Anti-Abortion Billboards Featuring Obama to Go Up in Chicago
The same pro-life group behind the controversial New York City billboard that was recently forcefully removed is putting up another attention-grabbing, anti-abortion ad in Chicago, this time featuring the likeness of President Barack Obama.
Life Always, the group behind the SoHo neighborhood's "most dangerous place" billboard, is hosting a press conference Tuesday to unveil 30 new billboards featuring the image of Obama, the first African-American president. The billboards will be placed throughout Chicago and will state, "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted."
The billboards' message is taken from polls showing that black women have more abortions than their white counterparts. In a 2008 poll, the sexual health research organization Guttmacher Institute examined abortion rates in the U.S. between 1974 and 2004 and found that Hispanic and black women were three to five times more likely to have an abortion than white women.
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Life Always Board Member, the Rev. Derek McCoy, equates the loss of an aborted black baby to that of a potential future black leader.
"These are babies who could grow up to be the future presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou," he said in a statement. Those future black leaders, he said, "are being aborted at an alarming rate."
Life Always sparked much controversy in February with its billboard in the busy SoHo neighborhood depicting an African-American girl along with the message, "The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb."
Complaints, threats and a planned protest against the billboard caused it to be taken down. After the billboard was removed, supporter the Rev. Michel Faulkner of New York's New Horizon Church responded, "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 first of the 30 billboards in Chicago will be put up during the press conference at 11 pm above an empty parking lot at 5812 S. State St. The remaining 29 will be put up in different locations surrounding Chicago's heavily African-American South Side neighborhood.
