The ProLife Alliance has lost its High Court attempt to force the BBC to screen its election broadcast in Wales.

The Alliance broadcast, which showed images of an abortion, was blocked on grounds of taste and decency.

The film, which will not now be broadcast, contained images of aborted foetuses.

The Judge, Mr Justice Scott Baker, concluded that broadcasters were not trying to prevent the party expressing its views saying they were protecting viewers from images that might offend.

The Alliance has been denied permission to apply for a judicial review.

The Human Rights Act, the Alliance argued, meant that it should have the right to express and publicise its views. It said that this was especially important during an election campaign.

The BBC maintained that it was not stopping the Alliance expressing its views on abortion, but was acting proportionately to prevent graphic images being broadcast.

An Alliance spokeswoman told ePolitix.com that broadcasters regularly screened images of sex and violence. She said the decision to censor images of what happens daily in hospitals around the UK was the "rankest example of BBC hypocrisy".

'This is a total abuse of the democratic process as we argued in Court, and the media should rush to our defence,' added the Alliance.

The Alliance's manifesto says the party is committed to "absolute respect for innocent human life from the one-cell embryo stage until natural death is the keystone of justice."

It is fielding candidates in a number of constituencies, including those of Clare Short, Andrew Lansley, Michael Portillo and Lembit Opik.

The broadcast was to be screened in Wales, where the Alliance is fielding seven candidates - one more than the number required to be entitled to an election broadcast.

ProLife fielded sufficient candidates at the 1997 general election to gain an election broadcast.

At that time, the anti-abortion party suffered a similar setback when its film was similarly censored.