Freedom of expression and censorship
Yesterday, the New York Times’s Clyde Haberman wrote a column that took as its jumping-off point a recent controversy over an anti-abortion billboard in NYC.
A Texas group called Life Always…bought billboard space in SoHo to deliver an anti-abortion message rooted in recent statistics from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. They showed that in 2009, 41 percent of all pregnancies here ended in abortion. The abortion rate for black women was even higher, almost 60 percent.
Up went the billboard on a building at the corner of Avenue of the Americas and Watts Street. It showed a black girl with these words above her head: “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.”
Not surprisingly, the billboard provoked controversy, and it was removed not long after it went up. You can see a picture of it alongside Haberman’s column. I’m not sure what I think of it myself. The intersection of race and abortion is a touchy subject that has not always been handled with care. But setting that context aside, I wouldn’t say it’s “racist” to encourage African-Americans in particular to carry their babies to term. (As Haberman notes, “racial and racist are not one and the same.”) It’s certainly provocative, maybe enough to backfire — which is my main concern with any in-your-face prolife activism: Is this really about changing people’s minds on abortion, or is it designed to accomplish something less productive? In this case, the potential for actually changing minds seems to be there. Still, I probably wouldn’t have funded it. (Not that it’s an option.)
I appreciate Haberman’s evenhanded assessment of the billboard. But I am also intrigued by the larger point he makes:
This plain act of censorship was not isolated. Rather, it fit into an established New York pattern of squelching unpopular opinions. Examples over the past decade abound.
I wonder if this really is a “New York pattern” — that is, unique to the city. He certainly has a number of local examples, and it’s not surprising that a NYC columnist would focus locally. But does it happen in New York in a way it doesn’t happen elsewhere? (We do see an awful lot of advertising!)
I’m also not sure how strongly I feel about this “impulse to censor” in general. There are a lot of in-poor-taste advertisements I’d rather not have to see — or have to explain to a child riding the subway with me. Whether I want them to be forcibly removed is another question, but I wouldn’t grieve if they did disappear. Whether an advertiser’s succumbing voluntarily to public pressure is “censorship” is another question again.
On a related note, today the Times reports that the Supreme Court ruled, 8 to 1, that “the First Amendment protects hateful protests at military funerals.” That strikes me as a good ruling, much as I’d like to see the “Westboro Baptist Church” and its nasty signs disappear. What I really want is for them to go away of their own volition. Barring that, I’d love for the rest of us to stop taking their bait — they’re not even good at being provocative, for heaven’s sake. I think Chief Justice Roberts is giving them far too much credit when he says (in his opinion), “The issues they highlight — the political and moral conduct of the United States and its citizens, the fate of our nation, homosexuality in the military and scandals involving the Catholic clergy — are matters of public import.” (Which is not to suggest that Roberts defended the message.) I didn’t even realize they had highlighted “scandals involving the Catholic clergy” — probably because I’ve been trying so hard to deny this small group of people the attention they so plainly crave. I can’t see that they have any serious commitment to any issue other than getting attention for their nastiness. They’re also unlikely to change course in the face of public pressure, obviously, since offending is basically the point. So I can see why that leaves people anxious to use the force of law to make them go away. But it doesn’t mean they should be able to.
Maybe I read Haberman’s column too quickly yesterday, but I found it a refreshingly contrarian view in the Times. He probably raised some hackles in his own newsroom.
We never find out who really complained about the ad and who insisted that the sign come down. But the message, ” “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb,” was something to think about. Was it accurate? as he asks. There are certainly other locales for “most dangerous,”–prisons, street corners, etc. Maybe he should have done a bit more leg work.
The message of Life Always, although not stated explicitly on the billboard, is that that abortion is a “genocidal plot” against African Americans. Not only does Broden accuse Planned Parenthood of genocide, he accuses African American leaders of being willing participants:
And who endorses this kind of talk? >a href=”http://www.catholic.org/national/national_story.php?id=40494″>Bill Donohue of The Catholic League:
I can just hear the screaming if liberals claimed that six in ten dead black babies wasn’t enough to satisfy white conservatives.
