It must be good to be ‘one of the claque’, one of the elite who can snap their fingers and have the BBC hand over the resources and airtime to allow you to peddle your own pet prejudices. Lenny Henry of course has been the most obvious recipient of such largesse as his mates get jobs on the basis of their skin colour at the Beeb and now actress Sally Phillips calls in a few favours and is now the proud producer of a very one-sided programme that is intensely personal for her and pushes a very controversial message that is essentially nothing less than moral and emotional blackmail on a very sensitive subject that people who are in the situation Phillips is talking about will be made to feel as if they are bad and immoral people.
Phillips is the mother of a child with Downs Syndrome and wants to stop a new test for this condition in expectant mothers and any subsequent abortions that might result from a positive test. She denies she is against all abortions but having listened to her it is apparent she is putting on a nice, mumsy, middle class front as she presented her case…the real her comes through when she is pushed on her views and she starts getting aggressive and references Hitler and the 30’s as she attacks abortion and defends her position.
The BBC has allowed her to make and front a programme pushing her views…A World Without Down’s Syndrome?
Driven by the experience of raising her son Olly, who has Down’s syndrome, Sally explores some of the ethical implications of our national screening policy.
By talking to experts in the Down’s syndrome community, the world’s top scientists and including people with Down’s syndrome in the debate, Sally investigates a thorny subject that begs questions relevant to us all: what sort of world do we want to live in and who do we want in it?
It has been hyped widely on the BBC but yesterday I heard an interview with her on 5Live that went quite pearshaped for all concerned. Nidal was burbling about how beautiful the film was and they were all getting along famously in the interview until a few questions were lobbed in about Phillips’ attitude towards abortion….she got very upset, questioned if they hated the film and mentioned Hitler. The presenters realised that what she was giving them at first was just a front, her real views were far more extreme than she was letting on and they kept on with the difficult questions. Fair play to them.
For some reason the programme that the interview was part of [around 14:35 should it come on line] is not available on iPlayer yet….is that because Phillips has objected strongly and loudly to her treatment?
Things certainly didn’t go as planned as the ‘beautiful programme’ turns out to be made by someone who expresses nothing more than a prejudiced, unpleasant polemic aimed at making anyone contemplating having an abortion due to Downs Syndrome feel as if they are evil and bad people.
So at least on this occasion the troops on the ground did their job and challenged the narrative that was supposed to be run.
The Guardian publishes a critique of the programme…
One of Britain’s leading antenatal experts has strongly criticised a BBC film about children with Down’s syndrome, before its broadcast this week.
The documentary, A World Without Down’s Syndrome?, will be shown on Wednesday and is presented by the actress Sally Phillips, who has a child with Down’s herself. In the programme Phillips, known for her role as Tilly in Miranda, makes the case against the introduction of a new NHS pregnancy screening test that would detect with 99% accuracy the foetal abnormalities indicating Down’s syndrome.
Jane Fisher, director of Antenatal Results and Choices, an organisation set up to support parents affected by foetal screening and its consequences, said she thought the programme – in which she is interviewed – was “not at all helpful” to people facing difficult decisions around a prenatal diagnosis of disability.
“Sally is a very compelling presenter,” Fisher told the Observer, “and – absolutely – it’s great to have the positive images of people [with Down’s] who are already here. But it’s very personal, and it’s an extra layer of difficulty for couples and families who might be making the decision now about whether to end their pregnancy. It risks offering the suggestion to those who have [decided to end a pregnancy] that they have made the wrong decision.
“It’s too problematic to have one individual representing that choice – one who is an advocate for not screening, who has a high-functioning, much-loved child. A woman who admits she has the resources for extra help with her absolutely lovely little boy.”
“We want to make sure that women who take the decision to end the pregnancy are not perceived somehow as saying they do not value people who are here – they are saying this is not something they can do, that it is not right for them or for their families.
“Not only does no one know how their child would be affected by Down’s, but the big conflict for women is the adult the child will be 20 or 30 years down the line. For most women, that is the bit that tips them to end the pregnancy. An adult who will be, at best, vulnerable,” she said.
