Manhattan Mini Storage, owned by Edison Properties, placed a billboard on Manhattan’s West Side Highway in August that showed a large wire hanger with the inscription, “Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose.”
New Yorkers have become accustomed to Manhattan Mini Storage posting billboards that bash the Bush Administration, but by making the leap from partisan politics to crude cultural commentary, the company stepped on dangerous turf. Why a storage company saw the need to advertise its support for abortion was a story all of its own, but by seeking to depict the pro-life community—which is primarily Catholic and Protestant—as oppressive, Manhattan Mini Storage crossed a line.
Those who like this billboard would no doubt be aghast at the sight of a billboard that featured a bloody baby who survived a botched abortion. They would be even more incensed if the picture were accompanied by the remark, “This is what happens when abortion fails.”
Manhattan Mini Storage was not only guilty of crudeness, but of cowardice. To wit: Why didn’t it have the guts to identify the object of her “shrinking” choice?
We are pleased to report that in a poll of New Yorkers, three of four were on our side. And judging from the feedback we got commenting on our media appearances, it is clear that we got the best of them.
