Britain Launches Nationwide Pro-Choice Awareness Campaign; Anti-Choicers Predictably Freak Out

Some British anti-choicers are in a huff because they think the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), Britain’s largest abortion provider, is “capitalizing” on recent controversy over cuts to the time limit for abortion with their new nationwide awareness campaign. Because women shouldn’t know about the options available to them by law, under any circumstances — well, unless they’re being shamed at the same time.

The campaign in question is called “No More Names,” and it’s BPAS’s first-ever nationwide advertising initiative. Its goal is to remind people that it’s up to women — not politicians, protesters, nor anyone else — to decide whether an abortion is the right decision. The billboards show three women next to the words: “What do you call a woman who has had an abortion? Mother. Daughter. Sister. Friend.” It encourages people to keep the discussion going under the hashtag #Nomorenames.

Can you believe their audacity? They actually want to talk about the A-word?

BPAS spokespeople said the campaign was necessary due to heightened anti-abortion sentiment — there’ve been more protests around abortion clinics as of late — and “recent comments by ministers” who consider themselves know-it-alls when it comes to the uterus, like Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, who said the legal time limit on abortion should be 12 weeks, not the current 24, and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, who is also in favor of decreasing the limit.

The billboards cost around £50,000, all thanks to private donations from people pissed that their politicians are trying to limit reproductive choice, but anti-choicers aren’t interested in where the money came from, exactly; they’re upset that BPAS is trying to humanize abortion and say the billboards are “taking advantage” of the poor little ministers.

“BPAS, which is a lucrative abortion enterprise, is cynically exploiting the hype over the upper-limit debate to drum up more clients,” Anthony Ozimic, communications manager of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told the Telegraph, while BPAS officials cackled manically in the background, drinking baby blood and counting their stacks of solid gold. (BPAS, by the way, carries out 93 percent of its work on behalf of the National Health Service.) “BPAS knows very well that there is no realistic prospect of new abortion limits getting past Parliament’s large pro-abortion majority. Instead of pursuing the red herring of time-limits, ministers should instead cut off the tens of millions of pounds the government hands to BPAS in NHS contracts.”

Well, at least we can all agree that the government shouldn’t be trying to decrease the time limit! But we prefer this statement from Ann Furedi, BPAS chief executive, regarding the matter: “Politicians should understand that women themselves are the ones who are best placed to make the choice that is right for them and their families.”