A group of pro-life Christians commissioned a billboard in rural Texas calling on locals to “ignore” the Supreme Court’s 1973 ruling on Roe v. Wade, which gave legal cover to abortion. After just one day, though, the banner was removed because the landowner received death threats.
The group, Abolish Abortion Texas (AATX), designed the billboard, which promoted the website, “IgnoreRoe.com,” under the phrase, “62 million dead and counting.” The link directs visitors to the AATX website, which states, “We should abolish abortion in Texas, regardless of what the Supreme Court says we can do.”
The billboard, located outside Boyd, Texas, contained no graphic imagery.
In a press release about the sign’s removal, the pro-life organization said the billboard was taken down after the landowner received “complaints” and “death threats,” which “forced the advertising company to remove” it.
The fund coordinator for the campaign, Jon Speed, who serves as pastor of missions and evangelism for First Baptist Church of Briar, said the ordeal is evidence of “how intolerant Texas has become.”
“There are no graphic images on the billboard, not even a strong statement,” he said in a press release shared with Faithwire. “It’s just a website that seeks to abolish abortion in Texas. The fact that this happened in rural Texas is not only surprising in a self-professed pro-life state, it indicates how weak that commitment is.”
Speed, who earned national attention in 2019, when he decided to shutter his New York bookstore and move to Texas as a result of the “tyranny” he experienced in the Empire State, cast doubt on Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s commitment to the pro-life cause.
Last month, Abbott signed a so-called “trigger bill” that would allow Texas strongly limit or entirely outlaw abortion, should the Supreme Court overturn its ruling on Roe v. Wade.
The rural Texas preacher, however, isn’t convinced Abbott — or other conservative lawmakers — will stand by his pro-life bonafides.
“The conservative nature of Texas is really an illusion when you can have people that call in and make those kinds of complaints and have a billboard taken down,” he said in a YouTube video. “Don’t be deceived by big splashes in the media about what Texas is going to say they’re going to do, because if you can’t even get this to stand in Texas, I don’t believe it.”
It’s not clear how many threats and complaints the landowner received.
