Connecticut announces billboard campaign to promote abortion hotline

Connecticut Attorney General William Tong announced Monday the launch of an online and billboard campaign touting the state's pro-abortion hotline.

Key Takeaways:

• Connecticut will launch a billboard campaign to bring awareness to the state's abortion hotline.

• Abortion supporters say the campaign is necessary to combat "misinformation" about abortion.

• Despite that claim, it is unlikely that the hotline offers women information about what abortion really is, or gives them resources to help.

The Details:

Tong announced the campaign at a press conference, standing alongside abortion supporters.

He said the campaign aims to bring more awareness to the state's abortion hotline, which was launched in 2024. The hotline connects abortion-minded women and abortionists with pro-bono attorneys who provide legal advice relating to abortion. Tong claimed the hotline is necessary due to "misinformation" related to abortion.

“I want to make something absolutely clear — abortion is safe, legal, and accessible here in Connecticut. Period. Full stop,” Tong said. “This is about people stepping up, deploying whatever skills they have, particularly lawyers and people who have some legal acumen or knowledge and helping other people in this difficult if not very desperate moment.”

According to the CT Mirror, the state's residents can expect to begin seeing billboards specifically in the Hartford and New Haven areas next week.

“Over the next several weeks, you’ll see billboards across Hartford and New Haven spreading the word about this free and confidential resource,” said Liz Gustafson, the state director of the Reproductive Equity Now Foundation, which manages the hotline.

Like Tong, Gustafson touted the hotline as something necessary amid the "chaos" of the country's abortion landscape.

“It makes people second-guess themselves,” she said. “Trusted legal expertise is essential.”

Reality Check:

Despite the push to spend funds on a billboard campaign, there is little to suggest it is necessary to flout abortion any further in the state of Connecticut, which very liberally allows the killing of preborn children for any reason through the point of "viability," which is often placed around 24 weeks. The state has no restrictions like mandatory waiting periods or parental consent laws, and it also has a shield law to protect abortionists who break the law in other states.

Though the hotline has been touted as a way to combat misinformation, it is very unlikely that it shares the truth about what abortion really is: the direct and intentional killing of the preborn child.

Abortion kills a human being through starvation, dismemberment, or poison. In addition to killing a baby, it is also incredibly risky, and can cause complications including hemorrhaging, extreme pain, nausea, infection, uterine perforation, sepsis, and more. Few women recognize these risks before consenting to the procedure.

It is also unlikely that the hotline gives women who may wish to parent their children any help or support in the way of resources, as they might find at a pregnancy resource center.

Abortion Doctors Share How The Most Common Abortion Procedures Take Place

The Bottom Line:

The Family Institute of Connecticut responded to Tong's announcement with a statement to News 8.

“Attorney General Tong’s taxpayer-funded Abortion Hotline is a solution in search of a problem. Neither the repeal of Roe v. Wade nor the Trump Administration has threatened abortion access in Connecticut in the slightest way," the organization said. "Attorney General Tong and abortion activists should spend less time ginning up phony conflicts and more time tending to the harm caused by their support for the taking of unborn human life.”