Clyde Haberman is off base, in my opinion. The billboard wasn’t censored. It was controversial, and it was criticized (as was entirely predictable). But it was taken down by the advertising company that manages the billboard space, not by its critics. Life Always had a right to create the ad, and anybody who didn’t like it had a right to criticize it. It’s all free speech.
Margaret,
I am the last one to defend the billboard or Life Always, but given that 59.8% of black babies conceived are aborted, there is a very real sense in which the womb is the most dangerous place for a black person. From the Life Always web site:
The issue is why the abortion rate is so high among black women. Unfortunately for the theory that Planned Parenthood is carrying out Margaret Sanger’s genocidal plot, the fact is that the rate of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies among black women is double the rate among whites. It is not Planned Parenthood that is causing all of those unwanted pregnancies, and as anyone would expect, there is an extremely high correlation between the rate of unplanned/unwanted pregnancies and abortions.
“This plain act of censorship was not isolated. Rather, it fit into an established New York pattern of squelching unpopular opinions.”
I wonder why no mention is made of who exactly is doing the censoring. Therefore from the excerpt I would think it would be a reasonable reading that the removal of this billboard, and the other incidents in question, are acts of self-censorship which it is my understanding tends to be generally unobjectionable. In fact, I would reckon it was the intention of Life Always to plan on a short life-span for the paid advertisment in the hopes of generating significant earned media thereafter.
What I find quite interesting is the author’s neglecting to mention the successful attempt to use the state to supress the free speech of crisis pregnancy centers in the City Counsel yesterday (http://legistar.council.nyc.gov/LegislationDetail.aspx?ID=777861&GUID=F7F0B7D7-2FE7-456D-A7A7-1633C9880D92&Options=ID). Perhaps given the endorsement of the prominent local chapter of the Democrat’s civil liberties organization the author did not consider it censorship.
Let Fred Phelps’ “church” give out the billboard’s message. They have friends in high places and could get away with it. And they wouldn’t have to scream out “God Hates Fags,” either – but they could substitute another epithet.
Haberman is aces, in my book.
But apropos of Jimmy Mac’s example, I think it’s interesting that some Catholic conservatives like those at CatholicVote.org are upset at the Supreme Court allowing Westboro Baptist free speech rights but they want to invoke those same rights on behalf of the billboard. (I say that both have a right to have their say.)
http://www.catholicvote.org/discuss/index.php?p=14831
Mollie, it may well be that the media environment in New York – competing tabloids, their echo chamber at the many local TV stations, shock jocks on the radio – makes New York different from nearly anywhere else in the country when it comes to the possibilities for manufacturing public outrage against an unpopular point of view. Outrage seems to be the only thing we are manufacturing in New York nowadays.
Maybe the womb wouldn’t be such a dangerous place if the world outside it weren’t seen as at least equally dangerous. Mollie, as you say, I also don’t think it is “racist” to encourage African Americans to carry their babies to term, but I do think it is at least a little insensitive to pretend like it’s merely the desire to abort that is discouraging women, whatever their race, from bring new life into the world. There are serious economic and social factors that need to be addressed before we can simply say, “Hey, why don’t you just have your baby?” I think that is what’s wrong with the billboard. It suggests that the high number of abortions among African Americans is simply due to the fact that they tend to have more of them, and not due to the fact that they may disproportionately belong to an economic class that is seriously disadvantaged in ways that would make it seem quite impossible to have a child. That’s not “racist,” but it’s pretty dense. It just might be the case that the only place that is more dangerous than a womb considering abortion, is a world that isn’t interested in contributing to the care of the child that is about to come out of it. At which point, the question just seems to be about the most humane way for a child to suffer. For more on how much “we” all care about taking care of children, check out, of all things, David Brooks column from this week: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/opinion/01brooks.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I agree with Eric. It seems remarkably tone deaf to walk into a majority black community and start blaming vulnerable, mostly young black women for being a threat to their own children, all the while ignoring the fact that the children who are very much born (including in many cases the vilified mothers themselves) are exposed to a greater risk of all manner of daily hardships — crime, abuse, exposure to lead based paints, lack of access to medical care, police brutality, poor and indifferent schools, and so on.
