MTV has decided it will not air advertisements from a pro-life group bemoaning the fact that abortion targets the black community and African-Americans have the highest percentage of abortions.
Heroic Media, an organization supported by Sarah Palin and Lila Rose, wanted to run commercials saying “The most dangerous place for African-American children is the womb.” The organization said it planned to purchase ads on MTV during a recent fundraising Palin headlined, but the Washington Independent confirmed MTV will not allow it.
“Upon further review, it was hard for us [MTV] to separate some of the recent tactics of the organization behind the campaign and the ads themselves, so we [MTV] have opted to not accept them for air this time,” a spokesman told the liberal publication.
MTV was also running other Heroic Media pro-life ads that did not touch on the high black abortion rate but officials said the cable network will no longer continue running them, as they had been after midnight. The ads, “Teen Angst” and “We Can Help,” ran from May to November 2010 but MTV spokeswoman Jeannie Kedas says the network will no longer accept ads from Heroic Media.
Kedas said the MTV standards department decided against airing any further ads and told the Independent that Heroic Media was notified of the decision a week after its April 30th fundraiser where it announced it would try to run the ads on MTV again. Still, Heroic Media communications director Kimberly Guidry told the publication that MTV had not notified it of the decision as of May 9.
A separate organization, according to the media web site Jezebel, is advertising during the program Teen Mom. Those ads, promoting the crisis pregnancy web site OptionLine are supported by Care Net and Heartbeat International.
The controversy over the MTV and other black abortion ads started when a billboard another pro-life group ran in New York City, highlighting a report showing abortions decimate the black community there, came under criticism from people who made allegations that the ad was racist in nature. Pro-abortion activists in New York City forced the removal of the billboard the pro-life group Life Always paid for to draw attention to the fact that abortions kill 300,000 black unborn children annually.
In fact, new data put out by the CDC today indicates black babies are victims of abortions at a much higher rate than their white or Hispanic counterparts.
The billboard, located in SoHo, bore an image of a young black girl and said, “The most dangerous place for an African-American is in the womb.”
But the outdoor advertising company that sold the space to the pro-life group for the billboard said on Thursday that it would remove the image because the employees at the Mexican restaurant located on the bottom floor of the several story building bearing the ad were facing harassment over its pro-life message.
“It’s down, or at least it should be coming down soon,” Peter Costanza, the general manager for Lamar Advertising, told the New York Times. “Why did I take it down? Yesterday, somebody came into the restaurant harassing the waiters and waitresses. I don’t want any violence to happen around the buildings there.”
Yet, a woman answering the phone at Lupe’s East L.A. Kitchen could not verify to the Times that any harassment had been taking place.
ACTION: Contact MTV at MTV Networks, c/o MTV Studios, 1515 Broadway, New York, New York 10036 or go to https://www.mtv.com
