'Moral line crossed' as parents jam phones with morning-after pill complaints
LONDON - Furious parents called up radio phone-in shows in their hundreds to complain about the first television ad for the morning-after pill, which broke last night.
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The ad for Bayer Schering Pharma's Levonelle One Step morning-after pill was screened shortly after the 9pm watershed on ITV, Channel 4 and Sky.
One mum was reported in The Mirror to have said: "This trivialises a very important issue. Something as important as pregnancy should not be devalued for profit."
A father complained: "Even though it was shown after 9pm my teenage daughters were watching.
"The worst thing is it makes it seem normal to go and get this pill. We've crossed a moral line with this."
The ProLife Alliance has also condemned the ad claiming: "It is advertised inaccurately as emergency contraception when in fact its major function is to cause the abortion of an embryo that has already been conceived, not as suggested by the name to prevent conception."
A spokeswoman for Bayer Schering, said: "Levonelle One Step is not legally or scientifically an abortifacient. It is not effective once the process of implantation has begun and will not interrupt an established pregnancy."
The cartoon-style ad shows a woman waking up next to her partner and then heading to a chemist to ask for the Levonelle One Step morning-after pill.
A spokeswoman for sexual health charity Marie Stopes International said: "The first emergency contraception advert is a very positive move which Marie Stopes International fully supports, and we hope this paves the way for future sexual health related adverts."
The launch of the Levonelle ad follows proposals to relax the rules on condom advertising and to allow pregnancy advisory services to advertise on television.
Levonelle: ad provokes parents
Comments
Mark Griffiths - 24/04/2009
The advertisers will learn to get the balance right on this. In three years' time, we will be inured to it and it will seem acceptable. I appreciate that this will be difficult to hear if you are a parent of teenage daughters. However, if your family or other families you know have daughters who had children in their late teens and are now one-parent families, you might think differently. What these parents are objecting to what they see as a casual approach to casual sex and its consequences. It's a nettle and, at last, it's being grasped.
Susan Billinge - 24/04/2009
For the little girl who has everything...
CF - 24/04/2009
I just wish that the people who thought that this ad is a good thing were as vocal as the ones who didn't. "it makes it seem normal to go and get this pill" - good. It is normal. Completely and utterly. Why this backlack against proper sexual education?
Gav S - 24/04/2009
Maybe they're just desperate for Grandchildren.
werwr wrwerwewr - 25/04/2009
Instead of investment in such ads I think it would be better to have sex education in place making both girls and boys aware of casual sex - I know you may think I'm traditionalist but the purpose of sex is taken wrongly. Meaning and sense of purpose are what we need to teach the teens first.
Colin Montgomery - 27/04/2009
I know. Abstinence! Signified by a special ring which horny teens shall wear to remind them to lock their lust up in a tower. With only a thimble of squash at 11. Surely it can't fail? Oh that's right, it has. Spectacularly. Along with every other attempt to tackle this issue properly. I refer to the comments of 'Mr Blue' in that opus profundus that is 'Reservoir Dogs': "What came first? The Madonna video or the hard-on?" Answers on a smutty seaside postcard - only after the watershed mind. Or it might corrupt someone.
AwallafaShagba - 27/04/2009
'tis ok everyone - They were all Daily Fail .. i mean Mail readers.