Sauce for the goose

Neil Addison has just contacted me with the following email which he has sent to BPAS for clarification. Given that the abortion clinics have threatened the pro-life outreach workers who operate outside Marie Stopes with referral to the ASA, despite the fact that they are not actually advertising, then it seems only fair to hold them accountable with the same standards that they wish to impose on others. I’ve added in the UK stats in green.

Dear Sirs 

I refer to your Advertisement at http://www.bpas.org/nomorenames/ and the Statistics quoted therein namely

• One in three women will have an abortion in her reproductive lifetime.

• More than half of women who have abortions are already mothers. (The UK stats state that in 2011, 51% of women who had abortions, had one or more previous pregnancies that had resulted in a live or still birth, up from 47% in the previous year. So that’s technically over half, but does that equate to 51% of women already being mothers? What about those who aborted following a stillbirth for example).

• Last year, there were nearly twice as many abortions to women over 35 than under 18. (Nearly being the operative word. Last year, 14,599 women under 18 had abortions, compared to 27,199 women over 35. That’s 8% of  abortions performed for women under 18, compared to 14%  for women over 35. Still statistics can be spun any way you like. It might contextualise this figure better to learn that 15 out of every 1,000 women under 18 had an abortion in 2011, compared to 6.9 women out of every 1,000 over 35. So proportionately more women in the under 18 age cohort are having abortions than those in the over 35 cohort. BPAS are spinning the data to suit their message)

Can you please provide me with the sources for these statistics in particular what study they are based upon, whether it is a study in the UK or elsewhere and the statistical analysis upon which the figures are based.

Do you ” hold documentary evidence to prove your claims” and are they capable of “objective substantiation” as required by the Advertising Standards Authority ? 

I look forward to receiving your reply

Sincerely

Neil Addison (Barrister)

We await the response with eagerness. If BPAS are unable to substantiate their one in three claim, then their campaign will need to be modified and referenced.