Advertising Standards Authority: Don't call Pro-life Help Real Help

Despite rejecting more than 5,000 complaints against Marie Stopes International for promoting abortion on TV, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) has gone on to bowdlerise a Pro-Life advertisement on the London Underground.
The Good Counsel Network recently placed an advert in London tube stations to reach women in crisis pregnancies and offer them help, as part of their Maria Stops Abortion Campaign. But once the advert copy was submitted to the company who deals with much of the advertising on the Tube, they referred it to the Advertising Standards Authority’s Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) to ensure that it didn’t breach the Advertising Standards Code.
CAP’s first response warned that the use of the name “Maria Stops Abortion” could mean that the poster was seen as denigrating Marie Stopes International. Phrases in the Pro-life ad such as “Find Real Help” and “We really can help” were read as attacking Marie Stopes' failure to provide help. The Good Counsel Network immediately agreed to remove this text from the ad. We felt it was better to get the ad up quickly than to spend months wrangling about the text Maria Stops Abortion being in it or not.
CAP had stated that:

“Because the [ad] mentions ‘Find real help’ and ‘we really can help’ in relation to the Maria Stops Abortion copy [this] would be seen as a claim that a competitor cannot help. We would advise removing the relevant words ‘real’ help/ we ‘really’ can help. They could say ‘find help’ and ‘we can help’ in order to position their service in a less critical manner.”

I then phoned CAP and assured them that “Maria Stops Abortion” was being removed from the advert. I was suprised to find that CAP officials, however, continued to claim that Marie Stopes was still being denigrated by the ad, even though it no longer mentioned them at all!
Tom Marshall, a copy advisor with CAP said that their concerns about the terms, "Find real help" and "We really can help" remained the same as before. He insisted that we were clearly criticising Marie Stopes. Actually, as I pointed out, nothing in the advert referred to Marie Stopes at all. But Mr Marshall replied, "They are your main competitor".

Why should our ad be seen as having a go at MS not for example BPAS or another abortion provider? He replied that due to recent events such as the Marie Stopes TV ad and the furore it caused, people would assume that Marie Stopes were being criticised for a failure to provide genuine help to women in crisis pregnancies.”

Why they were so protective of Marie Stopes I did not know, but a quick look at the ASA's adjudication on the Marie Stopes TV ad helped me to understand. It shows that they have passed that ad accepting Marie Stopes' claim that:

"The ad did not encourage, promote or advocate abortion, but raised awareness about MSIs 24-hour Advice Line, which provided information about sexual health and all pregnancy choices, including, but not limited to, abortion."

The ASA adjudication states:
"We understood that MSI was a Pregnancy Advice Bureau (PAB) regulated by the Department of Health and, as a provider of services on behalf of the NHS, were obliged to offer a range of advice on all the options available to pregnant women."
and again:
"We also noted that many complainants regarded the advertisers as advocates of abortion and therefore interpreted the ad as a promotion of abortion. However, the ad was for an advice service for women dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, and stated that MSI could help women who were "pregnant and not sure what to do". We understood that MSI provided a wide range of advisory and health services and advised on all options during consultations with clients. We noted that the ad did not focus on any one particular service offered by MSI and did not mention abortion. We therefore considered it was an ad for a general pregnancy advice service for women who wished to learn about and discuss their options, which might include, but were not limited to, abortion."
Unfortunately, several recent calls I made to MSI's Helpline (sic) have shown that their operators were unable to provide the number of even one UK based pregnancy help centre. I was given the name of Sidelines (a USA pregnancy centre) but then told "Oh sorry that's not in this country". On another call though I stressed that I was calling for a woman who was under pressure to abort and had serious money problems, the operator repeatedly tried to send me to the Family Planning Association, Brooks Advisory Centre or Connexions. Presumably because these agents of death were the only people she had numbers for.
Understandably enough, for as Our Lord said:
Every kingdom divided against itself, shall be brought to desolation, and house upon house shall fall. And if Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? (Luke 11:17-18)
See the ASA Adjudication on Marie Stopes here
Despite their own and the Advertising Standards Authorities assurances to the contrary, Marie Stopes International were totally unable to refer me for any help when I requested help for a woman wanting to keep her baby in the face of homelessness, pressure from others or debts.
It seems ridiculous that the ASA considers it’s role in this case to protect Marie Stopes against any imagined attack on it. Once the text Maria Stops Abortion was removed from our ad there was no reason for anyone to take any thing in the ad as an attack on Marie Stopes. The emphasis on REAL help was aimed at women who have real practical needs such as financial problems or nowhere to live. In our experience these women expect that they will be offered tea and sympathy but no concrete help.
We hope we have still managed to get this across despite the censorship.

