Anti-Abortion Billboard In SoHo Targets African-Americans

UPDATE: After criticism from local black leaders, the billboard is coming down. Rev. Al Sharpton said Lamar Outdoor advertising agreed to remove the sign given the negative reaction it incited.

From The Daily News:

"The billboard was offensive, especially during Black History Month, and I had intended to hold a press conference Friday in front of the billboard to protest the message of racial profiling and against a woman"s right to choose," Sharpton said Thursday.

ORIGINAL POST:
To hear one huge billboard in SoHo tell it, "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb."

Anti-abortion group Life Always paid for the billboard, which hangs on the corner of Watts Street and Sixth Avenue, just a half-mile from a Planned Parenthood.

"During Black History Month, we celebrate our history, but our future is in jeopardy as a genocidal plot is carried out through abortion," said Life Always Board Member Pastor Stephen Broden.

But some local politicians, like City Council Member Letitia James, find the message crass.

"It is misguided to use Black History Month as a tool to promote this message," James said in a statement. "Every woman has the right to make personal choices in regards to her body, and I respect many different points of view, but to compare abortion to terrorism and genocide is highly offensive."

Gothamist notes that a Life Always press release asserts that, "there is a battle being waged in the United States that has taken more lives than any foreign war or act of terrorism. The enemy is abortion."

Planned Parenthood said Life Always was "using a divisive message around race to restrict access to medical care."

The organization points out that only 3 percent of its services are abortions services, while 82 percent are targeted toward preventing unintended pregnancies.

From Gothamist:

Life Always is focusing on this statistic from the NYC Health Department: Blacks had the highest number of abortions in 2009, with 40,798. (Hispanics had the second highest at 28,364.) NYC's abortion rate was almost 40% that year, and the three Planned Parenthood facilities nearest the billboard reported nearly 17,000 abortions in 2010.

Public Advocate Bill De Blasio said the billboard is "grossly offensive." He also called for its removal.

One woman told 1010 WINS, "It's kind of a big scare tactic. It just doesn't make sense."

But another passerby defended the billboard.

"I think they're trying to send a message to us African-Americans because we do do a lot of abortions and I think we shouldn't be doing it," he said.

Comments

[josesiem]

12:44 PM on 03/01/2011

Amazing how most people refuse to look at the simple truth, a staggering and unbelievable statistic, which has yet to be doubted by anyone: 60 of black babies are destroyed in NYC.

[SamiSam]

01:49 AM on 02/28/2011

Thank goodness. But I must say, I was hoping Banksy would've wrecked it first.

[kingbarry]

09:37 PM on 02/27/2011

wonder what planned parent hood plans on replacing it with??

[JazzArtLove]

02:57 PM on 02/27/2011

good, take your trash somewhere else.

[indothinker]

01:00 AM on 02/27/2011

how come no one ever puts up a billboard about getting birth control?

[JazzArtLove]

02:58 PM on 02/27/2011

thought i've seen many planned parenthood adds on the subways and the like.. guess thats all over now though eh??

[indothinker]

03:23 PM on 02/27/2011

not where i am. however, they do put up ads for women's health. it is a shame that congress wants to defund them when they do so much for lower income women.

[me again]

08:26 AM on 02/26/2011

FYI:

"Also, an interesting note. The mother of the child pictured (who is only 6 years old) apparently had no idea how her daughter’s image was going to be used: “I would never endorse something like that,” says Tricia Fraser, Anissa’s mother. “Especially with my child’s image.” Her daughter’s photo was taken by an ad agency and then sold to a stock photo company, where the anti-choice group purchased it for the ad. Fraser is now demanding that her daughter’s image be taken off the billboard."

