Controversial Abortion Billboard Removed, But Not Before Irate Mom Speaks Out

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Apparently the loud protests over a Manhattan billboard put up by anti-abortion activists were enough to get it taken down after only two days. But the frustration doesn’t end there, because a mother whose child was depicted in the ad is angry.

The ad, purchased by Texas-based Life Always, spurred controversy due to its message that “the most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” People on both sides of the abortion debate deemed it offensive and demanded that it be removed. After enough outcry, the New York agency Lamar Advertising removed the ad “for safety reasons” over concerns of harrassment of the wait staff working in the ground floor restaurant in the building where the ad was placed.

But Tricia Fraser, whose six-year-old daughter Anissa was actually pictured on the ad, is furious. The child’s picture was actually a stock photo used by the ad company. She told the New York Daily News that she bought her little girl to be photographed by a modeling agency two years ago, but didn’t know an anti-abortion campaign aimed at African Americans would use her image. “I was devastated that they portrayed her like that,” she said.

Life Always has said they began the campaign based on their belief that Planned Parenthood, who they staunchly oppose, “targets minority neighborhoods.” But Fraser wants answers as to why her daughter was used in such an offensive ad.

“I will feel so much better if I had something from that organization saying we will no longer use that child’s image.”