HOUSTON—A controversial new anti-abortion billboard campaign focusing on blacks in Texas is making its way to Houston.
The campaign has already made its way to the Bryan-College Station area and is expected to be in Houston soon.
The billboards read ‘Black and Unwanted’ and show an image of a baby’s face. The campaign’s website, toomanyaborted.com, appears at the bottom.
"This campaign wants to expose the destruction of hope and possibility that abortion brings and offer something that is a life affirming solution like adoption or parenthood," said Ryan Bomberger, one of the creators of the Radiance Foundation.
The Radiance Foundation and the Life Education Resource Network (L.E.A.R.N.) are behind the initiative. Both groups are led by African Americans and say they are trying to expose what they call a huge racial disparity of abortions in Texas.
"Out of the over 80,000 abortions, 25 percent of those are on African American women even though African American women only comprise 12.7 percent of the population," said Bomberger.
A spokeswoman with Planned Parenthood Gulf Coast calls the campaign reprehensible.
"This is about trying to interfere with women making private personal decisions and unfortunately and really shockingly, this group has decided to use racism as a wedge issue," Rochelle Tafolla said. "We think that is just reprehensible here at Planned Parenthood."
Creators of the campaign would not say when the billboards would go up in Houston, but it could be soon.
Student at the University of Houston Downtown campus had mixed reactions Wednesday when KHOU showed them a copy of the image.
"I don’t like that at all," Quantanique White said. "They need to go back to the drawing board and try again."
Some students thought the ads appeared racist while others thought they might be effective.
"It’s a fine line, but people need to say what they need to say," one student said.
While some of the creators say the billboard may not be politically correct, they say there is nothing racial about it.