[Eric Bolden]

10:42 PM on 02/25/2011

I wouldn't have though much about it, except for hearing conservative rhetoric, and even debating them in places, and they openly want to SCOLD the entire race for it's faults. Now mind you, these are the same people who complain of "race cards" being played on them, when they are called racist. But whenever they find some statistical figure, then generalized, broad sweeping judgments all of a sudden become "facts", and now they can boldly play the card, even though they are largely the same stereotypes racists have always had. Not only the sexually immorality part, but also, still the whole "lazy" stereotype, which also comes up, and many of these people are still blaming welfare for all the "high taxes" they endlessly complain about. (and the Bell curve; remember that one; was but another statistic based "fact" used to try to pain the race!)
So stuff like this is going to be quite suspicious.
Race has become irrelevant in many aspects of public life, and the thing that seems to be keeping it alive these days is people using it as a political football against the other political party.

[athenalong]

09:06 AM on 02/28/2011

Faved and Fan number 1.

SOOO on point.

[VoteConservative]

07:29 PM on 02/25/2011

I never knew pointing out a fact could be deemed "racist."

[mrkurtzhedead]

03:40 AM on 02/26/2011

Look at the photo, man. It's a southern pickaninny.

[Jazz88105]

05:23 PM on 02/25/2011

Good it's offensive especially when one of the most dangerous places for African Americans is the great state of Texas Life Always should clean up their own backyard.

[racetoinfinity]

04:57 PM on 02/25/2011

I'm glad they took the billboard down. One question I have is what has happened to a feminist movement? Did they just dissolve because of too much infighting and other disagreements too numerous to go into here? The point being, years ago, you would have heard feminist protest about this.

[JazzArtLove]

02:59 PM on 02/27/2011

they were down at the rally for planned parenthood.

[jean slater]

03:52 PM on 02/25/2011

I'm a proud black American. I never knew my father. 1 of my childhood friends had a father participating in her life. ONE.

Now I, unlike the majority of blacks, women primarily, do NOT take offense to this billboard. I believe a women has the final say with decisions pertaining to her own body, but more so, i believe a woman has the ability to think. To THINK and plan and her life exactly the way she wants it.
I grew up poor as dirt, ketchup & noodles was my version of a spaghetti dinner. My mother worked 2 jobs and she raised me with respect. A Maya Angelou figure, all knowing and graceful. She taught me if i wanted something done correctly and to my liking, then i'd better do it myself.
I believe black americans need to grow thicker skin and stop griping about and catering to he said she said nonsense.
I believe black MEN need to rise up in allegiance to everything a man should stand for: Strength, honor, self respect & loyalty. I hope that black men will be able to look at President Obama as a model for what their life can and will entail if they break the cycle and stop doing what their fathers have done.
Unlike most "victimized" black americans view it, this sign is a challenge to our family raising single mothers, our daughters/sons. Look around at our communities/neighborhoods. Do you really think this statistic is that far off?

[Thomas Synnott]

06:26 PM on 02/25/2011

Well said - thank you.

[db08]

10:02 PM on 02/25/2011

Since there are so many single moms who work hard like your mother, how can her womb be the most dangerous place for you? Did you read the billboard? What does he said she said nonsense have to do with this billboard. If you were not so quick to condemn all of black people, you might see that the ad attack us and does suggest that we cannot think for ourselves. You may choose to be silent with what you call thick skin. The rest of us are not victimized which is why we speak out. It is why we are still not living under Jim crow.

[lemmyk73]

01:03 PM on 02/25/2011

Free speech is dead in the age of Obama.

[db08]

02:04 PM on 02/25/2011

Another Obama basher..blame everything on him. Just as anti-choice folks have free speech do do women and civl rifgts leaders. The exercised it and thus the results. If it had been about men, the same results.

[lemmyk73]

02:21 PM on 02/25/2011

The results are not part of exercising free speech. The results are because of anti free speech people who are overly sensitive. Women and civil rights leaders have the right to speak out against the billboard but not to remove it. It was removed out of fear of losing votes from the complainers. Civil rights groups have much pull with politicians.

With that said, I do not agree with the billboard but I will support the right to put it up.

So in closing, it would seem free speech is gone in the age of Obama. that does not mean he is at fault as you claimed I asserted.

