Friday 27 March, 2009

UK
Health
Family
Education

Young person from a Protest/Prayer meeting at an Abortion Clinic

As anti-abortion campaigners are threatened with prosecution for telling the truth, our authorities are going to even greater lengths over what amounts to child abuse in terms of the sexualisation of our young people.

By Denise Pfeiffer

If the thought of youngsters simply texting for a morning-after pill makes you shudder, then you will be horrified to learn that the sexualisation of our young is about to get much worse. We could soon see abortion and condom adverts shown during peak-time TV shows as the Advertising Standards Authority considers lifting its ban on abortion agencies advertising through the broadcast media. A new ruling could mean that adverts for condoms might be shown at any time during the day.

Society for the Protection of Unborn Children national director John Smeaton said: “The ASA’s proposal threatens to further commercialise the killing of unborn children and would completely disregard the adverse effect of abortion on women’s health. Agencies with a financial interest in abortion will be in a position to buy expensive broadcast advertising whereas groups which provide objective information about abortion and its impact on women’s health will be unlikely to afford to advertise.”

Not only would they be unlikely to afford such advertisements, but it is likely that they won’t be allowed to advertise at all. The ASA has a history of banning the shocking yet truthful images of aborted foetuses and similar literature, yet surely, adverts showing the negative side to abortion and promiscuous sex are exactly what we need. The truth is shocking – so why not shock with the truth?

The ASA has already demonstrated a bias against pro-life groups when it attempted to ban advertisements which correctly pointed out that morning-after pills may cause early abortions.

If the proposed adverts are shown, the disturbing facts relating to abortion should also be aired. Why shouldn’t we be shown the horrifying symptoms and side-effects of sexually transmitted infections that are running rife in this country?

Just what is the purpose of advertisements for condoms before the 9pm watershed? Every youngster already knows about condoms through the (now compulsory) sex education lessons at school. Such a move would only serve to sexualise young people yet further, if this is possible, and the resulting promiscuity would lead to more abortions, more sexually transmitted infections and more teenage pregnancies.

What’s more, if the adverts are targeted at children and youth, it is likely that some of those who aren’t yet sexually active will be made to feel even more alienated in a society that suggests those who are not having sex are in some way inferior. Consideration needs to be made for those youngsters watching television with their peer group and the pressure condom adverts will have in those moments.

We are living through a dangerous era in which all natural boundaries are being rapidly broken down. The sexualisation of our young in schools, via the media and now threatening to come into our homes is tantamount to child abuse, though candy-coated in a flavour well suited to the powerful bodies who pass regulation after regulation that serves to undermine parents and harm our young.

Increasingly, parental control is being curtailed. Parents are already being threatened with prosecution for failing to allow their children to take part in lessons about sex and homosexuality. This week alone, parents of children at a school in Leytonstone have been threatened with prosecution if they remove their children from classes teaching about homosexual history.

Mere children are now able to take their sexual fate into their own hands by texting for the morning-after pill without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Adverts promoting condoms and abortion will be the nail in the coffin for those parents who have done everything so far in order to keep their children away from sexualising messages through home education and proper control.

In 2001 pro-life group UK Life League were told by the ASA to stop distributing a leaflet which contained pictures of aborted babies after receiving complaints from just three people. And the complaints were upheld on the basis that the leaflets were likely to cause serious offence.

The ASA ruled that society had the right to be protected against advertisements that caused serious offence or distress. Time will only tell whether those offended and distressed by ads promoting condoms and abortion before the watershed will be afforded the same acknowledgement.

The ASA banned another pro-life ad by the League in 2001 because it identified the morning-after pill as abortion-inducing. SPUC in the UK responded to the ban by directly defying the order identifying morning-after pills in this way. And when advertising authorities warned violators could be fined or imprisoned, John Smeaton said he was prepared to go to jail rather than hide the facts.

One can only wonder how many facts will be omitted from the proposed adverts. Cigarette packets now have to display a prominent notice saying that they can kill. Are adverts promoting condoms going to tell viewers that their effectiveness is limited and that they offer little protection at all against some of the most common sexually transmitted infections? Are they going to have a disclaimer telling viewers that there is actually a much better form of contraception in the form of sexual abstinence?

It has now got to the stage where otherwise law-abiding people are willing to take the law into their own hands in order to save yet another generation from the sexualising tactics of those in power. A society which allows decent people to be threatened with imprisonment for moral values is neither decent nor democratic. It is shameful.

The real need is not to normalise condom use and abortion as an inevitable consequence of modern society, but to normalise keeping sex within a faithful and lifelong marriage. It’s quite simple really. The powers that be must know this, so we have to ask why they are doing the exact opposite to what most people would regard as commonsense. If these latest proposals are accepted, we are continuing on a downward spiral into a sexual abyss from which future generations may never escape.

Photo: stock.xchng