Normalising abortion ignores women’s needs

May 27, 2010

Cath Elliott has called Marie Stopes’s new abortion advertisement “innocuous” because the only abortion- or pregnancy-related term it uses is “late”. Laurie Penny has interpreted the advert’s cagey language as “normalis[ing] free and frank discussion of reproductive issues”. But the advert is neither innocuous nor positive about open debate. It shows three women, each alone and worried about their unwanted pregnancy. It then provides the company hotline. (Guardian)