Provocative billboards that targeted Planned Parenthood and pro-choice activists were removed July 10—which will bring relief to communities who publicly called ads racially charged. Although the billboards are down, videos, which called out Black leaders who push abortion agendas, went viral.
The Radiance Foundation, the group responsible for the controversial anti-abortion ads that said the “most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb,” sat down with National Public Radio (NPR) to defend their ads.
During the interview with NPR host Michel Martin, Radiance co-founder Ryan Bomberger said the organization created the campaign, “Too Many Aborted,” to help people look at alternatives rather than abortion and weigh the pros and cons when making the life-changing decision.
“We’re talking about abortion. We need to talk about the reality of what it truly is,” Bomberger told Martin. “It’s like calling slavery economic justice. So we look at the actual stats, the federal stats, and we look at why abortion is occurring in the Black community at the rate that it is.”
Bomberger said that pro-life or pro-adoption campaigns will always face criticism by abortion organizations.
“The problem is it doesn’t matter what the pro-life messaging is, it is always going to be denounced by pro-abortion groups who use the euphemisms of reproductive choice,” he said.
Rev. Carlton Veazey, president of the Religious Coalition of Reproductive Choice, who was also a featured guest on the radio show, said ads that said Planned Parenthood targeted minority neighborhoods are absurd.?
“You’ve got to understand that Planned Parenthood clinics are not involved just in … providing procedure, they also deal with STDs, they deal with cancer screening, they deal with other health issues,” he said.
“And these clinics are placed in the poverty-stricken areas where they can be of more help to Black women and Black young people.”
Bomberger admitted his organization’s goal is to make abortion illegal and the ads were another way to push the agenda.
“I mean, just like the abolishment of slavery, which was a goal because of the dehumanization of Blacks, the same is the abolishment of abortion because another class of people are considered less than human,” he told Martin.
“I think offering death as a solution to any social ill is a really poor approach. If we applied that to any other social ill facing the Black community, it’s not about lack of access.”