A billboard on the side of an old building can be life-changing.

A Prolife Across America (PLAA) billboard at an unsightly intersection in Duluth, Minnesota, motivated a pregnant woman to visit a pro-life pregnancy center.

The director of a pregnancy-resource center in Duluth recently contacted PLAA Director Mary Ann Kuharski to tell her the impact of one of PLAA’s billboards, which feature a baby’s image and fetal-development facts.

“A young college girl just came in and said her dorm is three blocks from there, and she was stopped at the stoplight and looked up, and here is this ad reminding her the baby had fingerprints,” Kuharski recalled to the Register of the center head’s comments. “She’s scheduled for an abortion at nine weeks, so I just know the Holy Spirit has got this even if I don’t.” 

Location matters when the nonprofit is placing about 15,000 of its ads nationwide each year.

As it seeks to change hearts and save babies’ lives, according to its website, PLAA until last year placed many ads on one company’s billboards in about 40 major cities, where many of the estimated 1,600 U.S. abortion providers are also located — resulting in hundreds of PLAA hotline calls that prompt referrals to pro-life agencies.

But in September 2023, that billboard provider, Clear Channel Outdoor, “soft canceled” its client of several decades — by moving the educational nonprofit into an “advocacy” category for which it would have to pay significantly higher rates. The company also initially required PLAA to identify itself in its ads similar to a political organization, including a “Paid for by” box, which might have jeopardized the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status. 

When PLAA — “The Billboard People,” as the pro-life organization is known — was renting billboards from Clear Channel Outdoor, PLAA received an average of 350 to 450 hotline calls per month, according to Kuharski.

The organization’s hotline calls have decreased because it no longer places billboards in so many of the key cities where Clear Channel has an “effective monopoly,” Kuharski said. PLAA now refers many calls to Heartbeat International, a global network of 3,000 pregnancy agencies. 

 

What Happened

The company’s changes were made without PLAA’s input and without acknowledging that the educational nonprofit’s operations, its 501(c)(3) tax-exempt status and identification as being “non-political” had not changed. 

“We asked the minute they came down with this different policy, ‘Well, what has changed?’” said Kuharski, who called the decision “discriminatory.” 

“Our ads haven’t changed. Our approach hasn’t changed. We’re not ever advocating legislation or anything that would be overtly political. We got no answer on that.” 

Because the company’s rates for advocacy organizations were as much as double and nearly triple what PLAA had been paying, and because an “advocacy” label might have jeopardized its tax-exempt status, the donor-funded nonprofit has stopped renting Clear Channel Outdoor’s billboards. 

In 2022, PLAA spent more than $688,000 to rent Clear Channel Outdoor billboards in larger cities in Arizona, California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Minnesota, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas and Wisconsin. 

A Clear Channel Outdoor press representative did not respond to several requests for comment.

PLAA has found ways to reach some of the urban markets it served previously through those billboards, including other billboard venues and expanded internet, radio and TV streaming ads, Kuharski explained. 

But she added, “These are major cities [where] there are no other billboard companies that are right directly in the city. I can go around those cities with some of the other billboard companies, but it’s a big loss.”

 

What Can They Do Now?

After seeking assistance from the Thomas More Society, a Chicago-based national public interest law firm that handles many pro-life and free-speech cases, PLAA was referred to another Chicago law firm that also takes on some pro-life cases, Wagenmaker & Oberly.  

In an October 2023 letter to Clear Channel Outdoor on PLAA’s behalf, attorney Sally Wagenmaker brought up possible legal violations from the company’s decision regarding PLAA’s status. 

“New York state law says it’s illegal to discriminate in connection with the purchase of a prospective purchase, rental or lease of commercial space,” she said during an interview with the Register. 

Because of pending social-media and other freedom-of-speech cases, some related federal laws are currently in flux, she added.

In a letter in response last October to Wagenmaker’s letter, Salvador Llach, Clear Channel Outdoor’s deputy general counsel, wrote that billboards are a constitutionally protected form of speech and that the company maintains “broad discretion over the messages displayed on them.”

While rejecting PLAA’s claim of discrimination, Llach asserted that Clear Channel’s editorial discretion over messages it publishes is protected by the First Amendment. 