[toomuchpr]

04:13 PM on 02/25/2011

Commercial speech is not free. People live there and had to look at that distasteful sign every day and they exercised their free speech to get it taken off their front lawn.

[mrkurtzhedead]

03:45 AM on 02/26/2011

The owner of the billboard company made the decision.

[Cammy Kicks]

12:00 PM on 02/25/2011

Is Abortion really Health CARE? A woman may make choices for her body, but killing an other person is not the solution for good health - mental or physical.

[bluekootie]

12:33 PM on 02/25/2011

It seems like this should go without saying, but reproductive services are health care. If a woman is carrying a non-viable fetus, for example, she will need to terminate the pregnancy to preserve her life and health. Heath care.

[Cammy Kicks]

01:31 AM on 03/06/2011

I'm pretty sure a non-viable fetus will self-abort... no reason to have someone go in there and kill the baby.

[db08]

02:06 PM on 02/25/2011

That decision is not yours but between the woman and her doctor within our laws. Medically a fetus is not a person.

[KnoxScott]

03:01 PM on 02/25/2011

i guess the man has nothing to say unless child support is needed or involved...

[Cammy Kicks]

01:32 AM on 03/06/2011

How old is the medical dictionary you are looking at?

[diamondeyes83]

11:58 AM on 02/25/2011

One of the most disgusting billboards I've ever seen.

[JazzArtLove]

03:03 PM on 02/27/2011

you should see the ones along the highways in wisconsin.

[roguescr1be]

11:37 AM on 02/25/2011

The most dangerous place for an African-American is a United States run by these conservative clowns.

Fools all bought into this Planned Parent hood genocide conspiracy years ago.

To you who don't want abortions: Why are you apposed to age appropiate sex-education in schools? The main way to severly lower the number of abortions is to have a robust sex-ed program. This is not just my opinion, but it is backed up in state-by-state stats...plus it is the simplest concept next to water is wet. If kids are not getting pregnant then they are not having abo...

Nevermind. Too much logic and common sense.

[Cammy Kicks]

12:04 PM on 02/25/2011

The way to lower the number of abortions is to educate on the alternatives to abortion, and sex education that starts out saying: don't have sex unless you want to have children - that is "the simplest concept next to water is wet".

[bluekootie]

12:42 PM on 02/25/2011

Except that abstinence doesn't work.

[pgurlatl]

05:48 PM on 02/25/2011

Republicans want the right to tell women what to do with their bodies but cuts funding to educate those women when they made major cuts to funding Planned Parenthood.

I highly doubt they want little black girls and boys running around their households. Or maybe they just want blacks to have them so they can kill them slowly with cultural genocide for their personal pleasure.

[Cammy Kicks]

12:41 PM on 02/25/2011

Conspiracy? Check out the quotes of the woman who founded Planned Parenthood, Margaret Sanger:
http://www.dianedew.com/sanger.htm

Want some Logic?:
"Everybody knows that
'controlling' ones 'own body' is not the
issue. Can one body be two genders at the
same time, have two different blood types,
have different brainwaves, and so forth?"

Abortion kills. The choice you have is to have sex or not. If you choose to have sex, sex education will help you know the possible consequences of your choice: STDs, etc.

[db08]

02:07 PM on 02/25/2011

Do not have an abortion. That is your choice.

[sistahfriend]

04:32 PM on 02/25/2011

I don't know about you, but I ENJOY SEX just like many other Americans, even teenagers. The key is proper sex education.

When I was a teenager in high school, I had a pregnancy scare. However, I went to Planned Parenthood and received information and birth control.

They didn't make me have sex, and abortion was not the only option on the table. However, I would of not known this if it was not for the services they provided.

I believe, if not all, most of us adults on this blog have had sex as a teenager. So STOP acting as though this is a new situation. The only difference, back in the day, you were sent to another family member in another State or City, if you became pregnant. Let's get our heads out of the sand and be realistic. The way to lower the abortion rate is proper SEX EDUCATION.