You can see the text of the advert before and after censorship below. Changes have been highlighted in bold.

The Original Text of the Advert:
Find real help and support in a crisis pregnancy, today. Whatever the problem is, we really can help
The Good Counsel Network is a Catholic, Pro-Life group based in London. We provide friendship, creative solutions, real practical help and support to women in crisis pregnancies and afterwards, regardless of their beliefs, nationality, legal status etc.
This advert is part of the Maria Stops Abortion Campaign

The Bowdlerised Version
Find the help and support you may need in a crisis pregnancy today. Whatever the problem is, we can help.
The Good Counsel Network is a Catholic, Pro-Life group based in London. We provide
friendship, creative solutions, practical help and support to women in crisis
pregnancies and afterwards, regardless of their beliefs, nationality, legal status etc.
Blessed Virgin Mary, Pray for us!

Clare McCullough

Marie Stopes Don't Provide Help for Women - Just Abortion. But We Can With Your Support.

Regarding Marie Stopes Abortion TV Ad, this week's Guardian tells us that:

The advertising watchdog has cleared the first British television advert to offer advice on abortion services, despite almost 5,000 complaints.
The Advertising Standards Authority cleared the ad, one of a series of three, of breaking any of the rules in its code, while acknowledging that the issue was "controversial and distasteful for some".
The campaign has become the seventh-most-complained about of all time, with 1,054 official complaints. The ASA also received more than 3,300 postcards and petition signatures from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children and 327 calls before the first ad aired.
The ads featured three women who may have missed their period with a voiceover offering Marie Stopes International as a source of pregnancy advice...
"Many complainants regarded the advertisers as advocates of abortion and therefore interpreted the ad as a promotion of abortion," said the ASA. "However, the ad was for an advice service for women dealing with an unplanned pregnancy, and stated that Marie Stopes could help women who were 'pregnant and not sure what to do'. We considered it was an ad for a general pregnancy advice service for women who wished to learn about and discuss their options, which might include, but were not limited to, abortion."
The ASA also said that the women in the ads looked "deep in thought" and therefore it did not trivialise unplanned pregnancy and did not suggest that only the woman would be affected.
It concluded that the ad would not cause widespread offence and was not harmful in that it would not encourage promiscuity or overly appeal to young people.

Marie Claire's website tells us that:

The ASA added, ‘We were satisfied that any callers to the advice line would be advised about health implications of any intervention or procedure which might be appropriate for her, in consultation with a qualified and regulated healthcare professional.’

If you have had enough of this nonsense and want to see pregnant women receive real help and advice, why not support our advertising campaign, due to start on the London underground shortly. It's also a witness to the fact that catholics and catholic agencies provide real help and support to women in crisis pregnancies. But ads don't come cheap, so please follow the link to donate if you can to The Guild of Our Lady of Good Counsel: http://www.justgiving.com/goodcounsel/Donate

Clare McCullough

Symbollic Action at the Gates of Hell

The day of the Marie Stopes’ TV ad, we arranged a peaceful, prayerful vigil outside Marie Stopes House. The day of May 24th dawned, the sun dazzled and the sky was a brilliant mantle blue.
Three of us, Lynne, Sr. Chinedum and I walked onto Whitfield Street, walked towards Marie Stopes House with the intention of starting the vigil. The minute we reached the railings of the building we heard an aggressive man (who we later learned was some kind of security guy) say, ‘Who are you? Are you here to obstruct the entrance to Marie Stopes, are you? You are not allowed.’
‘And who are you?’ asked Lynne.
‘I work for Marie Stopes International, and I’m telling you not to obstruct our building.’
Lynne kept her voice very calm, did not stop setting up for the vigil and pointing to the posh Marie Stopes building, she said,

