CAMPAIGN ’88 : Advertising the Issue
A full-page newspaper advertisement running today in four Southern cities as well as in Boston and New York challenges presidential candidates to address a topic family planning advocates say has been ignored by all but one major White House aspirant.
“We know what they think about arms control,” the ad reads. “But where do they stand on birth control?”
The Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc. says it paid $130,000 to place the ads in newspapers in Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, New York and Boston five days before Super Tuesday in order to generate discussion about a Reagan Administration family planning budget that the group says is lower than when the President took office, sexuality education and what it calls the $18-billion-a-year problem of teen pregnancy.
“These are all issues that are going to affect the future of the world, and these people are behaving as if they are non-existent issues,” Planned Parenthood President Faye Wattleton said in New York.
Although many candidates have become embroiled in the abortion debate, only Robertson has directly tackled the question of family planning, maintaining that America is undergoing a birth deficit and in fact needs more children, said federation Vice President Douglas Gould.
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