Billboard company rejects pro-life ad for “shocking, unsettling” baby photo
Click all images to enlarge…
Earlier this week Jivin J posted a news blurb that on its surface seemed ridiculous and impossible. There had to be more to the story.
JJ reported that CBS Outdoor billboard company rejected an ad sponsored by New Jersey pro-life group Life Education Council, because the ad included the photo of a baby. Quoting Courthouse News Service:
This time CBS said that the picture needed to go because abortion “is a potentially emotional topic that might be unduly disturbing to young women who may have made the kinds of choices that the displays deal with,” according to the complaint.
A message from the company to Counsel board member Betty LaRosa stated that CBS could not accept “images which might be deemed shocking, unsettling or even manipulative,” the complaint states….
CBS “insisted that if LEC would just get rid of the baby picture, the advertisement may run,” the plaintiffs says.
“Baby picture”? A billboard company was rejecting a pro-life ad because of a baby photo – a born baby photo? I had to check. Like I said, there had to be more to the story.
There isn’t.
I spoke with LaRosa, who faxed me emails from CBS as well as LEC’s legal complaint. Here’s what happened.
LEC completed a contract with Clear Channel last June for both billboards you see on this post. Both had been displayed along the NJ Turnpike for over 5 years with no complaints. LEC switched to CBS because it offered less costly boards, with exposure in different areas. LEC signed a contract, wrote CBS a $1,000 check – which it cashed – and submitted this billboard…
On November 1, Dianne Curry from CBS called LEC’s John Mulholland to say CBS had rejected LEC’s artwork because some people don’t believe “abortion kills babies.” Curry suggested changing “Abortion Kills Babies” to “Life Education Council Can Help.”
LEC decided it couldn’t remove that verbiage in good conscience and decided instead to use the other billboard it had run successfully elsewhere. LaRosa explained to Curry in a November 17 email, “Diane, this attachment is a billboard we are proposing to replace the billboard which, in violation of our right of free speech and in denial of scientific fact, CBS rejected.” The 2nd billboard is the one you see at the top of this post.
On November 18, Curry responded (again, click all images to enlarge)…
LaRosa couldn’t believe what she was reading and asked for clarification…
Curry responded…
So CBS considered the photo you see left to be “shocking, unsettling or even manipulative.”
This is simply crazy, political correctness run as amok as can be.
I suppose CBS as a private company can approve or nix whichever billboards it wants.
However, here is where LEC believes it has legal standing to sue for viewpoint discrimination. Following is another pro-life billboard LEC exhibits in its complaint CBS has run…
Given that example, which is pretty correlative, it seems to me CBS could be accused of prejudice against white babies, since it claims it only has a problem with LEC’s photo, not message.
In addition, while Curry expressed CBS’s concern in her email that others might find LEC’s sign “unduly disturbing,” here are other billboards CBS has run it hasn’t minded might be “unduly disturbing” to others in the population. These examples are also included in LEC’s complaint…
I am reminded of a similar experience I had when a local newspaper refused to carry this ad but backed down when its extreme bias was exposed.
To register complaints with CBS for its anti-baby bigotry, contact Jodi Senese, Exec. VP of Marketing, at 1-800-926-8834, or email CBS Outdoor here or by this online form.
To make tax exempt donations to Life Education Council, mail checks to P. O. Box 312, Garwood, NJ 07027.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Don’t give money to CBS – aka – the eye of Sauron.
They are simply showing they hate children.
Something tells me Diane Curry might, just might, be post-abortive.
That, or she’s got deep roots in prochoice-ism.
What’s “unduly disturbing” about billboards saying that *gasp* some atheists are nice people?
And while the baby picture isn’t offensive or anything, I do think that billboard is just poorly designed. There’s too much white space, and the text is too monotone. The awkward character width of the font doesn’t help either. It’s not a very eye-catching sign.
In another generation or two, this is going to be the sort of thing that kids and teenagers will have a hard time believing really happened. Like how it seems incredible to young people today that black people in the South used to have to use different drinking fountains. It will be on that level of nonsensical and just plain bizarre to them.
I have definitely met people who are so pro-abortion that they find live infants to be “disturbing.” But I never thought it would get to the point where photo of a baby is deemed too offensive to put on a billboard. How ridiculous.
However, here is where LEC believes it has legal standing to sue for viewpoint discrimination.
They don’t. As a private company, CBS can discriminate on the basis of viewpoint as much as it wants.
