"Every 21 minutes, our next possible leader is aborted…"

That’s the in-your-face message of these billboards, featuring an image of President Obama, which have gone up around Chicago. (Click to enlarge.)

The story behind them:

Thirty pro-life billboards featuring the image of Barack Obama are going up in South Chicago, U.S. president Barack Obama’s adopted hometown, starting tomorrow.

“Every 21 minutes, our next possible LEADER is aborted,” states the ad, which features an artistic rendering of Obama’s profile with a caption directing viewers to “thatsabortion.com.”

“Our future leaders are being aborted at an alarming rate. These are babies who could grow to be the future Presidents of the United States, or the next Oprah Winfrey, Denzel Washington or Maya Angelou,” said Rev. Derek McCoy, a black pastor and board member of Life Always, which is responsible for the campaign.

According to official U.S. data, black Americans account for approximately 36.9 percent (2007) of the total U.S. abortion numbers, despite accounting for only 12.9 percent (in 2009) of the total U.S. population.

According to a 2008 article by Susan Cohen for the Guttmacher Policy Review, “the abortion rate for black women is almost five times that for white women.” While disputing the notion that the black community is being deliberately targeted by Planned Parenthood and other abortion providers, Cohen also noted that black women led the abortion rate even across the income demographic.

“At every income level, black women have higher abortion rates than whites or Hispanics, except for women below the poverty line,” said Cohen, “where Hispanic women have slightly higher rates than black women.”

The black pro-life leaders behind the recent campaign noted that the Illinois Department of Public Health reported 25,196 abortions in Cook County, where Chicago is located, in 2009.

“The potential of a community lies in its children,” said pastor Stephen Broden, another Life Always board member. “If we aren’t having them, our potential is lost.”

Read more. And you can visit the site sponsoring the billboards for more information.