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LOS ANGELES, California, June 20, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A number of pro-life billboards erected in Los Angeles last week highlighting the stratospheric Latino abortion rate were removed by a billboard company after the company was pressured by pro-abortion groups.

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The billboards, similar a large billboard erected in New York earlier this year drawing attention to the African-American abortion rate, read: “The most dangerous place for a Latino is in the womb,” in Spanish and English

The ads were sponsored by the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles as part of a kick-off campaign for a pro-life congress on June 12 hosted by the enormously popular singer and actor Eduardo Verástegui, who starred in the pro-life film “Bella.” 

“Like a similar ad campaign that ran in New York City, pro-abortion activists are desperately trying to cover up Planned Parenthood’s targeting of minorities, and will squelch free speech to do so,” said Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the group sponsoring the billboards.

Gabriela Valle, senior director of California Latinas for Reproductive Justice, a group that campaigned against the pro-life billboards, told the Orange County Weekly the ads were “anti-woman”, “racist”, and “anti-immigrant.”

“We’re taking a strong stance against theses ads. They’re completely racist. An attack to one community is an attack to all,” said Valle. “They’re anti-woman. They’re anti-immigrant. This ad is just one more place for Latino communities to be attacked.”

Valle said that the outdoor billboard company, CBS Outdoors, had confirmed to her organization that they would take the billboards down.

Planned Parenthood applauded the removal of the ads. “Planned Parenthood Los Angeles is happy to see these offensive and racist billboards are being taken down,” the group said in a statement to FoxNews.com. “Community organizations within Los Angeles led the effort to have these billboards removed.”

According to Aguilar, however, the massive pro-life Latino gathering in L.A. last weekend was a huge success, attended by more than 8,000 supporters.

The congress was a fundraising event for the establishment of the largest U.S. crisis pregnancy center, announced and organized by Verástegui, which he plans to build in California.

According to the Guttmacher Institute, 25 percent of abortions in the U.S. are performed on the children of Hispanic women, yet persons of Hispanic or Latino origin accounted for only 16 percent of the U.S. population in 2010, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.