A Kent MP has said she is completely against proposals to allow clinics which offer abortions to advertise on TV.

Maidstone MP Ann Widdecombe said it suggests “abortion is just like any other consumer product” rather than “an extremely serious business.”

The Advertising Standards Authority is beginning a three-month consultation on whether to relax regulations to allow adverts for abortion clinics to be shown in prime time evening slots.

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Miss Widdecombe has slammed the idea and said it sends out the wrong message.

“We’ve never had such a high rate of teenage pregnancy and we also have never had so much sex education and talking about freely available contraception.

“If you keep on hammering home these messages to children then all you will do is get them interested in sex, and that there is a safe way of doing it.

“But for a child there never is.”

~Listen: MP Ann Widdecombe tells why she thinks such advertising encourages abortions>>>

Nationally between 2002 and 2006, more than 11,000 under 16s were diagnosed with sexually transmitted infections including gonorrhoea, chlamydia and syphilis.

Miss Widdecombe added: “Even a child at school without its parents' knowledge, let alone consent, can obtain contraception.

“The idea that you go on pushing a method that has been shown to fail simply encourages children to falsely think they are safe.”