Citing the long relationship between the company and the nonprofit, Llach wrote that Clear Channel Outdoor would “look further into this matter.”

The company waived the attribution requirement but maintained its classification of PLAA as an “advocacy” organization.

While Clear Channel Outdoor never denied PLAA access in many years of doing business, in making the decision, the company’s management may have reconsidered PLAA’s messages and concluded it was political campaign activity and labeled them advocacy, Wagenmaker said, adding that this conclusion was “just flat wrong.”

The pro-life nonprofit doesn’t advocate against abortion, seek legal changes or support political candidates, Wagenmaker said. 

 

Long Pro-Life Legacy

With a budget of more than $5 million this year, about 98% of which is spent on advertising, PLAA has expanded its reach while maintaining its mission over 35 years of using the media to educate the public about life before birth and providing a link to available pro-life pregnancy-support resources. 

Kuharski co-founded Prolife Across Minnesota in 1989 and the following year started running ads in Minnesota. By 1999, the nonprofit changed its name to Prolife Across America to reflect its growing national outreach, according to the nonprofit’s website. 

The first “baby” ads featured some of Kuharski’s children and, later, grandchildren, she said. Now, all of the featured baby pictures are from donors. 

Of the organization’s work, Kuharski said, “This has got to be the most expensive arm of the pro-life movement, hands down, when you’re spending all your money on media attention.”

Clear Channel Outdoor, which has evolved corporately over the years, was one of the first billboard companies PLAA did business with, Kuharski said.  

She said the pro-life nonprofit has decided not to pursue legal action against the billboard company because it’s committed to using its donors’ funds to promote its message.

What has helped the nonprofit is prayer, including opening up opportunities to rent new family-owned billboards, Kuharski said, attributing the discovery of new outdoor-ad outlets to the aid of the Holy Spirit. 

Also, a San Diego pregnancy-resource center called True Choice Medical Clinics received a donation to place several of PLAA’s billboards in the city, where PLAA can no longer afford to place billboards because of Clear Channel Outdoor’s decision, according to the clinic’s president and CEO, Camille Cassin. The clinic’s phone number appears on the billboards. 

Cassin said the clinic, which offers a range of medical, educational and support related to pregnancy and sexual health, tries to use a variety of media to reach potential clients, including billboards. 

“It may only change one heart, but it would be worth it,” Cassin said.  

Kuharski believes Clear Channel Outdoor objects to baby images on its billboards and isn’t taking into account the number of people the nonprofit directs and helps through its hotline. 

While PLAA has received criticism for not having a more “hard-hitting” pro-life message, Kuharski said its ads are noncondemning because as many as 50% of PLAA’s hotline callers have previously been through an abortion experience and are seeking help to avoid another one. She added that 40% of callers are men.

The callers include parents who’ve promoted abortion, Kuharski said. “We have a lot of parents who are pushing their kids to have abortions,” she said. “So what do we do? How can we soften hearts so they don’t push them again or don’t go through it the second time?”

PLAA provided the Register with transcripts of some hotline calls.

One recent hotline caller was a New Jersey man who asked for help after his girlfriend aborted their baby:

“She was five months’ pregnant. The clinic told her the baby will be ‘donated for research.’ I can’t bear knowing our baby girl won’t have a decent burial and be treated with respect [the man’s voice broke into sobs]. I called the clinic, and they won’t give her the baby for burial. Can you direct us to any kind of legal help to demand our baby’s body?” 

Another caller, a pregnant woman from Georgia, who’d previously had an abortion, said: “I’m pregnant, and I just need to talk to someone. What do I do? I want to keep this baby, but I have people around me telling me not to. I had an abortion several years ago, and I never want to do that again. I feel this baby is a blessing from God — I just need support. The father of my baby is stepping up to support me. I just need some guidance.” 

PLAA’s hotline calls may have changed during its 35 years in existence, and its ads now take different forms in new media, but the message remains the same, Kuharski said, adding, “I just think anything we can do to attract people’s attention, to get [people] to stop and think, ‘This little kid can suck his thumb. He has fingerprints at nine weeks; a heartbeat, 18 days from conception.’”

HOW YOU CAN HELP AND GET HELP

ProlifeAcrossAmerica.org

Call (800) 366-7773