New York's 'grossly offensive' anti-abortion ad

An anti-abortion group says the New York billboard that some are calling racist is meant to coincide with Black History Month.

(Image credit: Screen shot)

last updated 8 January 2015

The image: An anti-abortion group has sparked outrage with a new billboard in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood. Paid for by Texas-based Life Always, the billboard depicts a young black girl in a pink dress below the phrase, "The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb." Life Always says the ad, located just blocks away from a local Planned Parenthood clinic, is meant to coincide with Black History Month and highlight the disproportionately high rate of abortion among African-American women. Planned Parenthood condemns the billboard as a "condescending effort to stigmatize African-American women."

The reaction: "The ad violates the values of New Yorkers and is grossly offensive to women and minorities," says Bill de Blasio, the city's public advocate, as quoted in The New York Times. Still, says Jeanne Monahan on the Family Research Council's blog, given that city statistics say that 60 percent of African American babies are aborted, this billboard is an "entirely accurate depiction of reality ." But if legalized abortion is "a genocidal plot" against blacks, as Life Always contends, says Jessica Wakeman at The Frisky, then "why are almost two-thirds of clinics located in predominantly white neighborhoods?" See the controversial billboard for yourself: