Up North Progressive

Drive along any main road in Wexford and Missaukee Counties and you will see wooden billboards covered with rosy-cheeked, Caucasian infants and toddlers looking out to the road accompanied with slogans like “Had an abortion? There is forgiveness in Jesus” or, “Abortion – the ultimate child abuse.” The images and messages are designed to intimidate and victimize women, regardless of whether they are pregnant at the time they see the billboards.

The source of these billboards is Wexford-Missaukee Right to Life; an anti-choice group based out of McBain, Michigan. They operate a crisis pregnancy center and perform elaborate mourning rituals for fetuses on the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which guarantees a woman’s Constitutional right to make her own health care decisions.
The messages on the billboards are horrific by themselves. See enough of the images however and it becomes apparent Wexford-Missaukee Right to Life targets victimizing Caucasian women. Not a single billboard image with a black, Hispanic, or Asian child exists in the two-county region. Don’t the lives of those fetuses matter as well?
The racism of Right to Life is well-documented, but recently their message has taken an even more sinister turn with the addition of the image above. “All Lives Matter” is a racist slogan that emerged to diminish the Black Lives Matter movement. Ironically; Black Lives Matter began as a protest against the murder of black people by the police, and works to educate about the value of the lives of black people in the United States. The billboard emphasizes the hypocrisy of Right to Life: They are only concerned for the fetuses of white people, and will erase minorities in their agenda of intimidating women.

Now with the Republicans in Washington working to ban abortions after 20 weeks pregnancy and banning insurance coverage for women’s contraceptive medication, the anti-choice movement works to not only shame women, but risk the lives of women as well. Women who are 20 weeks pregnant made the decision to carry the pregnancy to term. Abortions at this stage happen because the pregnancy threatens the life of the mother. Birth control pills are used to treat women’s reproductive disorders like endometriosis and poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. PCOS makes a woman’s menstrual cycle irregular and can lead to infertility. Birth control pills are used to regulate the woman’s cycle so she can ovulate and conceive. The only risky sexual behavior happening with insurance coverage for birth control is from ignorant politicians putting women’s lives at risk, or eliminating their ability to have a baby.

The agenda of Right to Life has always been to shame, intimidate, and victimize women about the choices they make for their own health. If the life of fetuses brought to term were the real purpose, these people would care about actual children outside of the womb as much as when they are fetuses in the womb.