Tasteless, vulgar, ‘pro-choice’

In the wide world of tasteless advertising, a company named Manhattan Mini-Storage has just distinguished itself. We’re referring to a two-story billboard which this privately held storage firm serving 200,000 New Yorkers placed at 44th Street and Twelfth Avenue in Manhattan. The billboard features an ordinary coathanger above a caption: “Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose.”

Those who support abortion rights should realize that their views have just been exploited for commercial gain by this reprehensible company. It is sick. Now, to hear NARAL Pro-Choice America or Planned Parenthood of New York City tell it, pro-choice groups seem to think that Manhattan Mini-Storage is, in fact, somehow courageous. “Fabulous,” said one. The other loves it when a company wears “its pro-choice values on its sleeve — or on its building.”

Right, this is all about “pro-choice values.” What ideals and combativeness it must take to be caustically left-wing and pro-choice in New York City, to profit from the edgy press coverage, all for an advertising gag. The back-alley gag itself is premised on the left-wing lie that the right to abortion on demand in places like New York City is somehow in grave danger. Not as long as the grip of EMILY’s List, the above groups and the abortion lobby generally persists over the Democratic Party.

In this free society, people speak as they choose and this entitles companies to advertise with wide latitude — ranging from high-brow to scummy — within given standards of veracity and decency. It also entitles the rest of us to speak out and act when we are disgusted. We have rights, too — to form judgments, speak back and, in this case, take our business elsewhere. A company which fancies itself edgy and smart — its previous hits include “Your Closet’s Scarier Than Bush’s Agenda,” or, “Your closet is so narrow, it makes Cheney look liberal” — should be hit doubly hard when it overreaches.

We just wish our pro-choice friends had the courage to admit that this is simply a crass commercial exploitation of their political views. Alas, they will not. The abortionist left cannot even recognize its own hypocrisy. It harps on Domino’s Pizza founder Thomas Monaghan and other successful entrepreneurs for their personal pro-life activities — whereas it now applauds a direct commercialization of abortion politics, as long as it’s pro-choice. How familiar. Play by easy rules for oneself, apply another standard to everyone else.