What’s “unduly disturbing” about billboards saying that *gasp* some atheists are nice people?
Agreed. I think their point is just that CBS doesn’t have a consistent policy of avoiding all controversial topics, but they could have put it better.
Kelsey, I have met people like that too. They HATE HATE HATE children. And they didn’t before their abortions.
I do think the picture is SHOCKING. I mean, how could you even think of putting a post-natal fetus on a billboard? Disgusting! Don’t they know children will be seeing this billboard?! How scandalous of pro-lifers to do that.
When are people gonna get it that you don’t have a right to not be offended in this country? But that we DO have a right to free speech? They are a private company so if they nix this billboard I hope their profits fall fast.
Did you know that when Obama administration doled out the taxpayers monies for the bailout that CBS received some of it? Yes it did.
‘Some people don’t believe abortion kills babies.’
That’s the basis for denying the ad? Then what is the purpose of advertising???
Some people don’t think that Crest is as good as Close-up for whiter teeth, or that United is as good as Continental for air travel.
Hence advertising.
First they kill the pictures. Next they’ll kill the babies.
Unbelievable!! Excuses, just excuses!!
Doug,
My intial observation was correct.
Picure of live infant, in the context of a message about ‘choice for abortion’ was considered too insensitive and possibly even ‘manipulative’.
If the Life Education Council had juxt-a-posed an image of a dismembered human embryo/fetus next to the live infant that might have given the bill board company some ‘cover’.
But you can’t use the ‘lowest common denominator’ of divining how a certan ‘woman’ or ‘women’ might react to the message to determine what is acceptable speech and what is not.
What’s next on the exclusion list: ‘Where’s the birth cerificate?’ juxtaposed with an image of his ‘immaculence’, barak hussein obama?
Now that would be shocking and un-settling, but not manipulative.
Jill,
Thanks for providing the ‘controversial’ image/message.
I was just down in my apartment building’s laundry room about an hour ago and saw this woman with a baby girl who was so adorable it was unreal. She was this little Asian girl with huge dark eyes and hair that seemed to have come in contact with some serious static eletricity – all the hair on the top of her head was sticking straight up! Very teensy, very beautiful little girl.
If you look at that little girl and find her “disturbing,” something is seriously wrong with you.
The only other groups of people I’ve heard people admit to finding “disturbing” – disturbing just on the basis that these people exist, not anything they’re doing - are people with visible disabilities and mentally ill people. Make of that what you will.
I’m with Nulono. The billboard designers need to realize this is not 1983. It looks like something I would have come up with, and that’s because I’m by no means a graphic designer.
Take a cue from the Too Many Aborted graphics crew: catchy, relevant, subtle, but totally in your face.
Plus, it speaks to the younger crowd.
As a person who has had billboard designs rejected by several companies, I can comment on the legality of the practice. The company CAN post the billboard if they choose to, but CAN’T legally be forced to take it down, under the First Amendment (unless it is deemed obscene. See Miller vs. California 1973). However, the company is NOT required to post every billboard that comes its way. This private company has the legal right to refuse business, or to request modifications to the artwork that they will put on billboards owned by THEM. If you own your own billboard, you can put it up if you want to, but someone else doesn’t have to.
That said, since they’re in the billboard business, they probably have a pretty good idea as to what types of things they’ll approve, based on experience. They’re not refusing pro-life messages, just asking they be less inflammatory, which is well within their rights.
Lastly, if you can’t make the distinction between finding an image of a baby “disturbing” and finding an image of a baby coupled with this message “disturbing,” then you are not looking at the big picture, so to speak.
Thanks for the clarification, Mack.
Picure of live infant, in the context of a message about ‘choice for abortion’ was considered too insensitive and possibly even ‘manipulative’.
Ken, personally, I don’t see what the big deal is. I’ve seen babies on anti-abortion billboards before.
What’s next on the exclusion list: ‘Where’s the birth certificate?’ juxtaposed with an image of his ‘immaculence’, barak hussein obama?
Do you seriously think there is something to those rumors? : P
Now that would be shocking and un-settling, but not manipulative.
I wrote them via the online form. Hopefully a lot more people will do so.
The enemies of truth once again prove themselves to be imbeciles.
Here in CT, a pro-life Sister of Charity has been able to get a pro-life billboard up with a photo of the baby. I don’t recall the advertising firm but kudos to her and the company for putting it up! It’s a BABY and showing this reality won’t offend unless you are so entrenched in abortion!