I wonder what you thought of the recent watershed in advertising of abortion on TV? No matter what your stance is on abortion, something significant happened last week. In allowing the advert to screen, we took another step in the direction of the commoditisation of humanity, without considering as a society what message we are sending when terminating a life becomes a TV sound-bite.
The TV advert was of course for a private service, although the provider, Marie Stopes, also earns about £30m from their contract with the NHS. I believe there are fundamental issues that we should step back and consider deeply before taking any further steps, but there is also a basic issue of conflict of interest and misinformation. How can a business that relies on conducting abortions for its income be a credible source of balanced ‘choices in reproductive healthcare’ to the NHS, offering all the alternatives? It can’t and it doesn’t.
But of greater significance are the medium of the advert, the move to abortion-as-contraception and commoditisation. Is the medium of TV advertising for one of the deepest, most profound decisions any woman can make really appropriate? In a 30 second sound bite all the complexity, dilemma and significance is swept aside. A choice, that for some of my friends has shaped and shadowed their lives ever since, is reduced to the level of washing powder options. This relates directly to the medium. Despite worthy ‘edutainment’ exceptions, TV is still mostly about entertainment. We watch it to relax, to be amused, diverted. I may not agree with all Neil Postman wrote about television in ‘Amusing ourselves to death’ but he has a salient point – which is that on TV, ‘entertainment is the format through which all experiences are mediated’.
When abortion was legalised, the expectation was that it would be an exception. If no other alternative of support or adoption was feasible, or the mother’s mental health or physical life was as risk or the baby was severely disabled then at last there was an alternative to the back-street butchers. But that naivety was short lived as year on year, terminations have increased to the point we are at today, roughly 190,000 annually with 99% for social ‘inconvenience’ reasons (and isn't an advert designed increase numbers?) Multiple terminations, once considered unthinkable, are increasingly common and we can no longer ignore the fact that has become a form of contraception. Former denials of this as a possibility from all sides indicate our discomfort with the notion that women could be so cavalier. But some are, and are we content to continue to proclaim their unending right to £400 terminations when a contraceptive pill costs 10p and the NHS abortion bill is pushing £80 million?
And although there is a purely economic argument for confronting the statistics, there is the more fundamental one of humanity. In our throw-away society haven't we lost something crucial when new life is viewed as just so disposable? Another commodity to be kept or thrown away at will? Just another consumer choice? Because this mindset logically cannot be retained only for the unborn. In moving abortion from a solution to a personal crisis to a lifestyle entitlement we belittle all human life; sensitivity to frailty is weakened and we are all diminished.
TV ads have been used by Oxfam and other charities to raise money to highlight serious issues such as famine, neglect and disaster. The subject is usually a clear cut tragedy with no moral ambiguity, and though we may become impervious, there is a simple response. People need food, abuse must stop, homes rebuilt. Abortion is different. It is a profoundly divisive and morally complex issue with permanent, personal consequences. A 30 second advert can never provide a balanced view.