As for the uterus — it is the ONLY safe place for any similarly situated child. This reasoning not only renders women invisible “vessels” but is illogical.
Just 51.8 percent of black men ages 16 to 64 held jobs in New York City in 2003.
Any number of statistics about the disproportionate suffering of blacks in the US could be cited here; that’s just one of them.
The anti-abortion zealots get all hot under the collar when the charge is made that they’re not concerned with post-natal child welfare. Well, don’t you think that the African-American quality of life is connected with the decision to terminate pregnancies?
The answer is yes but the zealots instead retreat to conspiracy theories about crypto-genocidal dark forces within the Democratic Party and middle class liberalism.
Another horrible story of bishops forcing a woman to bear an acephalous child in Brazil. http://www.golias-editions.fr/BRESIL-COMMENT-L-EGLISE-CATHOLIQUE
The usual confusion of rights (and I suspect the right of free speech has become even more sacralized in recent times) and what’s right in a given circumstance to say or display.
I agree with David on the rights question, but on the ethical/what’s right issue we have more and more offensive and divisive and just plain stupid material put forward and defended by “it’s my right to say that.” And I think a downward spiral in that directio nwil continue.
I am wondering if the billboard would not have been controversial if it had stated that, although the womb was created to protect our Life from harm, the most dangerous place for SOME African Americans is in the womb.
That being said, in regards to the Supreme Court ruling, there is a difference between free speech and harassment. To state that out of Love and respect for the inherent dignity of all persons, The Catholic Church teaches we must never condone homosexual sexual acts or any sexual act that demeans the inherent dignity of the human person, is not to say, “God hates Fags”. It is that difference, that makes all the difference. I find it hard to believe that our Founding Fathers did not know the difference between harassment, which is always a form of hate speech and thus inappropriate, and free speech which allows for honest dialogue, which we know our Founding Fathers believed was good for our prosperity and thus the posterity of our Nation.
I agree with Eric, Barbara, and Brian, but the problem is complex. It is not just poor black women who have a high rate of unplanned pregnancies and abortions. It is black women of all income levels. Here’s an interesting article on the topic. There are many disparities between the health of, and medical care received by, whites and blacks. For example, “black women are less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer than white women, but 30% more likely to die from it.” One might guess (and it might be partly true) that black women do not receive as high a quality of medical care as white women. But one factor appears to be biological. Black women get breast cancer at a lower rate than white women, but they tend to be younger than white women when they get it, and the forms of cancer tend to be more deadly.
It is crystal clear to me that the way to lower the abortion rate among black women is to find out what accounts for the high rate of unintended pregnancies and take action to bring that rate down. (This applies, of course, to all women, not just blacks.) It seems to me this is something the pro-life movement is unequipped or ill equipped to do. Correct me if I am wrong, but their mission appears to be largely to persuade women with unplanned/unwanted pregnancies to carry the babies to term (while working for the criminalization of abortion so eventually they will not need to use persuasion).
What it all boils down to is contraception, and the Catholic Church forbids it, while I believe the major pro-life organizations at best don’t want to deal with it.
Just a clarification, Barbara: As reported by Haberman, the ad was not in a majority African-American neighborhood, but in SOHO, more like a majority white and upper middle-class Manhattan neighborhood.
Here’s a great article about the billboard at blackvoicenews.com. An excerpt:
The writer also points out that most abortion clinics are not in black neighborhoods:
Thanks for the clarification Margaret. I suppose it’s enough to say that the add was targeted directly at African-Americans.
“What it all boils down to is contraception, and the Catholic Church forbids it, while I believe the major pro-life organizations at best don’t want to deal with it.”
What does the Catholic Church have to do with the African-American abortion rate in New York City?
What does the Catholic Church have to do with the African-American abortion rate in New York City?
