The Billboard Battle Continues in CA

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Why has America’s skyline become the most recent place to attack abortion rights in the United State? Why is race this issue? Because it is more cost effective then TV or radio and because using race as an issue to upset and confuse seems to be the newest approach in the New Right’s culture war.
Two Anti Choice groups, The Radiance Foundation and the Issues 4 Life Foundation, have joined together to place 60 billboards around the city of Oakland, CA attacking African American women’s decisions regarding reproductive health. Leaders of these groups are again targeting Planned Parenthood.

“They heavily advocate a singular ‘choice’ that feeds their $1 billion dollar taxpayer subsidized budget,” says Ryan Bomberger, co-founder of the Radiance.
Planned Parenthood denies both the charge that they are increasing abortion rates or that it encourage minorities to have abortions.

Planned Parenthood has clinics mainly based in low income areas because their goal is provide quality health services to these communities.  It is important to note that only 3 percent of the services the agency provides each year are abortion services. The other 97 percent of what Planned Parenthood does includes cancer screenings for both men and women and other health care services, including birth control.

“The reason why there’s a different rate of abortion (in minority communities) is because those communities lack access to preventative health services,” said Lupe Rodriguez with Planned Parenthood.

These billboards are only one ripple in a wave of this type of advertising put up by anti – choice groups around the country keying into race and fear of genocide as incentives to persuade minorities that there is a conspiracy with abortion at the center.
In February there was the LifeAlways billboard in New York City stating that “the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb”, which was removed after one day because of vocal protests from the community.

In March Chicago saw the 30 billboards claiming that future African America leaders were being aborted at “alarming rates”.

The Latina / Latino community saw its billboard from anti-choice groups in June of this year, stating the same message as the New York billboard with only the minority group changed. Again the billboard was taken down – but not without causing a stir.

So what does any of this accomplish?

By choosing to poke at America’s more vulnerable point, race relations, anti-abortion groups have succeeded in scaring and angering a lot of people. Yes, minorities are vulnerable in US society. Yes, the US has a horrible history of inequality and detrimental treatment of minority groups. As a culture we need to accept that history and address it – not use it to confuse and deceive.
It is important to realize that minority groups have higher statistics when it comes to unintended pregnancy and abortion, not because anyone is convincing then or coercing them into these decisions. These communities have the least access to health care nation wide.

Going after Planned Parenthood, and other medical providers that service minority communities, is a huge mistake because it will only limit services – not only abortion services – which are already scarce.
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