as "the ultimate commodification and dehumanisation of life in the womb". He writes:

Whether or not it is licit to take the life of an unborn child is not an uncontroversial or uncontested question. All the more extraordinary, therefore, that permission has been given for abortion to be advertised on British television and radio as just another “service” – like buying a washing up liquid or insurance for your car. Surely this represents the ultimate dehumanisation and commodification of developing life in the womb. Those who advocate abortion as a “reproductive service” (now there’s an oxymoron: the one thing it doesn’t assist is reproduction) or who fail to see the tragic irony when they insist on “safe” abortions (it’s never safe for the child) should question how increasing the multi-million revenues of abortion clinics adds to the dignity or the humanity of women, or, indeed, of the rest of us.

What a paradox, too, that smoking is banned from TV advertising – not least because of the damage which smoking does to a pregnant woman’s unborn child – and yet adding to the daily toll of around 600 abortions is not seen as an ethical issue worthy of grave or serious reflection, but just another jingle, just another ad, suggesting that there’s nothing questionable about taking the life of your unborn child.

Lord Alton has tabled parliamentary questions for the Government to answer about how this decision was made and what powers the government has to review it.

According to the Mail the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is unhappy about the decision but is powerless to intervene.

In the Spectator James Forsyth says it's worth reflecting on the move in the light of the Falconer Report:

This news is also revealing of how far we have come since the Abortion Act 1967. I doubt that the parliamentarians who voted that legislation through envisaged that 45 years later, what are euphemistically called, ‘post-conception advisory services’ would be being promoted during the commercial break. This is something that we as a society should reflect on before we make any move to legalise assisted dying.