‘That is Marie Stopes’ building, inside there, we are on the pavement. The pavement is not Marie Stopes'. You are also on the pavement, I can’t tell you to get off the pavement.’
The angry man didn’t say anything in response; we blessed ourselves with holy water from Lourdes, stayed at the first door of the building, and started the Joyful Mysteries. A Marie Stopes side-kick came out and asked the security guy what we were doing there. The side-kick was dressed professionally, but I never learned her job-title, yet her job that day consisted of frog-marching pregnant girls from the street inside the clinic. The street is not owned by Marie Stopes, yet this side-kick started the business of Marie Stopes on the street, by marching up to a woman approaching the building, putting her arms around her in a ring shape, saying ‘you don’t need that thing’, when we tried to put a leaflet in her hands, and would not let her make the choice as to whether tshe wanted to speak with us or not.
The girls would approach the first door, but were frog-marched into the second door. That meant we had to cover the two doors, the first where the girls would approach, and the second where they would enter. Sr. Chinedum stayed at the first door.
Another Volunteer, Mary (like myself) and I went to the second door and finished the first of seven Rosaries, and ten Divine Mercy chaplets.
During our prayer time, a camera crew arrived from a French television station. They received bright smiles from the two Marie Stopes workers, and got a cheesy ‘Hi guys!’. The journalist with the camera crew wanted to interview me, but I declined. It could have been potentially disastrous to do so; during that precious time I was there to offer help and to advise girls, I could have ‘missed’ a girl by wasting time talking to an antagonistic camera crew. I had to be ever vigilant and ready to smile at a girl who at any moment had got the courage to speak to someone who wasn’t death peddling. But also, the Vigil itself is the complete message; praying and offering help speaks volumes, so there was nothing further to communicate to the press.
My refusal to speak to the French crew did not stop them asking at least four more times to interview us, and then pointing their camera five inches from my face. The other Mary had a touch of palpitations when the French camera crew zoomed in like gigantic bugs. For a couple of seconds I stopped praying and said, ‘I’m so nervous about that camera, we can’t do as good a job of talking to the pregnant mothers.’ The other Mary made a very good point in response to this; ‘we live in a society where cameras are everywhere. We are always on camera. But with that guy putting that camera in our faces it’s more obvious.’
After the French camera crew had finally strutted away. We had a small lull and were able to give four girls leaflets without a camera trailing us. Then the BBC came. The atmosphere seemed very cordial between the Marie Stopes workers and the BBC. In the distance, I heard the BBC journalist apologising to the Marie Stopes woman who was marching women into the clinic. And there were warm smiles and handshakes. The BBC filmed us, looked at us with stone faces, but cleared off fast. Meanwhile more people came to pray in front of the clinic, and six women and one man were praying the Rosary.
There was a blessed quarter of an hour when no girls went into the clinic, and we prayed all the harder. The security guy violently thwacked a bottle against the railings as if it was a baton just behind me and the other Mary. Someone working in the building came out, pointed at us and said mockingly, ‘do I need salvation? Look at them!’ ‘Oh yeah! You need salvation all right. What a joke!’ said the woman who was marching the girls in.
Another British camera crew came but didn’t stay long, and didn’t say who they were. A Polish camera crew came, and what dumbfounded me was that the pretty blond reporter gave us a sincere smile, and the cameraman waved at us. They told us that Poland is a very Catholic county, and that praying outside clinics was of great interest to the general population, and that the Polish people would support our vigil. This was almost in stereotypical contrast to the attitudes of both the British and French crews. The Polish crew asked – politely – if they could ask us a few questions. We declined again. The sun was still dazzling, and I had to feel sorry for the many heavily covered Muslim teenage girls who trudged their way into the clinic looking dejected. But they weren’t the only ones suffering the bright grill of the sun, the clinic workers were getting uncomfortable in the sun, and at quarter to one, the woman asked us,
‘Are you going to be here all afternoon? I said are you going to go away at any point?’
At one, we packed up our things and strode out of the street. I gave a fleeting glance to the clinic workers who lingered outside the clinic, they fixed sharp eyes on us to make sure we were leaving. We had visited the gates of hell, but were not staying.

Mary O' Regan

Read what the retired Bishop of Lancaster, Bishop Patrick O'Donaghue said about Marie Stopes TV Ad Campaign here.

Maria Stops Abortion Ad Campaign

As many Londoners amongst you will know, the abortion providers, Marie Stopes International or BPAS, from time to time will take out advertising on the tubes or over-ground train-lines. When this happens, for several weeks we all have to live with the sight of some tastefully designed posters, promoting abortion as though it was the reasonable person’s answer to the ‘problem’ of an ‘unwanted’ pregnancy. Women who are pregnant and are in a panic can easily be brought to feel that abortion will solve all their problems. And of course the advertising makes no reference either to the horror of what the different abortion procedures involve for the baby OR to the awful suffering that many, many women will endure afterwards.
Advertising abortion on TV will worsen this situation because a) it will bring abortion into every living room and b) it continues the trend of implying that abortion is simple, morally acceptable and is something which facilitates a happy future. So we will continue to oppose TV advertising of abortion with prayer and fasting.
We would also like to increase our outreach to women in trouble in a pregnancy which maybe wasn’t planned or where they suddenly find themselves in crisis. Using the title Maria Stops Abortion, we plan to reach out to women who would otherwise only see adverts for the ‘help’ offered by abortion providers. Tube and rail adverts are extremely expensive, but we feel the need to launch out into the deep and experiment with this type of outreach with the hope that any woman seeking an escape from abortion will find us.
Can you support our advertising programme with any contribution? A regular contribution by standing order helps us to plan ahead for future advertising as well. You can donate by cheque, by card online through the link at: www.goodcounselnetwork.com on the ‘Donate’ page and you can obtain a Standing Order form and/or a Gift Aid form by phoning us or online also on our ‘Donate’ page.
£20.00 buys one ad inside a tube carriage for 2 weeks. But for about £400 we can begin advertising in Stations. If you support this campaign, please send what you can.
Meanwhile, why not get one of our posters put up in your parish or anywhere locally where pregnant girls could see it (while we are mainly London based, we can provide advice and support to girls in England and Wales).

