At a time when an unprecedented number of laws impede women’s access to the reproductive health care they need, one of the country’s leading pro-choice organizations today objected strongly to the decision by Philadelphia Inquirer publishers to refuse prominent homepage placement of its Lies Into Laws ad campaign. The National Partnership for Women & Families has placed the same or very similar ads in national and Pennsylvania media outlets as part of the campaign. The Lies Into Laws spots highlight the impact on women when false information and inaccurate stereotypes are used as the pretext for restrictions that push abortion care out of reach.

The National Partnership has worked to increase access to quality, affordable health care, including reproductive health and rights, for all of its 45-year history. In recent months, it has placed these or very similar ads as homepage takeovers on the websites of the Washington Post, The Hill, Politico, Politics PA and The Patriot News as part of the same campaign. The ads also ran this week as fixed homepage spots on the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website. In Pennsylvania they were run in partnership with the Pennsylvania Campaign for Women’s Health.

A mock-up of the homepage takeover the Philadelphia Inquirer refused to run is here. It says, in part, “What happens when anti-abortion becomes anti-science? Abortion opponents turn lies into laws.” The Inquirer offered to run the ads “run of site” instead of as a homepage takeover – an option the National Partnership rejected because it would have dramatically reduced their impact and undermined their visibility. A representative of the Philadelphia Inquirer told the National Partnership’s advertising agency that the homepage takeover rejection was based on the ads being “controversial.”

“Abortion is a legal medical procedure in the United States, yet women’s access to this essential care has been stigmatized and restricted in ways that are utterly without justification,” said National Partnership President Debra L. Ness. “Over the past five years, abortion opponents across the country have enacted hundreds of restrictive laws that aim to prevent a woman from getting abortion care, even when that means lying to her, delaying her care, requiring unnecessary tests, making care more expensive and shutting down reproductive health clinics.”

“Many of these restrictions are based on lies about abortion, about women who decide on abortion and about the health care professionals who provide abortion care,” Ness continued. “We need to be talking about these attacks on women’s health, not pushing the issue into the shadows and letting it go unchecked. That is why we are so disappointed by the Philadelphia Inquirer publisher’s decision not to run our spots.”

Learn more about the National Partnership’s Lies into Laws campaign at www.liesintolaws.org.