Billboard Paints Justices Into Political Corner on Abortion : Art: Robbie Conal’s latest work, to be unveiled today, takes on four Supreme Court members.

“Mt. Stoogemore.”

That’s what Los Angeles painter Robbie Conal calls his gigantic new 19x48-foot pro-abortion rights art piece scheduled to be unveiled today near the corner of Pico and Robertson boulevards in West Los Angeles.

The massive hand-painted billboard conceived by Conal and his wife, graphic designer Debbie Ross--and paid for by Planned Parenthood Los Angeles--features four scowling caricatures of the Supreme Court’s most ardent anti-abortionists: Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Associate Justices Antonin Scalia, Byron White and Clarence Thomas.

Printed below the justices is a sign with the inscription: “FREEDOM OF CHOICE.”

Conal’s work depicts the justices trying to alter the text to read “FREEDOM FROM CHOICE.” An additional caption across the bottom of the billboard states: “One Justice Away. Don’t Let it Happen. Planned Parenthood.”

“I think of this one as my little Mt. Rushmore,” joked Conal, a 47-year-old artist known in Los Angeles for his satirical broadsides plastered on construction sites and abandoned buildings. “ ‘Mt. Stoogemore.’ It’s like the Three Stooges plus one, Clarence Thomas being the plus one.”

Previous Conal posters have featured Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush, conservative diplomat Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, former LAPD Chief Daryl Gates and others.

Planned Parenthood timed the raising of Conal’s newest art board to coincide with a vote scheduled this week in Congress on the Freedom of Choice Act, a bill that would codify abortion-rights protections established in Roe vs. Wade. Conal designed the billboard to protest the court’s June 30 ruling, which opened the door on abortion restrictions, allowing state lawmakers to impose virtually any restraint as long as it doesn’t place an “undue burden” on women seeking abortion.

The billboard, which cost about $20,000 to produce, is Planned Parenthood’s second abortion-rights collaboration with Conal and Ross. In June, the family planning organization and its affiliates plastered 25,000 posters with a similar “FREEDOM FROM CHOICE” image on street corners in 76 cities across the nation.

The money for both projects was raised from donations by private individuals specifically to underwrite Conal and Ross’ designs.

“Our country is at a very precarious point in history,” said Mary-Jane Wagle, the Planned Parenthood board member who initiated the billboard project. “We cannot afford to have one more anti-choice justice appointed to any court at any level of the judiciary system in this country. If women don’t fight back now, we may soon loose one of our most fundamental American rights--the right to choose.”

Jeff White, state director of the Orange County-based anti-abortion group Operation Rescue of California, blasted the artwork as “distasteful,” but said his group had no plans to protest or interfere with erection of the billboard.

“This is more of the same mindless rhetoric Planned Parenthood has been feeding the public for years,” said White, who organized last month’s highly publicized demonstrations outside Houston family clinics during the Republican convention. “All these people ever concentrate on is the women. What about the babies? The victims of choice? How can you make an appealing artistic statement that supports the killing of children?”

Conal’s first pro-abortion rights image appeared earlier this year when the Greater Los Angeles Coalition for Reproductive Rights put up about 5,000 Conal posters across the nation featuring a taunting image of Chief Justice Rehnquist accompanied by the text: “Gag Me With a Coathanger.”

“I don’t care how powerful these guys are, they need to be held accountable for their actions,” said Conal, gazing up at billboard artist C. Riley Forsythe and the gigantic images of the four justices. “I think it’s important for us to put them up on display where people can keep an eye on them. The idea was to paint them into a corner--even if its only the corner at Pico and Robertson.”