Poster of the Week

Freedom From Choice
Robbie Conal
Offset, 1992
Los Angeles
3121

Roe v Wade was the landmark 1974 7-to-2 U.S. Supreme Court decision which legalized abortion in the United States. Conservative legislators around the country immediately responded by pushing through laws and regulations that attempted to chip away Roe v Wade.  While these efforts have not succeeded in making abortion illegal, they have increasingly restricted women’s access to abortion.

CSPG’s Poster of the Week was made in response to the 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey which, on a 5-to-4 vote, significantly weakened Roe v Wade and reversed its previous ruling that limited state restrictions on abortion. It is frighteningly relevant this week, when the Court, again on a 5-to-4 vote, in Burwell v Hobby Lobby, ruled that corporations controlled by religious families cannot be required to pay for contraception coverage for their female workers.

Poster Background
Planned Parenthood commissioned Robbie Conal to design this poster and they printed 25,000 copies which were then posted in 75 cities throughout the U.S.—but not in NY.  All went up the same week.  Planned Parenthood even paid for a billboard in Los Angeles which 3M took down after receiving a complaint, without notifying anyone. After being threatened with a lawsuit for breach of contract, 3M put it back up 15 hours after taking it down, and left it up for 3 months—the term of the contract.

The NY branch of Planned Parenthood didn’t participate in the postering as they were having their own issues with the city and didn’t want to add illegal postering to their problems.  New York was the only major city that didn’t participate.   

It is important to note that although Justice David Souter is included in the poster—second from the left—he dissented and did not vote with the majority.
Sources:

http://articles.latimes.com/1992-09-14/entertainment/ca-689_1_robbie-conal
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029934
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/01/us/hobby-lobby-case-supreme-court-contraception.html?_r=0
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-singlepayer-healthcare-20140701-column.html#page=1
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-corporations-can-pray-20140630-column.html
http://www.pewforum.org/2013/01/16/a-history-of-key-abortion-rulings-of-the-us-supreme-court/

Poster of the Day

Things from the 70s

The Pro-Choice Public Education Project

Offset, circa 1999

Port Chester, New York

11053

Full Poster Text: 

Of All the Things from the 70s to make a comeback, there's one we really hate to see.  Reproductive rights are under attack.  The Pro-Choice Public Education Project.  It's pro-choice or no choice.  1(888)253-CHOICE or www.protectchoice.org

The first three items in the poster:  the Volkswagon “Bug,”  Lava Lamp, and platform shoes, have clearly come back.  But the poster warns against the need to resort to the coat hanger—for too many years the primary symbol of illegal, dangerous, and often, out of desperation, self-induced abortions .  During the decades that abortions were illegal, the coat hanger was one of the most common tools used to cause a miscarriage or abortion, but they often damaged the fetus, perforated the uterus, and led to the sterility or death of the woman.

On January 22, 1974—40 years ago today—the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that abortion was legal in Roe v. Wade.  New data from a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll show that seven in 10 Americans believe Roe v. Wade should stand, but the ruling continues to generate rage and action among those who oppose abortion.

Other controversial issues decided by the Court—such as school integration (Brown v Board of  Education, 1953) or invalidating laws prohibiting interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia, 1967), are not only accepted by the vast majority of the country, but many even find it hard to believe that such racist laws ever existed.  The decreasing number of anti-choice extremists have become more desperate but also more strategic.  In the past, abortion providers have been shot, sometimes killed, and abortion clinics bombed or burned.   Rather than trying to overthrow Roe v Wade—their ultimate goal—the anti-abortionists are focusing on making abortion increasingly inaccessible, unavailable and unaffordable, by passing local state laws which do everything from mandating  waiting periods, to requiring that clinics have the same staffing levels or equipment systems as hospitals.  This strategy is clearly expressed by Charmaine Yoest, president of Americans United for Life, an anti-abortion law firm that works with state groups on local legislation:

"I don't need a constitutional amendment to overturn Roe. Clinic regulations do actually challenge Roe."

In 2011, opponents of abortion rights won passage of a record 92 measures restricting the procedure in 24 states, and in 2012, an additional 43 restrictive measures were passed in 19 states.

KEEP ABORTION SAFE, ACCESSIBLE & LEGAL

Sources:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/22/it_s_roe_v_wade_s_40th_anniversary_alabama_south_dakota_and_mississippi.html

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323301104578255831504582200.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-pn-abortion-support-rises-roe-wade-20130122,0,7696463.story

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2013/01/22/it_s_roe_v_wade_s_40th_anniversary_alabama_south_dakota_and_mississippi.html