Contact: Kiera M. McCaffrey, Director of Communications, Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, 212-371-3191, catalyst@catholicleague.org

NEW YORK, August 15 /Standard Newswire/ -- There is a billboard on Manhattan's West Side Highway, at 44th Street and 12th Avenue, that shows a large wire hanger with the inscription, "Your closet space is shrinking as fast as her right to choose." The ad was placed by Manhattan Mini Storage, owned by Edison Properties.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this issue today:

"New Yorkers are accustomed to Manhattan Mini Storage posting billboards that bash the Bush Administration, but when it makes the leap from partisan politics to crude cultural commentary, it is stepping on dangerous turf. Why a storage company finds the need to advertise its support for abortion is a story all of its own, but when it seeks to depict the pro-life community—which is primarily Catholic and Protestant—as oppressive, then a line has been crossed.

"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 is 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?"

Contact the general manager of Manhattan Mini Storage by sending an email to tellus@manhattanministorage.com

The Catholic League is the nation's largest Catholic civil rights organization. Founded in 1973 by the late Father Virgil C. Blum, S.J., the Catholic League defends the right of Catholics – lay and clergy alike – to participate in American public life without defamation or discrimination.