Abortion

BBC To Air Live Radio Show From Abortion Clinic

The radio network will produce a live 2 hour special focusing on a clinic, its staff and patients.  But will anti-choice let the broadcast happen?

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The fight to eliminate access to abortion has swiftly moved across the ocean, and Britain is the latest target. For the first time, the 40 Days For Life US National Campaign staff visited the country to assist with Britain’s fledgling, two-year-old “40 Days” campaign, and an “undercover sting” of providers allegedly showed that some doctors were willing to discuss terminating a pregnancy based on the sex of the fetus.

Now, the BBC is making plans to do an unprecedented live radio broadcast from a center that provides abortions, in an attempt to better profile providers of safe abortion care — medical, support staff, and patients.

Via The Independent:

Speaking to The Independent, [BBC Radio 5 Live presenter Victoria] Derbyshire said: “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 said she believed the programme to be unprecedented and said it would “give us an insight into an area of British life which is taboo”.

Derbyshire stressed it was not the purpose of the programme to weigh the respective merits of the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” arguments. “The pro and anti view is well known,” she said. “Our point on that day is to bring new insights into areas of British life.

“What we want to do is talk to everybody involved who works in a clinic – the receptionist, the doctors, the consultants, the counsellors, and, if patients agree, we will talk to them.”

I can only imagine the circus that would occur if NPR announced the same, and released the name of the clinic it was intending to visit. I can’t help but wonder if the BBC will even find it possible to launch a live show in a public area without it being “crashed” by protests.