Right To Life News
Last week, the BBC aired an episode of the investigative documentary series, Panorama, titled ‘Crisis Pregnancy Centres Uncovered’, which investigated pregnancy centres that offer advice and support to pregnant women facing unplanned pregnancies.
The episode of Panorama followed an episode of EastEnders that ended with one of the characters beginning the process for the late-term abortion of a baby who had a disability.
During the Panorama investigation, 57 pregnancy centres around the UK received a phone call from an undercover reporter. The BBC decided to investigate three of these centres by having a woman visit the centre with hidden cameras.
Three ‘experts’ commented on undercover footage
In the episode, three ‘experts’ then commented on the conversations that the staff at the crisis pregnancy centres had with the women who visited them undercover.
The first ‘expert’ was Dr Jonathan Lord, who is the Medical Director for one of the UK’s largest abortion providers, MSI Reproductive Choices (formerly Maries Stopes International).
A group of UK doctors have recently called on the General Medical Council to investigate Dr Lord over a series of concerns around his professional conduct, which included him ‘harassing’ and ‘scaring’ a vulnerable woman facing a crisis pregnancy.
A report from the Care Quality Commission found MSI Reproductive Choies had paid staff bonuses for encouraging women to undergo abortions.
At all 70 Marie Stopes clinics, inspectors also found evidence of a policy that saw staff utilise a high-pressure sales tactic, calling women who had decided against having an abortion to offer them another appointment.
The second ‘expert’ featured on the Panorama was Katherine O’Brien, who is Associate Director at the UK’s largest abortion provider, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), which performs over 70,000 abortions each year. BPAS has led the campaign to criminalise volunteers who offer support to women outside abortion clinics.
The third ‘expert’ was Jo Holmes, spokesperson for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy. Viewers would have likely been relieved to see that the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy spokesperson was not from another abortion provider, but unfortunately, it appeared that she was also not a neutral commentator on the situation.
Early on in the episode, she made it clear that she likely took a hardline pro-abortion position on the abortion issue, joining MSI’s Dr Jonathan Lord on camera, commenting:
“It’s not a baby when you’ve got a choice, it’s a pregnancy or unplanned pregnancy or an unintended or an unwanted pregnancy.”