The BBC has this weekend eliminated a lesson on its instructional platform BBC Bitesize following protests that it promoted the views of an “excessive anti-abortion group.”
Well being consultants had complained that the non secular research revision information listed arguments in opposition to abortion, included the time period “pro-life” reasonably than “anti-abortion” and featured a gaggle campaigning for the banning of abortion in Britain, which has a file of selling misinformation about ache felt by foetuses and a process referred to as “abortion reversal.”
The Society for the Safety of Unborn Kids (SPUC) lately celebrated the choice by the US Supreme Court docket to overturn Roe v Wade, bringing to an finish the constitutional proper to abortion of American ladies.
The group was described on the BBC’s platform as a “pro-life” charity that “advocates for the rights of unborn kids,” selling “the sanctity of human life” and “helps people and households by way of being pregnant.” No pro-choice organizations have been talked about.
Moreover the point out of SPUC, the identical BBC useful resource additionally listed “highly effective arguments in opposition to abortion” whereas one other part on ‘Options to Abortion’ prompt abstinence, pure household planning however not contraception as methods of avoiding undesirable pregnancies.
The British Being pregnant Advisory Service raised considerations about offering data to youngsters on options to abortion and stated it was “absurd” that the diagram didn’t point out contraception.
The broadcaster advised The Guardian newspaper it’s now reviewing the fabric in its non secular research information, which is at GCSE college students aged 15 and 16. The fabric has been briefly eliminated. The BBC advised the Guardian the fabric was based mostly on the WJEC examination board syllabus, which is why it included reference to SPUC.
Nevertheless, the WJEC’s examination board advised the newspaper the research assets featured on the BBC platform had been developed with out their involvement, and added that whereas the WJEC syllabus examined opposing views on abortion, he stated, it didn’t advocate a selected one, and didn’t endorse the fabric.
The BBC web site says Bitesize guides are “written by academics and topic consultants and are mapped to observe the curricula of the UK.”
This follows criticism of a BBC radio presenter’s repeated use of the time period “pro-life” in an interview following the Supreme Court docket choice. At this time information program presenter Amol Rajan used the time period twice on air to explain anti-abortion campaigners.