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Debating Abortion—The Right to Offend Gratuitously

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 November 2003

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Extract

In R. (Pro-Life Alliance) v. British Broadcasting Corporation [2003] UKHL 23, [2003] 2 W.L.R. 1403, the House of Lords held that the broadcaster's decision to prohibit a Party Election Broadcast by an anti-abortion group was a lawful exercise of its general duty not to transmit offensive programmes. This duty applies to all terrestrial broadcasters and exhorts them to ensure that their transmissions “do not include anything which offends against good taste or decency or is likely to be offensive to public feeling” (para. 5(1)(d) of the Agreement between the BBC and the Secretary of State for National Heritage dated 25 January 1996 and section 6(1)(a) of the Broadcasting Act 1990).

Type
Case and Comment
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge Law Journal and Contributors 2003

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