A New York City billboard which charged that abortion makes a
mother’s womb the most dangerous place for American blacks has been
removed because of criticism from local political leaders, harassment
and fears of violence.
The announcement of the removal prompted strong disagreement from the billboard’s supporters.
“While this billboard causes a visceral reaction from many African
Americans, it addresses a stubborn truth that 60 percent of black babies
do not make it out of the womb. We must do something now,” commented
Rev. Michel Faulkner of the Harlem-based New Horizon Church Ministry.
“Instead of challenging the design of the ad, we should ask why the
message is true and how can we change the fact that the leading cause of
death for African Americans is abortion.”
The billboard, sponsored by the group Life Always, measured 29 feet
high and 16 feet wide and was erected on the night of Feb. 22.
It
depicted a young black girl beneath the phrase “The most dangerous place
for an African American is in the womb.”
It linked to the website www.thatsabortion.com.
The site criticizes abortion’s effects on the black community, offers
pregnancy help information, and charges that Planned Parenthood targets
minority neighborhoods with its abortion clinics.
The billboard was Life Always’ first in the state of New York.
It was
put up in the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan about half a mile from one
of New York City’s three Planned Parenthood abortion clinics.
Pete Costanza, the general manager for Lamar Advertising, said the
billboard was being taken down because an objector to the billboard
harassed the waiters and waitresses in the Mexican restaurant below the
sign.
The restaurant has no affiliation with the billboard company or the pro-life group.
“I don’t want any violence to happen around the buildings there,”
Costanza told the New York Times.
His decision was not about politics,
but safety, he remarked.
He said he was not inundated by requests for
the ad’s removal.
Lamar Advertising spokesman Hal Kilshaw told the New York Times that
Costanza was worried about the safety of the restaurant staff and also
about reports of a protest against the billboard.
Before the decision to remove the ad, New York City Council member
Letitia James had planned to hold a news conference under the billboard
with prominent clergyman Rev. Al Sharpton on Feb. 25.
James said she was outraged that its sponsors decided to post the billboard to coincide with Black History Month.
She had directed her staff to start an online petition seeking its
removal and she asked the liberal activist group MoveOn.org to publicize
it.
The petition criticized the billboard’s “vitriolic language” and
invoked the Arizona shootings committed by Jared Lee Loughner in
January.
It also cited an unnamed Planned Parenthood representative who
called the billboard a “condescending effort to stigmatize and shame
African-American women.”
Other elected officials also voiced criticism. City Council speaker
Christine C. Quinn issued a statement objecting to the comparisons of
abortion to genocide.
“To refer to a woman’s legal right to an abortion as a ‘genocidal
plot’ is not only absurd, but it is offensive to women and to
communities of color,” she said.
City public advocate Bill de Blasio called for the billboard’s
removal on Feb. 23, while the Women of Color Policy Network at New York
University also wrote Costanza seeking its removal.
New York City Vital Statistics show that 59.8 percent of black
pregnancies end in abortion, which means almost 1,500 babies are aborted
for every 1,000 born alive.
“The reaction to this billboard is centered on trauma; abortion is
traumatic, it is the emotional and physical trauma that women face after
abortion that necessitates access to post-abortive healing services,”
commented Life Always board member Pastor Steven Broden, who heads the
Fair Park Bible Fellowship in Texas.
Life Always said it “strongly disagrees” with the decision to remove the billboard.
“(T)he billboard's message holds true, and truth has a place in the
public square,” it said on Feb. 24.
“The intent of the board is to call
attention to the tragedy and the truth that abortion is outpacing life
in the black community.”
The group said it respects all women and encourages those in need of
pregnancy care to visit one of the city’s numerous pregnancy care
centers which offer “hopeful alternatives” to abortion.
In January 2011, Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York decried the
city’s “chilling” abortion rate.
A recent report found that 41 percent
of all unborn babies there are killed in the womb.
The city’s three
Planned Parenthood abortion clinics reported nearly 17,000 abortions in
2010.