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MANHATTAN, New York, February 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A gigantic pro-life billboard in SoHo, Manhattan was torn down Thursday night just two days after being erected, slammed as an “affront” and “fear mongering”.  Dr. Alveda King, director of African-American Outreach for Priests for Life has responded saying, “The message of this billboard is totally accurate. The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb! It’s a travesty of justice that it is being taken down.”

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The billboard ad pictured a beautiful, young African-American girl with the words “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb”.  Part of an advertizing campaign by the pro-life group Life Always, it directed viewers to the website ThatsAbortion.com.  The giant poster was erected in the heart of the SoHo neighborhood of Manhattan just half a mile from one of three New York City Planned Parenthood abortion mills, which jointly reported about 17,000 abortions last year.

While there was nothing obscene in the giant poster, city council members were quick to slam the ad, especially after the mother of the young girl pictured on the poster objected to her daughter’s image used in the pro-life project.

An African-American Brooklyn Council Member, Leticia James, said the poster was an “affront” to all women, especially black women and City Council Speaker Christine Quinn called the ad “fear-mongering, the Wall Street Journal reported

“It borders on racist, but all good people of conscience should be offended,” James said. “It minimizes the emotions that young women have to go through when faced with this predicament.”

The girl’s mother, a resident of New Jersey, told NY Daily News that when she took her children for modeling photos she was aware they would be used in advertizing, but was offended by her daughter’s portrayal in the ad.  “I was devastated that they portrayed her like that,” said Tricia Fraser.

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“I want an apology,” said Fraser. “I’m happy that it’s [being taken down], but at the same time I’m concerned that they can use that image again.  I will feel so much better if I had something from that organization saying we will no longer use that child’s image.”

The Life Always poster pointed to strong evidence that twice as many African-Americans die as victims of abortion in the United States than from AIDS, cancer, violent crimes, heart disease, and accidents combined.  LifeAlways.com cites that while African-Americans account for only 12.8 percent of the population, African-American women receive 36 percent of all abortions.
 
“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, himself an African-American. 

“We have seen the heartbreaking effects of opportunists who happen to be Black Abortionists perpetrating this atrocity; it’s not just babies who are in danger, it’s also their mothers, and our society at large.”

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion provider in the United States, providing abortions largely to minority communities with 78 percent of their abortion mills within these communities.

“It is an outrageous act of censorship that this billboard was taken down,” said Dr. Alveda King in a press release Friday.  “This billboard should be posted in every city of the country. And it should provoke outrage in the African-American community-not because it is racist, but because of the truth it reveals; the truth that is being kept from the African-American community.”

“Black people in New York and all over the country should be outraged at the numbers of black babies we lose every single day to abortion. An astonishing 60 percent of African-American pregnancies in the five boroughs of New York City end in abortion. That’s unfathomable!”

The SoHo billboard was the first in the state of New York and was the kick off to Life Always’ national campaign.

For more information visit ThatsAbortion.com.