'Necessary Roughness' Actor's Pro-Choice PSA Slammed (Video)

6:45 PM PST 1/22/2013 by Aaron Couch

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Mehcad Brooks in a Center for Reproductive Rights video.

Mehcad Brooks celebrates the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade with seductive talk and a rose.

Necessary Roughness star Mehcad Brooks is taking some heat for a new PSA celebrating the 40^th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

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In a video from the Center for Reproductive Rights, Brooks talks to the camera seductively as if he were addressing a lover on his anniversary, calling her "baby" and holding a rose.

“An anniversary like this is not something you forget,” he says in the video celebrating the 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

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Brooks says a few hundred thousand people have chipped in to get his “baby” something special to celebrate – a reference to the organization’s petition in support of reproductive rights and the nearly 200,000 signatures it has amassed.

A Fox News Channel panel slammed the ad Tuesday, with The Five’s Andrea Tantaros saying it would likely offend both pro-life and pro-choice viewers.

“I think everybody can agree there is something tasteless about this ad. It seems to glorify and sexualize abortion,” she said. “I don’t think one woman out there celebrates the anniversary of her abortion.”

Online, a number of Twitter users also expressed distaste, with one woman writing she’d deleted USA’s Necessary Roughness from her DVR. Another Twitter user called it “despicable” and “tasteless.” But others online shared the video, urging their followers to “Join Mehcad Brooks. Celebrate 40 years of Roe.”

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Brooks isn't the first star to partner with the Center for Reproductive Rights' "Draw a Line" campaign.

Last fall, Meryl Streep and Kevin Bacon starred in PSAs for the organization. Their spots hit online at the height of Republican lawmakers making controversial statements about rape, contraception and abortion.

In addition to Necessary Roughness, Brooks has enjoyed stints on HBO’s True Blood and ABC’s Desperate Housewives.