See this:
And this:
What is the Archbishop’s plan to lower the abortion rate among black women? As I said, the chief reason for abortion is unwanted pregnancy. The chief reason black women have so many abortions is that they have so many unwanted pregnancies. It seems to me that the approach of the pro-life movement, and particularly the Catholic pro-life movement, is to persuade women who are already pregnant not to have abortions. And of course the further goal is to keep making abortions more difficult to get, with the ultimate goal being to ban them. How is that going to bring down the rate of unwanted pregnancies?
MAT,
By the way, the rate of abortion among black women in New York City is not significantly different from the rate among black women in the rest of the country. The reason the abortion rate in New York City is so high is that the city has more of the types of people (minorities and poor people) who have abortions.
MAT, I think the relationship between the Catholic Church and the whole phenomenon of unintended pregnancy is somewhat complex. Clearly, the Church doctrinally abhors sex outside of marriage. In its zeal to protect the unborn, in my view, the Church has played a role (it’s not alone in this) in glorifying pregnancy and motherhood, even as motherhood has become decontextualized from family life within society. As the dam holding back the tide of premarital sex has been breached beyond the point of return, the result is a lot of pregnant girls who romanticize being pregnant and becoming a mother, but who are completely lacking in the kind of family support anyone needs to successfully maintain family life. To a greater or lesser degree, once pregnant, the reality of say, the cost of an apartment in NYC hits home.
A clear and consistent message of avoiding pregnancy through the use of contraception if you are sexually active might help, as David says, but that message isn’t going to come from the Church or any of the social agencies it controls or funds, and is likely to be ineffective when the popular media images undermine the gravity of the consequences of unintended pregnancy. Why bother? a girl might say.
Indeed, when you look at images in popular media you see what I call the Bristol Palin or Juno effect everywhere — the unfathomable portrayal of single mothers as strong, competent and able to effectively deal with problems that defeat many two parent households with far greater resources. I can’t think of any other examples of a wider chasm between media imaging and the reality of the situation.
David N.: That the Archbishop has an opinion on the topic does not mean he has any ability to influence the African-American abortion rate in NYC. All he can do is his job, which is, among other things, to convey the teachings of the Catholic Church on the topic and administer the panaploy of services and offices aimed at reducing directly and indirectly the abortion rate such as the many programs offered by the Archdiocese’s Family Life/Respect Life Office or the Archdiocece’s Catholic Charities. You are well aware of those teachings and that if they are followed, they would substiantially reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies among married couples and reduce them to zero for the unmarried in the absence of the comission of a violent crime. The people who do have the political power in NYC, which has a single-party majority at the federal, state, and local levels, very strongly encourage the use of contraception to the point of having released last month a smart phone app to assist users in finding locations to obtain free condoms (I refuse to link to the press release but I have no doubt you can find it via your favorite seach engine if you so desire).
Barbara: I see your point on the “Juno effect” as you call it in part, but surely that cannot be responsible for the astronomically high level of NYC’s abortion rate. I do not have the data handy but I believe many of the abortions performed here, and nationally, are represented by a sub-set of women who have multiple abortions over their lifetimes. Said another way, if the Juno effect were zero, would that make a material negative impact on the abortion rate? And are these women really being influenced by the Church’s glorification of motherhood? I would think in NYC, secular sources would be much greater influences.
MAT,
Linking to a press release about an app that will help people find free condoms will not harm you in any way.
I do not have the data handy but I believe many of the abortions performed here, and nationally, are represented by a sub-set of women who have multiple abortions over their lifetimes.
high level of NYC’s abortion rate
MAT,
As I pointed out, the city has a high abortion rate than the country as a whole because it has a higher proportion of blacks, Hispanics, and poor people. White women in New York City actually have a lower abortion rate than white women in general. The abortion rate is high in New York City not because the people of New York City are more wicked than the people in “America,” but because New York City has a higher concentration of the type of people who procure abortions. New York has more yarmulkes per capita (literally) not because New Yorkers in general like yarmulkes, but because New York has a large Jewish population.
