Saturday, October 1, 2011

Challenging Hypocrisy: Why not Warning labels for abortion adverts?

In the United States, some citizens are boldly standing up to the bare-faced hypocrisy that considers sexuality issues a no-go-area, while so much noise is made on other evils in society. Specifically, the Students for Life of America (SFLA) is asking why is the US government requiring (as is currently being proposed in that country) that graphic pictures – such as a dead body or diseased lungs - be displayed on tobacco products, while a similar measure is inconceivable with respect to abortion?

Kristan Hawkins, executive director of SFLA queries: "Why doesn't the pro-life movement get this? Why is it that we can't show a woman before she can have an abortion what exactly abortion is going to do…Why is it that the FDA, the U.S. government, is forcing cigarette manufacturers to put these warning labels on cigarettes, but they won't tell women what an abortion really is?"

According to Hawkins, the government even refused to require warning labels on the abortion drug Ella before it was approved last summer, when there are known dangers.

Russia leads the Revolution

Interestingly, while the battle is just picking up in the US, the Russians are already set to implement this very same proposal—though for a different reason!

As reported by Reuters, Russian lawmakers on Friday July 1 passed a law requiring that abortion advertisements must carry a health warning. However, the Russians are not as concerned so much about the morality or even direct health aspects on the mothers as the resulting declining birth rate!

Russia has one of the world's highest abortion rates and cutting this could help it stem a demographic disaster that is looming as its population shrinks. Citing figures available on the website of Russia lower house [www.duma.gov.ru], Reuters reported that in 2007, the number of aborted babies (1.5 million) was almost as much as the number of babies born. Apart from the babies directly aborted, a frequent complication in abortion procedure is infertility –further worsening the impact on population figures.

Under the new Russian law, 10 percent of the space used in abortion ads must carry a list of possible negative consequences for women, including infertility.

Reuters reported that Russia’s “increasingly powerful Orthodox church weighed heavily into the abortion issue a year ago, calling for tougher rules to reduce their number”, Incredibly, so-called feminists argued that this requirement “would hurt women's rights”. In short, just knowing the facts about abortion (which they are free to go ahead and procure anyway) can hurt women, eh? http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/01/us-russia-abortion-idUSTRE76058S20110701

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