Infertility Campaign Can't Get Ad Space

The Washington Post ^ | 08/28/2002 | Rick Weiss

[Constitutionalist Conservative]

For the second year in a row, an advertising campaign designed to educate people in their twenties and thirties about how to prevent infertility has run into trouble.

The series of advertisements -- developed for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine, the nation's largest medical association devoted to fertility and reproduction -- uses provocative baby bottle images to highlight four major causes of infertility: cigarette smoking, unhealthy body weight, sexually transmitted diseases and advancing age.

When the ads appeared on buses in several U.S. cities last year, they drew the ire of the National Organization for Women. Accusing the doctors group of using "scare tactics," NOW argued that the ads sent a negative message to women who might want to delay or skip childbearing in favor of career pursuits.

[sweetliberty]

NOW has got to be the most anti-woman organization around. What they really hate is BEING women and they resent women who are happy with their more traditional roles.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

I'd much rather see these ads than the usual ones I see, 2 men kissing each other and 2 men in sexual situations with each other. It says that Viacom rejected these ads! But it's ok for the gay male sex AIDS ads to be placed?!?!

[Illbay]

NOW has got to be the most anti-woman organization around.

EXACTLY what I was thinking as I read this.

Their secret motto has GOT to be "Keeping as many women as miserable as WE are as possible!"

[mewzilla]

I will never understand women who say they don't want men screwing with their reproductive futures, allowing women to screw with them. As if their so-called sisters don't have an axe to grind. Go figure.

[Thebaddog]

It's the age thing that affects fertility most of all. The gyrlzz don't want their little acolytes to have to worry about those nagging problems about fertility issues while they go to the Lillith Fairs. And not all insurance covers infertility. It can be a very costly lifestyle choice. I have triplets because of the age thing.

[WFTR]

What they really hate is BEING women and they resent women who are happy with their more traditional roles.

Basically, NOW is made up of bitter old crones who never got over the fact that Bobby Sherman never called.

WFTR
Bill

[Bubba_Leroy]

This reminds me of how NOW reacts whenever anyone dares mention the fact that abortions are one of the leading causes of breast cancer.

[I Hired Craig Livingstone]

One ad shows a baby bottle being used as an ashtray and says, "If you smoke, this might be your only use for a baby's bottle."

This meets and exceeds liberal content standards.

A second shows a packaged condom leaning against a baby bottle ("Practicing safe sex now protects your ability to have children later.").

This meets and exceeds liberal content standards.

A third shows a baby bottle in the shape of an hourglass ("Advancing age decreases your ability to have children.").

This fails to meet liberal content standards.

The fourth shows a baby bottle with a measuring tape around its middle ("An unhealthy body weight may prevent you from having children.").

This meets liberal content standards.

Ad placement denied.

[multitaskmom]

It's amazing that they would be so upset because someone is telling the TRUTH!

As you pass thirty, your eggs are fewer and farther between, not to mention less viable. It's not SCARE TACTICS, it's medical fact.