“As I pointed out, the city has a high abortion rate than the country as a whole because it has a higher proportion of blacks, Hispanics, and poor people. White women in New York City actually have a lower abortion rate than white women in general. ”
I am not disputing that. You said it all boils down to contraception. Non-whites in NYC are awash in contraception and contraception information from the city DOE, city DOH, and the panoply of the political so-called “women’s health” organizations yet they have abortions at a disproportionally higher rate than the national average. Would you agree that non-whites in NYC have disproportionally higher access to, and education about, contraception? If so, how can that seeming discrepancy be reconciled?
David N,
The high rate of sexual activity in the black community, and corresponding lack of contraceptive use, has very little to do with the Catholic Church’s position on sex & contraception and is primarily related to cultural factors within the black community. Have you read John McWhorter’s “Winning the Race”? http://www.manhattan-institute.org/winningtherace/ It’s a few years old, but it does a good job explaining how many of these cultural factors developed and the impact they have on poverty and hopelessness in the black community, which is a big reason for the higher levels of out of wedlock births and abortion.
MAT,
New York City has approximately 2000 churches, 1000 synagogues, and 100 mosques. Why isn’t everybody devout?
Availability of contraceptives doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancies. Nobody ever claimed it did. Telling people how to use contraceptives is not education. It is handing out information. Would you consider saying, “Don’t have sex before you are married” to be abstinence-only education?
The fact that Catholic women have abortions at the same rate (if not a slightly higher rate) as the general population speaks volumes for the effectiveness of the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion efforts.
Can I return to a point Barbara raised way above. Does anyone know who the ads were directed toward. SoHo is prime Manhattan real estate. A lot of white people. Does that mean anything? Or do these ads just land where space is available?
Margaret,
There was mention that the billboard was a half mile away from a Planned Parenthood clinic, but aside from that, I think the message was directed toward New York City, not any particular neighborhood. The billboard marked the kick-off of a national campaign by Life Always. It is going to be interesting to see what’s next.
For anyone interested in the decision rendered by the Supreme Court, there is a discussion on Mirror of Justice that is quite interesting and somewhat heated.
“What is the Archbishop’s plan to lower the abortion rate among black women? As I said, the chief reason for abortion is unwanted pregnancy. The chief reason black women have so many abortions is that they have so many unwanted pregnancies. It seems to me that the approach of the pro-life movement, and particularly the Catholic pro-life movement, is to persuade women who are already pregnant not to have abortions. And of course the further goal is to keep making abortions more difficult to get, with the ultimate goal being to ban them. How is that going to bring down the rate of unwanted pregnancies?”
When the Catholic church is as adamant about making cheap contraception readily available to all who want and need it, THEN and only then will I take its constant anti-abortion stance seriously. Hypocrisy is rampant within the most extreme Catholic “pro-life” movements.
“Availability of contraceptives doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancies. Nobody ever claimed it did.”
The President of the United States did when he wrote, in Section 2 of S. 21 [110th]:
“(5) Increasing access to family planning services will improve women’s health and reduce the rates of unintended pregnancy, abortion, and infection with sexually transmitted diseases. Contraceptive use saves public health dollars.”
“Telling people how to use contraceptives is not education. It is handing out information. Would you consider saying, “Don’t have sex before you are married” to be abstinence-only education?”
Of course I consider that to be education. What else would it be? It is likely not effecitve, but it is still education. Are you saying that the quality of education regarding contraception in NYC is below the level of the nation as a whole and therefore the non-white abortion rate is higher? I find that very hard to believe. Are you ignoring the education programs run in multiple languages in NYC by the government and the various Democrat organizations such as Planned Parenthood’s “Planning is Power” campaign? Or are you honestly saying all of those programs are below the national level?
“The fact that Catholic women have abortions at the same rate (if not a slightly higher rate) as the general population speaks volumes for the effectiveness of the Catholic Church’s anti-abortion efforts.”
If that speaks volumes to someone then that person seems rather incurious. Without more information, I do not see how that is actionable information. What percentage of those Catholic women regularly participated in the Sacraments prior to the abortion? Or attended Catholic school or CCD?
Are you saying that the quality of education regarding contraception in NYC is below the level of the nation as a whole and therefore the non-white abortion rate is higher?
