Leading Ohio abortion provider Preterm launched a new campaign this week “invit[ing] our community to reflect on the powerful role that abortion plays in people’s lives.” According to their “My Abortion, My Life” website, they asked themselves:
“What does abortion really mean to people? What is abortion?” But we couldn’t choose just one answer.
Preterm’s 16 “answers” to the “What is abortion?” question are featured on billboards supposedly “throughout Cleveland.”
Good medicine? For whom??
Necessary??
If you’d choose a different word to end that sentence, Preterm wants to hear from you. They give a few suggestions on their site and ask respondents to choose two or three, but there’s also a place to write your own suggestion.
They say each billboard:
“highlight[s] the variety of ways abortion is important to our lives. Abortion may be many things, but one thing it isn’t is one size fits all. Abortion is all of the above!”
But to whom is abortion important? To whom is it necessary and good medicine? An article in Cleveland.com says the purpose of the campaign is to “shift the public conversation on abortion away from the black-and-white political rhetoric.”
According to local talk radio host Darvio Morrow and others, there’s another purpose. Noting that the billboards are placed almost exclusively in black neighborhoods, Morrow says:
“They are outright targeting black people and trying to put a happy face on abortion. I am appalled by this.”
One resident called Preterm out, saying, “you do NOT see this in Moreland Hills, Beechwood, Solon, or other well-to-do areas. Sometimes I hate the area that I live in but I despise the agenda behind what’s advertised here even more.”
Preterm claims that abortion is safer than childbirth, so are they suggesting that pregnant women in these neighborhoods just abort their babies because that’s the “safe” choice?
A local doula, Nakia Smith, posted on Instagram that the campaign has blatantly racist intentions.
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bdm5wDtlDkR/
One of the city’s newest councilmen, Basheer Jones, has been inundated with complaints from members of the black community and is asking to have a meeting with members of Preterm’s senior leadership.
On its main website, Preterm characterizes its focus on black communities as “racial justice.”
“We know how race, discrimination, and poverty shape the reproductive lives of our patients. Because of racial injustice, women of color are both more likely to need abortions, and less likely to be able to afford them.
For us, reproductive justice includes racial justice.”
Racial justice includes limiting the number of black babies born? Apparently black lives don’t really matter to Preterm.
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