Marie Stopes press ads reveal tragedy of avoidable deaths

McCann-Erickson Manchester has created a powerful national press

campaign for Marie Stopes International, the global health and family

planning agency, which draws attention to the 600,000 women who die

annually as a result of preventable pregnancy and childbirth-related

causes.

The first execution shows a wire coathanger that has been pulled apart

to create a harmful-looking implement. The headline reads: ’When

abortion isn’t an option, some women have a stab at it anyway.’ A

second, which shows a nailed wooden cross on top of a mound of earth,

reads: ’Many women find that sex makes the earth move.’

Next to the headlines, the copy outlines some of the gruesome facts

behind the campaign - that ’20 million women submit to unsafe abortion

every year’ or that ’in many parts of Asia and Africa, there is only one

midwife for every 15,000 births’.

Marie Stopes International commissioned the campaign to mark the tenth

anniversary of the Safe Motherhood Initiative, which looks unlikely to

achieve its stated objective of reducing maternal mortality by 50 per

cent by 2000.

Tony Kerridge, the public affairs officer for Marie Stopes, said: ’Our

intention in commissioning these advertisements is to prompt a debate on

issues which, for far too long, have been largely overlooked or ignored

by the general public.’

The ads were written by Neil Lancaster and art directed by David Price.

Price said: ’The subjects are uncomfortable and so is the typography,

the copy, the whole visual framework. Advertising of this nature has to

stand out and the headlines are deliberately confrontational.’

This article was first published on Campaign