Not sure how the BBC can justify giving over the airwaves to someone to present a programme given their views are obviously very one-sided and prejudiced on such a sensitive and controversial subject that will have such an emotive effect on others and is intended to do so. Pure propaganda of a very unpleasant kind that is verging on moral blackmail.
I wonder what would happen if they could cure people with Downs, with Genetic therapy. Many would be able to pass the eleven plus exam, join Mensa and go to a Grammar School, be far too clever for University, so go into self-employment inventing some new electronic gadgets, and if they succeed they would be millionaires, if they fail due too competition, they could find employment in some University as the first Professor of the new gadget technology that they invented. But nobody at the BBC would like them, because they would naturally support Brexit.
Yes, then they couldn’t be considered ‘victims’ any more. The BBC would hate them because they would now have some sort of ‘privilege’.
“By talking to experts in the Down’s syndrome community, the world’s top scientists . . .”
But not talking to the world’s top ethicists, who have discussed the philosophical problems abortion raises for decades. Problems which are far more nuanced, complex and complicated than any BBC programme ever shown.
Good point, TS.
The BBC appears to be very interested in encouraging baby killing at present. It started to be ramped up with Brazil and Zika a year ago. References have been made since in unfavourable terms to other countries that have a strong Catholic ethos and are reluctant to allow abortion on demand. The abortion rules in Northern Ireland have also come under BBC scrutiny as a news item, fair enough, but generally their tone then is pro-abortion on demand as a form of contraception or genetic engineering.
Another contributor* said something like this in support of Sally Phillips “People talk about womens’ rights to abort but what about the female foetus and its rights as a woman to be?”. Wise words.
There’s a nasty whiff of Nazism coming from the Left on this subject.
I am pleasantly surprised that Sally Phillips is being allowed to make this programme although I’m concerned that she has an ‘In’ at the BBC that is denied to others.
(* Sorry cannot remember name of the man or the programme but I suspect it was TODAY, earlier this week.)
Oh dear, opposition to abortion and state sponsored eugenics on the NHS is now “pure propaganda of a very unpleasant kind that is verging on moral blackmail”
Sorry Alan, you’ve got this wrong, IMHO.
On this very rare occasion the BBC have managed to bring themselves to show an argument that challenges the leftist, utilitarian view of abortion as a casual choice.
In this context, references to the historic precedent of national socialist “racial hygiene” are wholly appropriate.
The answer is strong social policies supportive of families bringing up downs children, and long term support for downs adults, that maximises their human potential.
Oh dear, opposition to abortion and state sponsored eugenics on the NHS is now “pure propaganda of a very unpleasant kind that is verging on moral blackmail”
Well yes it is, and we need to recognise it even if the propaganda is something we agree with.
For years I tolerated the BBC bias, but it was only when it was so obvious, and against something I supported (Brexit) that I arrived at this site. But now I am annoyed by it daily, even when the bias might be something I agree with.
A programme supporting an anti-abortion position is propaganda, just as one supporting abortion would be. This is irrespective of your position, or mine.
“But now I am annoyed by it daily, even when the bias might be something I agree with.”
Very Jeffersonian, and very well said.
That’s right quisquose but should not Alan be clearly making the point that under the BBC Charter rules, any member of the UK public should be free to have a right of reply? There are two distinct matters under discussion here.
Pro/anti-abortion (and campaigning for the former with increasingly limited controls) and programme making for favoured persons but denial of right to reply to others.
Alan would be right, is right to target both subjects with reference to the BBC. It might have been wiser to separate them in different headline posts.
For a debate to take place both (or more) viewpoints on a controversy need to be heard, and need to be promoted by people who authentically hold the position they are promoting.
Bias is when only one side of a controversy is heard, and when the intentions of the biased reporter are concealed behind a facade of “neutrality” or “objectivity” which sums up my problem with the BBC general output. Pluralism means hearing opinions and discussing them on a level playing field. The debate on abortion has been shut down for years.
On this occasion an opinion piece has been made which allows a viewpoint from outside the lefts consensus to be heard.
We could, I suppose criticise the way in which its presented by a “celeb” or a BBC insider, but we could also counter that by saying that putting up an amateur would have made the argument less effective…that would be bias.
