OAKLAND, California, July 14, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of the pro-life leaders behind a recent billboard campaign in California has called out pro-abortion protesters and media for painting the scheduled end of the ad campaign as the supposed result of grassroots pressure.
A press release by pro-abortion group Strong Families picked up by RH Reality Check on July 13 hailed the removal of 60 billboards by The Radiance Foundation as well as the efforts of local opposition.
The billboards, showing an African-American child alongside the words “Black and Beautiful” and the TooManyAborted.com website, were decried by pro-abortion leaders as racist.
“Following a heated local battle, 60 anti-choice billboards targeting the black community have been removed from the streets of Oakland,” the release begins. “Residents and community organizations in Oakland organized swiftly to pressure CBS Outdoor to remove the billboards.”
However, CBS Outdoor had told media late last month that it would continue to display the ads despite the protest.
TooManyAborted.com campaign director Ryan Bomberger, who is of African-American descent, told LifeSiteNews.com that the billboards came down when they were supposed to.
“It’s a total lie. The contract ended July 10,” said Bomberger, who criticized the counter-campaign for spinning the truth. “That’s what they do, they always rely on total distortion,” he said.
This hasn’t been the campaign’s first run-in with media misrepresentation.
Last month, TooManyAborted.com fought back against local media coverage with a video exposing what they argued were falsehoods in a television news report about the campaign. The news spot, which contained several factual errors, included an interview with a black woman who criticized the billboard, without noting the individual is local pro-abortion activist Alicia Walters.