TAKING reality TV to a new level is the UK’s Channel 4. It showed an abortion on television for the first time on April 20.

Viewers saw a woman, four weeks pregnant, having a "vacuum pump" operation and footage of the procedure's results placed on a Petri dish, reported the Daily Mail.

Made by independent film-maker Julia Black, who had an abortion at the age of 21, the show, called My Foetus, showed images of aborted foetuses at 10, 11 and 21 weeks when limbs and a face can clearly be seen.

The controversial screening had been subject of heated debate in the UK. It was precisely what Miss Black had in mind.

She described herself as pro-choice but said that, after becoming pregnant again at 34 and keeping the baby, she began to examine her views.

She wanted to kick-start the "entrenched and lazy" debate over the issue with her half-hour documentary.

"One in three women in Britain will have an abortion but we continue to shy away from the reality of the procedure," she said.

"It is easy to be pro-choice without challenging yourself about what that means. Aborted foetuses from ten weeks on look like tiny babies. Rationally we know abortion ends the life of a potential human being. But why, when we see what they look like, are we so shocked?"

Miss Black, who lives with her partner and daughter, added: "I think the pro-choice movement can no longer rely on just arguing abortion is a woman's right. They have to start engaging with the reality that a foetus is destroyed.”

Miss Black is the daughter of Dr Tim Black, founder of the charity Marie Stopes International, which is one of Britain's largest abortion providers.

The show was preceded by warnings about its content and a support line for viewers to call was also shown.

The operation was performed at a Marie Stopes clinic in London and took less than three minutes. The woman, who was filmed on condition of anonymity, chose a local anaesthetic and was awake and talking to the doctor.

In Singapore, more than 12,000 babies are aborted legally each year. They make up approximately 20 per cent of all conceptions. About half of these are performed on married women.

According to the United Nations demographic yearbook, the number of abortions here swelled to 23,512 in 1985 when the economy crashed. That was 35 per cent of conceptions.

Abortions here cannot be carried out on women who have passed their 16th week of pregnancy.