Kansas City Royals Reject Radio Ads Aimed at Educating Fans on Crisis Pregnancy Centers

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 16, 2017
CONTACT: Brett Abrams | brett@unbendablemedia.com | (516) 841-1105

Kansas City Royals Reject Radio Ads Aimed at Educating Fans on Crisis Pregnancy Centers

UltraViolet Says Royals Decision to Censor Anti-CPC Ads Proves the Royals Are Siding with Extremists

Women’s Group Submitted Ads After Learning About Royals Partnership With Extreme Anti-Abortion Group, the Vitae Foundation

KANSAS CITY — The Kansas City Royals have rejected new radio ads from UltraViolet, a national women’s advocacy group, warning fans about the dangers of crisis pregnancy centers and the lies they tell women.

Earlier this month, UltraViolet had called on the Royals to stop spreading false information about abortion and women’s health by ending their partnership with the Vitae Foundation, an extreme anti-abortion foundation that lies to women about their reproductive health care options and promotes crisis pregnancy centers around the country.

LISTEN TO THE RADIO ADS HERE: https://youtu.be/LeddCsOa2i4 

READ THE RADIO AD TRANSCRIPT HERE:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/s3.weareultraviolet.com/images/KCRoyals_Ad.pdf

There are more than 3,500 crisis pregnancy centers across the U.S. According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, some of their tactics include:

  • Providing women with factually inaccurate medical information.
  • Telling women that birth control and abortion lead to breast cancer, infertility, and mental illness.
  • Falsely promising women free reproductive health services (pregnancy tests, ultrasounds, options counseling)  in order to lure women into their offices.
  • Telling women abortions are dangerous procedures that result directly in fictitious conditions called “post-abortion syndrome” or “post-abortion stress.”
  • Having staff with no medical training dress up in scrubs to falsely portray themselves as nurses and doctors.
  • Listing themselves in phone books or online directories under “abortion,” “abortion services,” or “women’s groups,” to appear as though they offer abortion care or counseling.

In addition to censoring UltraViolet’s radio ads related to the dangers of crisis pregnancy centers,  the Kansas City Royals will continue to promote the Vitae Foundation’s anti-abortion ads during all 162 of their games and on the Royals Radio Network, including 60 affiliates in six states. The Royals also allow Vitae to award baseball tickets to grade school students who write essays featuring an anti-abortion themes.

“The Kansas City Royal’s decision to censor radio ads about the dangers of crisis pregnancy centers and the lies they tell women, while continuing to partner with the extreme anti-abortion group, the Vitae Foundation, is a sad but telling example of how the Royals’  are siding with extremists and lying to women.   The Vitae Foundation, and the crisis pregnancy centers they promote, tell women that having an abortion will cause breast cancer, or make the woman unable to have children in the future – demonstrable lies that have real consequences for women, their health and their families,” explained Karin Roland, Chief Campaigns Officer at UltraViolet. “This partnership is part of a deceptive anti-choice agenda, and by maintaining ties to the Vitae Foundation, the Royals are turning a classic American pastime into the propaganda arm for an extreme anti-abortion group and their radical anti-woman agenda.”

More than 45,000 people have signed a petition from UltraViolet urging the team to cut ties to the Vitae Foundation and stop spreading misinformation about crucial health decisions to women.

VIEW THE PETITION HERE:  https://act.weareultraviolet.org/sign/KC_Royals_Vitae/

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