When the news headlines announced that next week an abortion advert will be airing on the UK's Channel 4, I suspected most people's minds start resembling the Daily Mail. Unsurprisingly knickers are in twists, and despite the flippant turn of phrase it's pretty important.
The loud mouthed moral panic came out, worried about what this will mean for society. It’s not surprising. The key concern is that it's an advert. If advertising persuades us towards a product or idea, and inclines us towards a new behaviour the assumption is that we're possibly entering a world where the next easily-accepted activity of Generation Y is abortion. The idea of positively promoting abortion scares a lot of people.
Except that's not what the advert does. On one hand there's a lot of articles pointedly responding to the advert, with The Telegraph's Ed West calling it a new low as he presents the idea of a dystopian future during which the female grab the phone to sign themselves up in between segments of Davina McCall's ironically titled "The Million Pound Drop Live" game show.
Will this be as blasé as incorporating a Diet Coke break when a man in a white tank top uses the lift? On the other hand, the advert doesn't promote abortions, not mentioning the word once, simply asking "Are you late?" alongside a picture of a worried looking girl, and providing a helpline.
The Marie Stopes International helpline is to help, I assume given the name, and aims to provide information and discuss rather than to "sell abortions" as watchdogs, religious groups and family campaigners suggest.
As the company that carries out most of its abortions on behalf of the NHS they responded by saying it is right to advise people on their choices as a YouGov poll of over 2,000 adults showed only 42 per cent would know where to go if they or their partner were in such a dilemma.
So, rather than a pro-abortion advert it perhaps suggests a 'route out' but the single-minded focus on pushing a 'product' as we might have initially thought is hardly as extreme at The Telegraph suggests.
However, in bringing abortion into a world of mass media, previously only awkwardly discussed in private, does this make it a more widely accepted activity? And here is the fear. However, as Julie Douglas, marketing manager of Marie Stopes says:
"We thought it was the right to bring abortion out into the open. It has been legal for 40 years, one in three women will have one before they are 45. It doesn't help to keep it under wraps."
It's problematic and whilst the advertisement doesn't glamorise it, is television the right place? Mike Judge, from the Christian Institute, said: "A television commercial is not an appropriate medium for this." (Notably it's also to be distributed through newspaper and magazine adverts but TV here is key.)
Its airing (and continued airing) is likely to make it a more mainstream topic but the key concern is whether it will in fact promote it. "[Marie Stopes] points out that last year it received 350,000 calls to its 24 hour helpline but only carried out 65,000 abortions, with the vast proportion of callers carrying on and having the baby," and the main concern is over whether as the advert hits television, these rates will rise as females decide for "an easy option out".
But abortion isn't an easy thing and information on the matter should surely be equal and impartial, so without the appearance of an anti-abortion ad currently what's the alternative? How do we get information to those who might not otherwise have access to it? In the worst case, hushed Internet activity and a perpetual fear of un-deleted Internet history being found? In the same way that Childline promotes a confidential discussion of incredibly sensitive issues over their un-tracked phone-lines, surely the same is necessary for those who have problems talking to those in their household? Buut by putting information in someone's lap, is it too easy?
The BBC reports that Liberal Democrat MP Dr Evan Harris, said there was no reason why carefully regulated advice should not be available on television.
"What is vital, as the select committee recommended, is that no woman is misled by anti-abortion campaigners claiming to offer balanced advice when they never refer for abortion," he said.
"The idea that pregnancy advice, family planning and condom adverts should not appear before the 9pm watershed is as ridiculous as the former ban on tampon adverts, which have been shown not to offend despite the outcry at the time they were allowed."
But the argument is fairly simple: for those who argue that abortion is wrong the campaign represents a trivialisation of life as it hits the mainstream audience subsumed in passive viewing. For those who are perhaps more pro-choice, this represents the sharing of information that previously involved some effort from the person (be that merely a Google search). In presenting this information directly without the need for the person to actively search, and making abortion more accessible, are we corrupting society and trivialising life?
Overall perhaps the easiest aspect to criticise is its placement bang in the middle of the next Davina-led ruckus of excited twenty-somethings engaged in a carefree life of cash-grabbing If we accept that abortion will enter the mainstream should we be placing it next to games how adverts? If not, then when is the best time?