Even though the billboard was removed, this creeped me out. The mom of the girl in the picture did not authorize the use of her daughter’s image on the billboard. She signed a release form for a modeling agency. Looks like they sold the picture. Wow. Another reason to be super careful and know exactly what it is you’re signing.
Tag Archives: Pro-Life
Freedom of Speech…Even If
Freedom of Speech…Even if we find the message repugnant. See this lovely billboard that was put up in SoHo in NYC? The Most Dangerous Place for an African American is in the Womb. The pro-choice gal in me yelled, “Tear that crap ass billboard down, NOW.” The die-hard supporter of the First Amendment in me yelled back, “Not so fast!”
I find this sign absolutely offensive. It’s an assault on a woman’s right to choose with a racial twist. So did they put it up just for Black History Month? Or was its timing just coincidentally insensitive?
Anyway, a lot of people share my view. So much so that their complaints caused Lamar Advertising to pull the ad. Part of me is happy, but a bigger part of me is not. Freedom of Speech doesn’t apply to just my causes.
My solution would have been to find billboard space as close to it as possible (preferably next to it) with a pro-choice message. Hopefully, we would be able to make it twice as big and add flashing neon lights.
Possible messages from creative signs I’ve seen:
- IF YOU CUT OFF MY REPRODUCTIVE CHOICE…I’LL CUT OFF YOURS
- LIFE BEGINS WHEN YOU STAND UP TO RELIGIOUS FASCISTS
- HOS BEFORE EMBRYOS
This would make a fabulous sign.
If you see an anti-choice billboard, fight the urge to set it on fire, deface it, or call for its removal. They have every right to spread their message.
And so do we.
So give me a shout if you see one of them. I’ll start a fund for our sign. It will be twice as big and cause twice as much controversy. Believe it.
The Daily Show: Mother F#@kers
Sometimes, you just have to laugh. It’s a lot healthier than being pissy all the time. I just said that to my mirror. 
This clip also provides another example of Michelle Bachmann’s insanity (like we needed another one). Enjoy! 
Mother F#@kers, posted with vodpod
Thank you, Jackie Speier
Congresswoman Jackie Speier shocked the House floor into silence. After a grotesque description of a 2nd trimester abortion, she reveals that she had an abortion at 17 weeks. Sadly, the fetus moved to where it couldn’t survive. She had to end her pregnancy.
“I lost a baby. But for you to stand on this floor and to suggest, as you have, that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcomed or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous.”
We got to hear from a woman who had a 2nd trimester abortion. Surprise. She isn’t a monster. “Late term abortion” wasn’t something to cross off her To Do List that day.
She told the San Jose Mercury News why she shared her story. It was after listening to the graphic description of a dilation and evacuation procedure. “I was thinking to myself, ‘Not one of you has endured this procedure. How dare you? How dare you talk about it in those terms?’ That’s why I changed what I was going to say.”
I hope this makes people think before they judge women who have had abortions. I’m really glad she shared her story. The personal really is political.
“To the Oklahoma Lawmakers,” A Poem
Trigger Warning. Tread Lightly
I just had to share this, in light of what we have been discussing. This is why I am pro-choice. Powerful stuff.
My Confession
I found a wonderful blog, The Erstwhile Conservative, while searching for posts on the Egyptian Revolution. I swear to God, it was looking in a mirror with a guy staring back at me. When I read his post, Why I Have to Repent, it blew me away.
Like him, I came from a very Conservative Christian background. He is now a self-professed, “unapologetic skeptic of Conservative thinking.” In that post, he shared writings from those Conservative days. Wow. Talk about purging one’s soul.
So here goes nothing.
I was anti-choice. So much so that I joined a protest at an abortion clinic when I was 17.
God, that was hard to write.
Going to college exposed me to radically different thinking. Polar opposites of the views of my upbringing and the Christian high school I attended. I was forced to listen to them, while examining my own.
Enter required reading for one of my classes: The Handmaid’s Tale. This dystopian novel was about a future where women are the property of an all-male theocratic government. This book rocked my world. It made me think. Really think. Is a future like this possible? Can women be nothing more than walking uteri?
It wasn’t hard for me to see the similarities between the anti-choice movement and this nightmare scenario. Women would have no say in what happens to their bodies. This was my turning point.
I was now pro-choice. I learned that pro-choice does not mean pro-abortion. The woman has the right to choose to carry to term or have an abortion. You, me, and the government should not have a say so. We aren’t the ones pregnant. They are.
I hate being called pro-abortion, as I said in my post, Infanticide is not a Synonym of Abortion. Why? It’s simply not true.
Years after my “switch,” a family member of mine became pregnant (unplanned). She asked me what she should do. This is what I said, “This decision is completely up to you. I’m not going to love you more or less, whatever you decide. But if it were me, I would keep it. You will have our total support – financial, emotional, all of it. You’re family. And you know you can count on us.”
She was very lucky. She had the support of her family. What about those women who don’t? What if they can’t support a child? They know their situation the best. The decision is theirs.
So there it is. My confession. I was anti-choice. I am now pro-choice.
I AM NOT, NEVER HAVE BEEN, AND NEVER WILL BE PRO-ABORTION.
What did my family member choose? Her daughter turns 13 in September.
Spin the Globe
