Pro-life billboard defaced — but vandals may have created more powerful anti-abortion message

A pro-life billboard in Chicago was defaced recently — but it turns out the vandals' handiwork may have created an even more powerful anti-abortion message.

Eric J. Scheidler of the Pro-Life Action League noted in a Facebook post Friday that his group held a "Face the Truth" tour stop at Fullerton and Ashland and saw the "beautiful pro-life billboard looking down on us." Sometime afterward, he said, the billboard was vandalized.

The billboard announced that a baby's heartbeat can be detected 18 days after conception, and that "a baby is a baby! Born and unborn."

There's also a contact phone number along with the group name, which appears to be ProLife Across America, based on a similar billboard that went up in Utah earlier this summer.

The vandals used what appears to be black spray paint to cross out the word "unborn" as well as the organization's phone number (800-366-7773). The culprits also crossed out part of the organization's name so it reads "ProLife ruins lives."

Arguably the most striking aspect of the billboard is the face of the infant, who's swaddled in a blanket and appears to be sleeping. The vandals took it upon themselves to write the phrase, "My body my choice" over the infant's face.

'Extreme irony'

But LifeSiteNews noted the "extreme irony" of the "ugly spray-painted words on the baby's beautiful face," as they can be interpreted to mean that the baby is declaring ownership of his or her body — and not the mother nor anyone else can claim that right — and that it's the baby's choice to continue living.

"The baby has her own brain, heart, DNA that is completely distinct from those of the mother," the outlet added. "In fact, the mother and baby may have different blood types. And, if the mother is pregnant with a male child, then certainly his organ of reproduction can in no way be [the mother's] 'body.'"

LifeSiteNews added that the graffiti shows "how utterly unconvincing, how absurd is the claim that the baby's body is somehow the mother's 'body' ..."