Monday, May 24, 2010

Are you late? The Marie Stopes ad.

I'm not doing publicity for Maries Stopes but this is the controversial ad that was aired for the first time on Channel 4 this evening:

Does it advertise abortion? No. What does Marie Stopes specialise in? Abortion. As their own press release states:
In 2008 a total of 195,300 abortions were performed on women living in England and Wales and 91% were funded by the NHS.

Some 90% of abortions were carried out at under 13 weeks gestation, while 73% were under 10 weeks.

Around 80% of the 65,000 abortions provided by Marie Stopes in 2009 were carried out free on the NHS, with 20% being paid for privately.

Marie Stopes International chief executive Dana Hovig said: "Last year alone we received 350,000 calls to our 24-hour helpline. Clearly there are hundreds of thousands of women who want and need sexual health information and advice and access to services.
It is lamentable that an abortion-provider bearing the name of a reknowned eugenicist is seen as the compassionate and caring organisation that women (no men in the ad) should turn to for help.

But why cannot we, pro-lifers, garner sufficient funds and unite in our cause to put out a similar ad with the same message: "If you're pregnant and not sure what to do, Life/SPUC/Cardinal Winning Initiative/Good Counsel Network can help." Or is there a law against this? It's not enough just to wring our hands.

7 comments:

  1. No law against it : the problem is more prosaic . . . money.

    Marie Stopes can afford to advertise because they charge for killing babies - and if their press release is to be believed, a large percentage of their income comes from us via the NHS.

    Life &c would need to find the same sort of funding; and that without damaging their existing operations, as otherwise it might be argued that they were acting outside the terms of their charitable aims.

    All of which doesn't, of course, mean that it can't be done . . . especially with Mother's help.

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  2. Excellent idea. Some years back there was a prolife foundation (non-Catholic, I might add) who ran a low-key "life - it's a beautiful choice" ad campaign.

    The voice over would show mom, or mom& dad with a young baby/toddler and a message along the lines "When Bob and I found out I was pregnant, we were in tough circumstsances...." etc. that sort of thing. And would end with "now, we can't imagine our lives without [baby's name]."

    There are many prolife ads on youtube. Why not have professionally done ads with information on where to get help. And then, most important -- see to it that ordinary Catholics in the pews have a good way of donating funds, resources etc. Everything doesn't have to be in place at once, but start with changing hearts and minds. If you wait for everything to be perfectly in place, then nothing gets done. Step by step. Courage.

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  3. Dominic Mary: good point. But we had a collection a couple of weeks ago for the Catholic Communications Network. Just wondering if the proceeds could be used for this sort of thing?

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  4. jessie miles26 May, 2010 10:16

    `Around 80% of the 65,000 abortions provided by Marie Stopes in 2009 were carried out free on the NHS, with 20% being paid for privately.`

    Below are the costs of Maie Stopes `services` copied from their website.
    Pregnancy test £5
    Telephone consultation £80
    One to one consultation £80
    (This is separate to the fees for any treatment. Every person having an abortion has a consultation first, so the total fee is for the consultation fee plus the treatment fee. You can choose to have either a telephone consultation or a one to one consultation at the centre).

    Medical abortion (abortion pill) up to 9 weeks £440

    Surgical abortion
    Up to 12 weeks, non anaesthetic £510
    Up to 14 weeks conscious sedation £585
    Up to 14 weeks general anaesthetic £640
    Over 14-19 weeks conscious sedation £740
    Over 14-19 weeks general anaesthetic £785
    Over 19-24 weeks general anaesthetic £1720
    Please note that an additional £35 fee is charged for all abortion services
    carried out during weekends.

    So, how much tax payers` money was channelled
    into MS last year? And used for the infamnous ad, as well as funding their global expansion, which, incidentally, is often illegal in the country of delivery.

    ReplyDelete
  5. p.s. the answer to the NHS arithmetic is that well in excess of £27.3 million was spent by the National health Service on abortions carried by Marie Stopes in the UK in 2009.

    This figure would be accurate if the cheapest/earliest form of abortion had been used in all 52000 NHS sponsored cases. Of course, many (most?) were later and therefore more expensive,so the real bill was well in excess of £27.3 million, for 2009.

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  6. I saw the perfect "shut up" answer on Damian Thompson's blog yesterday. The issue discussed was the pope's visit. Some were whining about "why should we have to pay for the pope in security, etc." and someone else said something along the lines "Tell you what, we Catholics will pay the cost of the pope's visit, and you stop making us pay for state funded abortion."

    ReplyDelete
  7. God has all the money in the world, it's just in other people's pockets. All that is needed is someone to gather the various groups together, what about you for that bit Father? Meanwhile we are working on a campaign to advertise on the underground and overground trains/stations.
    For more on what Marie Stopes, have a look at their latest adult victim: http://www.lifenews.com/int1552.html

    ReplyDelete

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