'The BBC will make broadcasting history when it runs a live two-hour show from an abortion clinic, it has been revealed.
Victoria Derbyshire, one of Radio 5 Live's top presenters, will interview patients and staff at an as yet unnamed clinic. The programme is due to be aired next month and is likely to feature conversations with women set to undergo terminations.
The show comes after a series of high-profile attempts by hackers to bring down the websites of abortion clinics and jeopardise their work. Since early March there have been at least 2,500 attempts to hack into the British Pregnancy Advisory Service's website with a third of those in the cyber-attack traced to computers in North America and a third to Russia.
James Jeffery, 27, was jailed for two years and eight months recently for stealing about 10,000 personal records of women held by BPAS. Derbyshire told the Independent: 'We have asked an abortion clinic for permission to broadcast and they have agreed. 'We appreciate the sensitivity around it and I would hope listeners would trust us to do it carefully.'
She added that the show would 'give us an insight into an area of British life which is taboo'. Last month an undercover investigation revealed doctors at some abortion clinics were illegally allowing women to have terminations just because they wanted a baby of the opposite sex.
The Government told the Care Quality Commission to urgently investigate 320 abortion clinics and it has since emerged up to a fifth may be breaking the law. While visiting the clinics the watchdog’s inspectors found doctors were signing off consent forms for women to have abortions despite knowing nothing of their circumstances. Doctors are meant to have either seen patients in person or at the very least read their medical records.
A spokesman for the Prolife Alliance said that she felt the programme should not be aired. 'I think it will promote abortion more and trivialise it even more and show how easy the process is. 'We oppose all abortion but we would like to see a more robust implementation of the law. I think it will inevitably just promote the clinic that's doing it and will trivialise the issue even more.'
She added: 'This is the abortion lobby fighting back and if you do get on the websites you will find promotions that show how squeaky clean it all is, but this doesn't sound like cutting edge journalism. It's more like advertorial product placement.'
Darinka Aleksic, campaign co-ordinator at Abortion Rights said: 'We welcome the news that Radio 5 Live is planning to broadcast from an abortion provider. There is so much scaremongering and misinformation about abortion, in the media and especially online, that any move to destigmatise the procedure is a step forward.
'Provided it is handled sensitively, then this could be a useful way to let women know about the reality of abortion: that it is a safe, legal and common medical procedure. 'It's not about trivialising the issue – no woman takes the decision to have an abortion lightly. It's about letting people know that if they experience an unplanned pregnancy, abortion is one option open to them. 'One in three women will need to have an abortion at some point in her life, yet the issue is shrouded in so much shame and secrecy that it can be very hard for them to talk openly about.
Anything we can do to reduce that stigma is to be welcomed.' Last week it was revealed that women will soon be able to have the morning-after pill delivered by courier to their office. A 'pill-by-bike' emergency contraception service is being launched in London to save women from visiting their GP or waiting for the post to arrive. This is the first time the morning-after pill will be delivered to the door like a business contract, with the service prompted by customer demand. Women will be asked to fill out a form online and confirm they are 18 or over. The form is assessed by a doctor, with the pill delivered up to two hours later on a normal working day, although it may be possible to order online overnight and book a time for delivery the next day.'
St George, please pray for the BBC.
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