“Immaculate contraception” birth pill ad withdrawn

A Christmas campaign for an “immaculate contraception” morning-after birth control pill has been scrapped by a drug company in Britain after causing offence on religious grounds.

The poster, which appeared on London Underground trains, asked: “Immaculate contraception? If only.”

“It might be Christmas time,” it read, “but condoms still split and pills still get forgotten. So if your contraception lets you down, ask your pharmacist for Levonelle One Step.”

Schering Health Care, a subsidiary of Schering AG of Germany, said in a statement it had decided to withdraw the “inappropriate” advert after receiving several letters.

“We take this step as a responsible manufacturer in recognition of the religious concerns expressed to us,” it said. “This advertisement was intended as a play on words to indicate that there is no such thing as immaculate contraception.”

For Christians the phrase is clearly based on the term ‘immaculate conception’, the belief that Jesus’s mother Mary was born without ‘original sin’.

The poster also prompted 109 complaints to Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), which has launched a formal investigation into the advert.

An ASA spokeswoman said most of the complaints, including one from the National Association of Catholic Families, related to religion.

Others found the advert irresponsible because they felt it encouraged casual sex and trivialised unwanted pregnancies. 

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