Thaindian News

By Venkata Vemuri
London, June 9 (IANS) First came the abortionists with their advertisement campaign and now come the anti-abortionists led by the Protestant Churches of England with their poster campaign.

Protestant Churches are finalising the campaign that shows a scan of “baby Jesus in the Virgin Mary’s womb”, with the halo over the baby’s head. It will feature on billboards over Christmas with the following text: “He’s on His way. Christmas starts with Christ.”

It has been created by advertising executives from the Church of England, Methodist, United Reformed and Baptist Churches. The baby in the adverts is a composite made up of many baby scans. The posters will appear only close to Christmas, but will be available for purchase online.

John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child, told The Times: “This advertisement sends a powerful message to everyone in Britain where 570 babies are killed every day in the womb, 365 days a year, under the Abortion Act. Whenever we kill an unborn child in an abortion, we are killing Jesus.”

Terry Sanderson, of the National Secular Society, criticised the image. “If… it’s supposed to make a Christian Christmas more appealing to our secular nation, I think it is likely to have the opposite effect.”

Francis Goodwin, a founder member of ChurchAds.net, countered: “Our poster reflects this new way of announcing the news of a new arrival and places the birth of Christ in an ultra-contemporary context. It offers a fresh perspective on the birth of Christ - creating anticipation and alluding to both His humanity and divinity.”

The ChurchAds.Net, previously known as the Churches Advertising Network (CAN), is behind the campaign. It is an ecumenical network operating with a council of reference which includes two bishops and leaders from across the church denominations. It has secured the services of some of Britain’s top award winning advertising executives and designers, who give their work to the church for free. The Roman Catholic Church is not part of this body.

The anti-abortion poster comes just a month after Marie Stopes International, a charity that carries out about 65,000 terminations a year at its British clinics, launched a controversial advertisement offering abortion services.

Anti-abortion campaigners accused the charity of breaking advertising codes to “sell abortion” as if it were a consumer product. They said the availability of abortion would encourage more teenagers to have sex without contraception and prevent progress in reducing the number of teenage pregnancies.

The number of abortions in Britain has risen steadily since the Abortion Act in 1967 to 195,296 officially recorded abortions in 2008. Currently, it is estimated that about one in three women will have an abortion.

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VVP/mj