The abortion industry has been rattled by the growth of Pro-Life Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn across Texas. In addition to filing groundless lawsuits, abortion groups in Texas are now trying to promote abortion as religious. At least four billboards put up in East Texas last month describe abortion as a “blessing.” East Texas has several towns that have become Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn, outlawing abortion and penalizing abortionists.
Billboards appeared in Rusk, Waskom, Carthage, and Marshall. The billboard in Rusk is less than half a mile away from an elementary school. Advertising the Lilith Fund, an abortion group that raises money for elective abortion, the billboards state, “Abortion is a Blessing. My decision to have an abortion was guided by my faith and my love for my family.” The billboard then directs people to a webpage run by the Lilith Fund touting supposedly religious people peddling support for the killing of the preborn. The page includes a few personal stories in which mothers use religious language to describe their decision to end a child’s life in abortion and then offers “Faith-Centered Abortion Access Resources & Advocacy.”
Abortion groups in Texas have been known for making grotesque and absurd claims. For Christmas last year, one group that raises funds to kill preborn babies in abortion handed out candles that claimed abortion is “magical.” This is not the first time that the abortion industry has revealed “safe, legal, and rare” was never the goal. Now, abortion activists try openly to promote the intentional and violent killing of a preborn baby as a positive good.
The Lilith Fund is also not the first anti-Life group to try to make abortion religious. Recently, the Satanic Temple claimed abortion was a religious rite that exempts Satanists from any Pro-Life measures. As Mark Lee Dickson noted in a Facebook post, “Lilith” is associated with the demonic and is the name of a demon who preys on women and children. Is the Lilith Fund trying to align with the Satanic Temple?
The response from local Pro-Lifers has been to emphasize the need for alternatives to abortion. Pro-Lifers planned to purchase billboards of their own and hold peaceful protests. Pro-Life citizens are even more motivated to introduce an ordinance to make Marshall the latest Sanctuary City for the Unborn.
At the end of August, Rev. Kirklynn Usher of Marshall Missionary Baptist Church led a meeting of Pro-Lifers to gather resources for pregnant mothers and strategize their outreach. He told the Longview News-Journal, “What I would like to see is more local churches getting involved and more pastors picking up this fight and being a part of this conversation.” Usher added, “What we want to do is create a network of resources so young women know that abortion is not their only option.”
An abortion activists interviewed by the Longview News-Journal claimed the passage of ordinances making Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn was “designed to shame and confuse patients seeking abortion care, and to intimidate abortion funds and advocacy organizations like ours.” As is obvious from the name, Sanctuary Cities for the Unborn are intended to provide legal recognition for the preborn child. Without acknowledging the child, discussion of abortion is meaningless. When abortion funds provide money to the predatory abortion industry, they do not inform mothers of their child’s life, beating heart, and undeniable human development; they do not offer access to the alternatives to abortion.
The disturbing “faith” language on the Lilith Fund website promotes “choice,” including the choice to end the life of a preborn child as divine. The page includes a quote from an anti-Life activist ordained in some religious practice stating, “In the same way that the Divine has provided us the opportunity to choose, we should always be providing that to others. As people of faith we are called to serve people. We need to remember that call.” The call to serve people must include the innocent and defenseless child in the womb. Activists collaborating with the abortion industry have overplayed their hand by trying to make abortion a religious issue. People of faith know the truth about abortion and the Sanctity of Life. A flashy billboard will not be enough to turn back the Pro-Life movement in East Texas.