Embolden
In the BBC’s twisted version of planet earth there is always someone that trumps someone else, there is always some hierarchy amongst various groups that demand ‘special treatment’ ‘disability, sexuality, race, religion etc, ie Muslim rights and views trounce those of feminists, is the best and most recent example. Yet feminists in the eyes of the BBC trounce the rights and views of white men.
This is just another example in that the ‘rights’ of the disabled trump the rights of those seeking abortion.
There will undoubtedly be occasions for the BBC where by abortion is preferable to an alternative situation.
This sums up the obvious hypocritical nature of the left.
I don`t really have a problem with a disabled persons right to life trumping their extermination.
I`m a bit old fashioned on that issue.
I think you miss my point entirely. it isn’t about disability, it is about a pecking order the BBC and liberal left have, it is essential to their ‘victimhood’ mentality which is used primarily to bash white heterosexual men.
On the contrary you have completely misinterpreted the leftist view. They are pro choice for women but they are exceeedingly pro birth of children with disabilities.
The BBC have already run an Archers story where a character chose to go ahead with a pregnancy producing a Downs baby girl. Of course everything went swimmingly and she had a much loved child. They have avoided any further problems by removing the characater to Birmingham.
It all adds to diversity doesnt it, and the dumbing down of the population.
The leftist view is always pro abortion….USSR and its satellites pretty much used abortion as a form of contraception.
Eugenics…generally associated with Nazism but was also practiced in a less overt way in other societies and now making a comeback off the back of genetic testing and research.
Utilitarian screening for defects and then aborting those unworthy of life….well where do you stop?….Downs, Spina Bifida, Deaf, Blind, heart defects, IQ less than average?…and once we`ve established the principle…why not kill the elderly, the sick, the war wounded, the depressed….Brave New World.
As for “dumbing down the population”, what sort of a population will we be if we are constantly watching our backs as teams of state “mercy killers” scour our state controlled medical records for defects that render us unworthy of life?
Embolden
the lefts slogan has always been ‘a woman’s right to decide’ re abortion. That insinuates they have the right to decide either way.
As for your notion as to where we stop with regards to aborting disabled people do you not think that the decision should me made by the parents? Every case is surely individual needing different answers. The left are well known for their support of the disabled it was the case when I was a member of the SWP decades ago in my misspent youth, they still haven’t changed with regard to helping the disabled, so quite where your perceived threat comes from I know not.
Only the parents know if they can cope both financially or emotionally the state doesn’t, therefor it shouldn’t interfere.
I am for small government and as small a state interference as possible on my personal decisions, do you think the state should impose a law in that abortion is made illegal? If so I suggest to you that your belief would impose hardship on a lot of families for life.
In abortion decisions there is a minimum of 2 lives affected, with one life guaranteed to be involutarily ended if the decision is to abort.
That is not a morally neutral decision.
The lefts slogan is simply that…a slogan, like “assisted suicide”…to justify the overturning of the traditional Judeo-Christian taboo against killing the defenceless.
Helping the disabled is an apolitical act of human kindness. Or an act of solidarity with a fellow member of the national family. We can phrase it however we like, but it`s the act that counts not the political label attached.
Personally I think the state has a role in operating the rule of law within its territory, provided those laws have been set by a democratically valid process within a moral framework that holds life as sacred.
and personally again, I think that we all have an interest in living in a society where the right to life is paramount and that right is defended by the states apparatus.
Personal decisions are not made in a vacuum. States that encourage the destruction of life for personal and/or state convenience i.e states where the right to life is conditional, tend on historical precedent, to end messily having also ended the lives of many of their citizens.
The BBCs stance on all of this appears to be that of moral relativism, or if you prefer, parental choice.
This road ends in state sponsored murder. See the T4 programme for a case study of the 20th century precedent.
I would expect the BBC to be in favour of the abortion of ‘normal’ children, (post-conception contraception), – it’s a woman’s right.
I would also expect the BBC to be in favour of ‘gender’ selection, Down’s syndrome, genetic selection of profound deafness, (to be like ‘mum’ and ‘dad’), sexual deviation etc. when it comes to ‘managing’ pregnancies. In fact anything that will further social division and increase the demand on the public purse.
