NBC says it made a mistake when asking for 'abortion' to be removed from 'Obvious Child' ad

The new indie movie Obvious Child has gotten some extra press thanks to a controversy over an ad for it. NBCUniversal reportedly refused to air the ad with the word “abortion” in it, which caused Planned Parenthood to get a petition started. Thousands of signatures later, NBCU has admitted a mistake.

Over the weekend, it was reported that NBCU refused to air three commercial spots unless the word “abortion” was removed. After the reports spread, Planned Parenthood launched a petition, which got over 13,000 signatures, notes Entertainment Weekly.

On Tuesday, NBCU issued a statement to Deadline, claiming that the company doesn’t have any such policy banning “abortion” from commercials it airs. NBCU said that it got several proposals for Obvious Child advertisements for its groups to review and any advice given did not ask that the word be removed. They did decide though to not buy ads for the movie.

However, a request to have the word removed from online ads was submitted by accident.

“Separately, an online ad was submitted for digital placement and feedback was mistakenly given to remove the word ‘abortion,’” the statement reads. “That is not company policy and we are currently reviewing our ad standards processes to ensure they are consistent across all platforms moving forward. Our digital platforms will accept the ad as it was originally submitted.”

Obvious Child is an indie movie being distributed by A24 and stars Jenny Slate as a comedian who finds out she is pregnant after a one-night stand.

image of Jenny Slate courtesy of INFphoto.com

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