As Marie Stopes abortion adverts continue to air this month on Britain’s Channel 4, a poster campaign featuring a picture of the unborn Christ child is being launched by a Protestant group to promote the “divinity and humanity of Christ.”
Advertising executives from the Church of England, Methodist, United Reformed and Baptist churches have banded together to produce the campaign in time for Christmas, saying, “There is no doubt that it will capture people’s attention, generate headlines and create countless conversations about the true meaning of Christmas.”
The ads feature a composite of ultrasound pictures of a baby with the addition of a halo. The caption reads, “He’s on His way. Christmas starts with Christ.”
The campaign by the group ChurchAds.Net was inspired by a new custom in which parents give ultrasound photos of their unborn children to family and friends.
“Our new Ultrasound Jesus poster uses this convention to place the birth of Christ in an ultra-contemporary context,” the group said.
ChurchAds.net hopes to reach as many as 40 million people by displaying the poster ads on 2010 bus shelters around the country. The posters will be supplemented by radio commercials that are to be aired on 200 stations.
John Smeaton, the director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, told the Times, “This advertisement sends a powerful message to everyone in Britain where 570 babies are killed every day in the womb, 365 days a year, under the Abortion Act. Whenever we kill an unborn child in an abortion, we are killing Jesus.”
“I just hope and pray that this poster campaign has the effect of saving many lives. Let’s promote it in every way we can,” he added.
Last month Telegraph columnist Gerald Warner said that with the airing of the Marie Stopes ads, there was no longer any excuse to forbid pro-life organisations from running their own TV ad campaigns showing the realities of abortion.
Permission from the Advertising Standards Authority for the Marie Stopes adverts, Warner said, “removes the last argument against pro-life organisations being allowed to broadcast images demonstrating the realities of abortion.
“The pro-abortion lobby is pleading the need for openness about abortion: fair enough, they should be taken at their word.”
Warner noted that in the past, television executives have censored election time broadcasts by the Pro-Life Alliance.