MAT,
You are apparently not reading what I am writing. The non-white abortion rate is no higher in New York City than in the nation as a whole.
Planned Parenthood is not a “Democrat” organization.
What percentage of those Catholic women regularly participated in the Sacraments prior to the abortion? Or attended Catholic school or CCD?
Yes, I understand. No Catholic woman ever had an abortion, because a real Catholic woman would not have an abortion.
Are you ignoring the education programs run in multiple languages in NYC by the government and the various Democrat organizations such as Planned Parenthood’s “Planning is Power” campaign?
In my opinion, people who use Democrat as an adjective are signaling that they are speaking as political partisans, not as people who are interested in discussing a very complex and sensitive issue.
“You are apparently not reading what I am writing.”
You are probably right, perhaps I am not.
“The non-white abortion rate is no higher in New York City than in the nation as a whole.”
That is your opinion as it is not consistent with the data. I will show you my calculations, then you show me yours, ok? Here we go:
1. For New York City in 2009 (Source for the following can be found here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/vs/2009sum.pdf)
a. Total Non-Hispanic Black Live Births = 27,405 (Source: Table 3.1, page 58)
b. Total Non-Hispanic Black Induced Terminations of Pregnancy = 40,798 (Source: Table 4.18, page 88)
c. Total Pregnancies = the sum of pregnancy outcomes = Live Births + Induced Terminations = 27,405 + 40,798 = 68,203 total non-hispanic black pregnancy outcomes
d. Abortion Ratio = Induced Terminations x 1,000 / Total Pregnancies = 40,798 x 1,000 / 68,203 = 598
2. National Non-Hispanic Black Abortion Ratio = 480 (Source: “Abortion Surveillance — United States, 2007″,February 25, 2011 / 60(ss01);1-39, Karen Pazol, et al., Table 14 which can be found here http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/ss6001a1.htm?s_cid=ss6001a1_w#Tab14)
3. 598 is greater that 480 by 118 or 24% (598 * 100 / 480 – 100)
“Yes, I understand. No Catholic woman ever had an abortion, because a real Catholic woman would not have an abortion.”
I didn’t say that.
“In my opinion, people who use Democrat as an adjective are signaling that they are speaking as political partisans, not as people who are interested in discussing a very complex and sensitive issue.”
I wouldn’t know so I defer to your opinion. I was making an argumentum ad verecundiam which tends to be a popular technique here although I do not much like it myself. Paesi che vai as we say.
“d. Abortion Ratio = Induced Terminations x 1,000 / Total Pregnancies = 40,798 x 1,000 / 68,203 = 598″
“3. 598 is greater that 480 by 118 or 24% (598 * 100 / 480 – 100)”
Shoot. Sorry. You probably already caught this but I was using the Guttmacher abortion ratio methodology obviously. Anyway, the CDC methodology is as follows (the sources are still the same):
d. Abortion Ratio = Induced Terminations / (Live Births / 1,000) = 40,798 / (27,405 / 1000) = 1,489 abortions per 1,000 live births
3. 1,489 is greater than 480 by 1,009 or 210% (1,489 * 100 / 480 – 100)
MAT,
I have to admit I am having a hard time following your calculations. There seem to be at least two ways of measuring abortions. The first looks at the number of abortions compared to live births. The second looks at the number of abortions per 1000 women ages 15-44 in the population. I was relying on a statement by someone from the health department, but in checking back on it, she was talking only about teenagers, but it is women in their 20s who account for most abortions. I haven’t found a good analysis of abortion in New York compared to abortion in the nation as a whole, taking into account the unique demographics of New York City.
I have seen claims for the percentage of pregnancies of black women that end in abortion ranging from “almost 50%” to 75%. I have yet to find a source that seems reliable. If you can find a good source that says “X% of pregnancies among black women in the United States end in abortion,” and if X > 59.8, I will certainly acknowledge that the rate of terminated pregnancies among black women is higher in New York City then in the country at large.
However, that point is still that the abortion rate correlates with the unintended pregnancy rate, and abortion is not a genocidal plot against African Americans.