Anti-Abortion Group Features President Obama on Chicago Billboards

March 30, 2011 -- The organization behind controversial anti-abortion advertisements targeting African-Americans has unveiled its newest campaign, this time featuring an image of President Obama on billboards throughout his hometown of Chicago.

Texas-based Life Always revealed the first of 30 planned billboards Tuesday, plastering three of the posters on a building in Chicago's South Side. "Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted," reads the text alongside the president's image.

Life Always board member Rev. Derek McCoy said, "These are babies who could grow to be the future presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou."

Using President Obama's likeness in his hometown is an "intentional approach and strategy that will draw attention … fortunately, the ads are doing just that," said McCoy, who is associate pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Md.

Calling abortion a "major health risk" and "the leading cause of death" in the black community, McCoy said "softer ads wouldn't draw attention and raise awareness like we wanted."

ThatsAbortion.com is a project in which Life Always uses "advertising, research and confrontational truth to gain awareness, inform and educate individuals to choose life, always," according to the organization's website.

The White House has not responded to a request for comment.

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Life Always most recently prompted ire in New York City last month with a billboard featuring a young African-American girl with text reading, "the most dangerous place for African-Americans is in the womb."

Civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton said then the New York billboard "sends a message of racial profiling and discourages a woman's right to choose."

But based on pure advertising merits, Russ Winer, chairman of the Marketing Department at New York University's Stern School of Business, said the New York billboard was "much more powerful because it was not a metaphor and used a direct visual image."

The girl's stock photograph was used without her mother's permission and the billboard was removed after blistering criticism.