Educated ‘white’ women need to be encouraged to breed later so as to have fewer children and increase the risk of those that are born will have genetic defects. This will increase pressure for more immigration to make up the numbers and, (supposedly), provide the care that disabled children and aged parents will require in future from the ‘public’ NHS by then employing more than the Indian railway system.
Perhaps the BBC have noticed that Islam has a strongly anti-abortion and pro-natalist stance.
Funny old world. On the issue of abortion Islam is morally coherent and at one with Judeo-Christian teaching and as we hear frequently it is increasingly demographically successful.
“In fact anything that will further social division and increase the demand on the public purse.”
Nail on head JimS.
I do find it strange that, as JimS said, the BBC are all in favour of abortion as a “Woman’s right to do whatever she likes with her own body” at virtually any stage of pregnancy. However, when something like this comes up which sounds a bit like the old lefty cause – eugenics – which they now disown, suddenly it’s no longer a woman’s choice but evil.
Personally I can understand why parents might want to abort an unborn child that they know will grow up with many difficulties, some of which will get worse in later life. I believe that abortion is too easy now, but there are some cases where it may, arguably, be desirable. Before you believe anything else, I have to say I have a niece with Downs and I love her to bits, as we all do. She’s really loving but stubborn – a real character. I am violently against anybody doing something to her or others with this syndrome. That’s a nazi, left-wing thing.
Perhaps I should chip in here as I’ve actually been in this situation. My (now ex) wife suffered an infection which caused severe harm to our unborn daughter (called hydrocephalus or water on the brain). Doctors predicted that if she was born she would be severely mentally and physically disabled and in constant pain and if nothing was done there was also a risk to the life of my wife. We both talked it over and saw several doctors during the course of two weeks, after which we decided that an abortion would be the lesser of two evils.
It was probably the most difficult decision I’ve had to make and though my wife ‘absolved’ me by saying ultimately it was her decision (which is true) I still believe one day I may have to answer to a higher power for this. One thing which upset my wife was that the ward she was put on was, she said ‘full of teenagers using abortion as contraception’.
Had it been a case of Down’s Syndrome I think it would have actually been a more difficult decision to make, but ultimately I wouldn’t judge anyone who took the decision to abort a child with that condition.
I suppose what I am trying to say is that this issue is so difficult that no one view should be presented as the final truth by a supposedly impartial broadcaster.
Yep, what everyone’s already said.
It’s fine for the BBC to produce these kinds of opinion pieces, providing:
i/ they are introduced as opinion pieces not news segments
ii/ both sides have the chance to put their case
Even here though the BBC has its hand on the scales. Abortion in case of disability is a tough issue for anti-abortionists, but what proportion of terminations are down to that? Beats me, but I’m betting it’s not 100%, so why concentrate on this in particular?
Alan is highlighting a very common problem with BBC productions.
The examples always involve the lovies. On this occasion it is an actress on a crusade about a certain position on a very controversial situation.
But what about the “favoured” businesses that are promoted because of their Labour connections; think Sainsburys.
The already very wealthy celebrities that have their latest products promoted especially on the Breakfast show. Nearly all are leftie lovies.
Why should the public be financing the advertorials of these people when they can afford to pay for them themselves through commercial channels.
How is it they never highlight gifted medical specialists, scientists and engineers who are making the lives of millions better?
hear, hear except that some non actors like Brian Cox, Attenborough become honorary luvvies and allowed to hold forth on topics which they really don’t understand.
Yes that edition of Afternoon edition has been held back (illegally) from Iplayer
both Iplayerconverter and the beebotron can find Mon and Wed editionas but not Tuesdays.
…That is high power ..imagine if a politician could get an edition with-held.
….There is a chance that someone taking the live-stream and recorded it.
OK yet again BBC provided a FREE advertising slot for a pet issue
..but they did tackle the issue in 3 other places
#1 Wed 8pm R4 Moral Maze Do we want to live in a world without Down’s syndrome
#2 Tue R5 Live : Had a bit of a phone in, but not “Your Call” segment (I think)
#3 R4 Media show tackled the morality of giving her a slot
(middle of prog after the Free advert for Sir Craig Remoaner)
“We are joined by Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman and Patrick Holland, Editor of BBC2 to discuss the editorial decisions that went into making the programme”