Thursday, April 22, 2004
Bloody reality of abortion brought to our living rooms
“Britain's first televised abortion lasted slightly less than three minutes. As part of Julia Black's confrontational documentary, My Foetus, Channel 4 showed a doctor's gloved hand manipulating a suction pump and forceps between the stiffly parted legs of an anonymous woman.�
My first reaction when I read the above was one of horror, that television had descended to this level: the equivalent of a live “snuff� movie.
However, it appears Julia Black made the movie as a part of a quest to excise the demon of her own abortion. Black, 34, was driven to film an abortion after her own pregnancy caused her to question her previously pro-choice stance. The 30-minute film began with the heavily pregnant director telling us that when she was five years old her father had set up the charity that has grown into Marie Stopes International - one of the world's largest abortion providers outside the NHS.
Black had a termination at 21. "Like one third of women in Britain," she told us, "I turned to abortion as my way out." But as a second - wanted - baby took shape inside her, she began to wonder if the 180,000 British women who opted for abortion each year were fully informed when they make their choice.
I can understand Black's motives -- I think. But I still have huge reservations about showing a deliberate act of killing on prime television. It reeks of the voyeuristic, and reduces the sacredness of death to entertainment.
Meanwhile, a New Zealand survey released today showed that at least six out of 10 Kiwis believe the law should protect the rights of an unborn child. The survey, carried out by independent market researcher AC Neilsen, was commissioned by pro-life lobby group Right to Life.
About 25% of those polled in the survey believed rights for the child should kick in from conception, 9% from the time of embryo implantation in the womb, and 31% at some point between implantation and birth.
In 2002, 17,400 babies were aborted in New Zealand, and more than 100,000 in Australia.
“Britain's first televised abortion lasted slightly less than three minutes. As part of Julia Black's confrontational documentary, My Foetus, Channel 4 showed a doctor's gloved hand manipulating a suction pump and forceps between the stiffly parted legs of an anonymous woman.�
My first reaction when I read the above was one of horror, that television had descended to this level: the equivalent of a live “snuff� movie.
However, it appears Julia Black made the movie as a part of a quest to excise the demon of her own abortion. Black, 34, was driven to film an abortion after her own pregnancy caused her to question her previously pro-choice stance. The 30-minute film began with the heavily pregnant director telling us that when she was five years old her father had set up the charity that has grown into Marie Stopes International - one of the world's largest abortion providers outside the NHS.
Black had a termination at 21. "Like one third of women in Britain," she told us, "I turned to abortion as my way out." But as a second - wanted - baby took shape inside her, she began to wonder if the 180,000 British women who opted for abortion each year were fully informed when they make their choice.
I can understand Black's motives -- I think. But I still have huge reservations about showing a deliberate act of killing on prime television. It reeks of the voyeuristic, and reduces the sacredness of death to entertainment.
Meanwhile, a New Zealand survey released today showed that at least six out of 10 Kiwis believe the law should protect the rights of an unborn child. The survey, carried out by independent market researcher AC Neilsen, was commissioned by pro-life lobby group Right to Life.
About 25% of those polled in the survey believed rights for the child should kick in from conception, 9% from the time of embryo implantation in the womb, and 31% at some point between implantation and birth.
In 2002, 17,400 babies were aborted in New Zealand, and more than 100,000 in Australia.
