Who stole abortion billboard?

Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 24, 2007 at midnight

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Colorado Right to Life today accused Planned Parenthood supporters of stealing a controversial billboard banner on display outside the anti-abortion group's annual dinner.

A spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains countered that the group knows nothing about the theft, and doesn't condone it.

A witness told Arapahoe County sheriff's deputies that a white male grabbed the 15-foot by 7-foot banner located on one side of the billboard, put it in his car and drove away from the Denver Tech Center hotel where the banquet was being held.

The witness got a license plate number, which shows the vehicle was registered in Aurora, said Arapahoe County Sheriff Grayson Robinson. The investigation is ongoing.

Leslie Hanks, vice president of Colorado Right to Life, conceded today that she can't be certain that it was a Planned Parenthood supporter who took the sign or that anyone who is pro-choice is automatically a supporter of Planned Parenthood.

"I'm certainly not saying that Planned Parenthood paid somebody to come and do it, but I believe that it's people who support Planned Parenthood who were offended by our message," Hanks said. "They don't want that message out there."

The banner features the photo of a black baby and includes a quote that Right to Life attributes to Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood. The quote says, "We don't want the word to get out that we want to exterminate the Negro population ... "

Lizzy Annison, spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood, called Colorado Right to Life an "extremist group," willing to employ "every tactic in the book" to discredit Sanger.

"She was a vocal opponent of racial stereotyping and she worked very hard to eliminate the barriers to health care in the African-American community," Annison said.

"Planned Parenthood is about providing the education, information and services that people need to make responsible choices. Those actions as described (concerning the theft of the banner) do not reflect what we're about, and we don't condone them," she said.

Hanks maintains that Planned Parenthood is about abortions, and she said the group used mobile billboards to get that message across.

The mobile billboard had identical banners on each side. Only one banner, valued at $1,000 was taken.

After the theft, a deputy drove several times by the home where the car was registered but no one was home, the sheriff said.

An investigator will attempt again today.

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