“Choose Life” Coathanger Debuts in Cincinnati

Lindsay Beyerstein December 12, 2012

Anti-choice billboards are so 1973. Today’s clever product-placement pro-lifer is blazing new ground: Wire coathangers bearing the “Choose Life” message.

Robin Marty of RH Reality Check reports:

Springdale Drycleaners of Cincinnati, Ohio, has been etching “Choose Life” ads on wire coat hangers used to hang dry-cleaning.

What’s worse is that this seems to be an ongoing effort. Reports of the “choose life” coat hangers already were on the internet back in March of 2011, when Joe.My.God posted a picture of the hanger then. And before that on Regretsy in 2010. So despite over two years of attention, the business continues to think this is an excellent cross-advertising campaign. In fact, the practice was losing them customers as far back as August of 2010, but still the dry-cleaner continues to use hangers as a place to offer inappropriate propaganda.

Lindsay Beyerstein is an award-winning investigative journalist and In These Times staff writer who writes the blog Duly Noted. Her stories have appeared in Newsweek, Salon, Slate, The Nation, Ms. Magazine, and other publications. Her photographs have been published in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times’ City Room. She also blogs at The Hillman Blog (http://www.hillmanfoundation.org/hillmanblog), a publication of the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a non-profit that honors journalism in the public interest.