The advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has dismissed complaints against a pro-life poster, ruling that its statistics are correct.
The billboard campaign by the Northern Irish pro-life group Both Lives Matter said that 100,000 people were alive today because of the country’s tight abortion laws.
However, 14 people complained to the ASA, arguing that the statistic could not be substantiated.
On Wednesday the regulator issued its verdict, saying the poster was not misleading and there was a “reasonable probability” it was accurate.
“On balance, we concluded that the evidence indicated that there was a reasonable probability that around 100,000 people were alive in Northern Ireland today who would have otherwise been aborted had it been legal to do so,” the ASA said.
“Because we considered that readers would understand the figure to represent an estimate, we concluded that the claim was unlikely to materially mislead readers.”
Dawn McAvoy, a spokeswoman for Both Lives Matter, said: “We are delighted with this result. Our opponents said we could not substantiate the claim despite us producing a robust report. The ASA have examined our calculations and backed our figure.
“We have been as cautious as possible with our estimate and the real figure may be much higher,” she added. “Using a simple comparison with the abortion rate in England and Wales the headline figure would be almost 250,000.
“This is a victory for common sense and free speech. All too often people claiming to be pro-choice shout down any opposition, but the statistics speak for themselves – there have been over eight million abortions under the 1967 Act in Great Britain, while 100,000 lives have been saved in Northern Ireland. That is the choice we are talking about.”
National Trust backs down over gay pride badges
The National Trust has reversed a decision to bar workers at a historic home from meeting and greeting visitors if they are not wearing a rainbow badge or lanyard symbolising gay rights.
The trust said wearing the badge would be “optional” after being criticised in the press. The badges and lanyards are part of the organisation’s “Prejudice and Pride” campaign celebrating gay people through history.
Mike Holmes, 72, was one of 10 volunteers at Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk, who had been facing relegation to back-office tasks. Mr Holmes said the workers’ objections were not homophobic but in protest at a new short film, The Unfinished Portrait.
The film, released by the National Trust, “outs” Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, the landowner and historian who bequeathed Felbrigg Hall to the charity in 1969.
“Wyndham would have turned in his grave to know what’s happening,” Holmes said. “He was an intensely private man. [The National Trust] do not have the right to research their benefactors’ private lives to suit the needs of a marketing campaign.”
Bishop says Mass on Mercy Bus
Bishop John Keenan of Paisley celebrated Mass on a bus on Saturday in what was described as the first celebration of its kind in Britain.
The “Mercy Bus” had been on a week-long tour of central Scotland. Volunteers handed out cake and tea and priests heard Confessions on the top deck.
The initiative was the idea of Friends of Divine Mercy Scotland.
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