Originally From The Good Counsel Newsletter

Prayer Vigil Outside Marie Stopes House, Also Shown On TV

On Monday the 24th May, Marie Stopes Abortion providers aired the first Abortion TV advert in the UK on Channel 4.
Many good people responded to this advert by contacting their MP, channel 4 and Marie Stopes themselves.
Many joined us in Prayer and Fasting on the 21st May.
On the day the advert was to be aired, the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, a small group went to Marie Stopes House which is now an abortuary and whilst praying offered real help and support to the pregnant women going in.
Whilst the main purpose of this prayer vigil was to help the women, four film crews arrived at Marie Stopes in relation to the advert, they stopped and filmed us praying. As a result we had part of the Divine Mercy Chaplet recited on the national BBC News! Not a bad thing.

It is vitally important that when these issues arise, we sign petitions, lobby our MPs and contact the culprits etc etc.
But it is also vitally important that we go to the scene of the tragedy and offer to help resolve the women’s problems and not just when abortion is in the news.
It is also vital to remember that if Pro-life work is not supported by prayer and fasting it will come to naught.

Stuart McCullough

Support Today's Vigil, However You Can.

Please support our peaceful, prayerful Vigil today at Marie Stopes central London abortuary from 11am-1pm, see yesterday's post for full details. If you can't come you can support us with your prayers, sacrifices, fasting or offering up your sufferings. Please pray for the women going for abortions today, for the abortuary staff and that the advert due to be aired tonight won't be shown tonight or throughout the month of June, the month of the Sacred Heart, as Marie Stopes had planned.
If you haven't already done so please contact Jeremy Hunt MP, the Secretary of
State for Culture, Media and Sport, who has the power to stop this ad through his powers related to Ofcom. Contact him and ask him to prevent the ad from being shown. His department's telephone Number is: 02072216000 and his department's email is : enquiries@culture.gov.uk. See john smeatons blog for details: http://spuc-director.blogspot.com
Our Lady Help of Christians, Pray for us!

Some kinds of demons... Part 2 URGENT UPDATE

You have probably heard by now that Marie Stopes (MS) the abortion providers will be airing an abortion advert on Channel 4 on Monday 24th May, Feast of Our Lady Help of Christians.

Despite a public consultation last year which ended with a decision not to allow abortion advertising, Channel 4 and MS claim that the ban does not apply to this advert as they are a 'charity' and do not make a profit from their services.

SPUC has replied to some of these claims here http://spuc-director.blogspot.com/

Where has our society sunk to when the mass slaughter of innocent human beings has become something to promote during a break in our light entertainment? Nations are being annihilated as Our Lady of Fatima warned and we cannot just shake our heads and say "Tut, tut!". The vulnerable young women watching this advert deserve better.

WHAT CAN WE DO?

In solidarity with millions of unborn babies who have been aborted, with millions of women who have been hurt by abortion and with the approximately two hundred thousand babies threatened by abortion in England and Wales this year, we can pray and fast to stop this advert being aired.

It is worth repeating Our Lord's own words, 'And He said to them; This kind (of demon) can go out with nothing but prayer and fasting'. Do we REALLY believe him?

Other groups are considering legal challenges, which we support, and we can support them particularly with our fasting and prayer. Good Counsel had already promoted a national day of prayer and fasting on Friday 21st May. Now we are asking you to join this fast day particular for the intention of preventing this tv advertising campaign and any future such plans.

Secondly, you can pass on a link to this blog to all your friends and encourage them to join you.

Since it is such an urgent cause, we are asking people to really do their best to fast as well as they can and to participate in some extra prayer. Maybe to say an extra Rosary, a whole Rosary, attend Mass or spend some time in Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

There is Mass in our London Centre on Friday at 11.30am followed by a Holy Hour. If you wish to attend, please come to the side door or phone us for details if you don't know where we are; contact Gabrielle: 02077231740

Finally, watch this space for details of a peaceful, prayerful vigil at Marie Stopes on Monday.