A Canadian pro-life group is struggling to keep its pro-life billboard on display this month after vandals attacked it for a third time with spray paint.
The pro-life billboard by the Kelowna Right to Life Society shows pictures of a puppy and an unborn child at about 12 weeks gestation, along with the words: “Kill puppy: Cruelty!” and “Kill baby: ‘Choice’” It also displays the pro-life group’s name.
The billboard has been the subject of controversy in the community, and it was vandalized twice before, once with spray-painted black swastikas, according to the news outlet Castanet. Several people also complained about the billboard to the Advertising Standards Canada after it first went up in March, the report states.
“Obviously the billboard’s message has struck a nerve. In our community, an untold number of people have been complicit or complacent in a past abortion,” Marlon Bartram, executive director of the pro-life group, told the news outlet.
In the latest attack, the vandals used black paint to cross out the pro-life group’s name. Bartram said the group cleaned up the paint and installed security cameras. He said the continued attacks could be a sign of the pain that abortion has caused in their community.
“They are hurting deeply,” Bartram said. “Unfortunately, at times they can act out in destructive ways directed at anyone or anything that triggers their repressed pain and grief. This is one possible explanation for the re-occurring vandalism of our property.”
Kelowna Mayor Colin Basran also condemned the vandalism, describing it as “a tarnish on our community.”
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
The pro-life group plans to keep the ad running through March 2017.
Kelowna Right to Life Society describes its mission on its website: “Our great City of Kelowna ought not continue to tolerate the killing of defenseless unborn children in our own hospital. It is our duty as citizens of good conscience to speak on behalf of the voiceless, to stand for those who cannot defend themselves, and to oppose the horrific injustice of abortion scarring the women, men, and families of our community.”
Vandalism and violence against pro-lifers have become a growing problem across the U.S. and Canada. In April, LifeNews reported another pro-life billboard with the smiling face of a baby girl was vandalized in San Francisco. Pro-life billboards are vandalized fairly frequently.
Last September, Students for Life of America reported that pro-abortion students tore down their pro-life fliers at the American University in Washington, D.C. and then bragged about it. Students for Life reported six pro-life student groups were censored or had their displays vandalized during the month of April 2015 alone.
Some pro-lifers even have been assaulted and threatened with rape and death by abortion activists.
