A group of billboards erected by Pro-Life Waco in Texas are celebrating fatherhood for the first time. But instead of embracing the inspirational message, abortion activists have been attacking the billboards as racist and disrespectful.
Key Takeaways:
- Pro-Life Waco has been participating in pro-life billboard outreach for 25 years.
- For the first time, the billboards are featuring family photos including a father, with the goal of promoting the importance of fatherhood.
- Some have instead chosen to call the billboards “racist.”
The Details:
In an e-mail to Live Action News, John Pisciotta said the billboards had been installed in August, and just two days later, he received a message from a woman demanding he call her to listen to her complaints. When he did, she had a laundry list of complaints.
She claimed the billboards are racist as well as offensive to children who live in homes without fathers, that they force parents to discuss abortion with their children, and that they are disrespectful to one-parent families.
Photo supplied by John Pisciotta, Pro-Life Waco
Debbie Juhlke, CEO of the Embrace Life Initiative in Austin — and also a Black pro-life woman — disagreed.
“The images and message on this billboard celebrate the beauty of family and highlight the importance of both mothers and fathers in a child’s life,” she said. “For many women in crisis, the presence of a father can make the difference in the choice for life. Rather than excluding or shaming, the message invites our community to honor life, value family bonds, and consider the life-affirming choices available.”
Juhlke added, “For children who may not have both parents at home, seeing positive, loving images of families can be a source of encouragement and a reminder that strong, caring relationships are possible and worth striving for.”
Pisciotta further shared input from Dr. Lisa Muller Muñoz, a Pro-Life Waco board member and the person who designed the billboards.
“For years, the pro-life community has extended love and support to babies and their mothers. But what about fathers?” Muñoz asked. “For too long, fathers have been forgotten. They too suffer, often believing they have no say, no right to the life they helped create. The baby has a mother AND a father! Showing love and support for the father as well as the mother is important in encouraging unity in the decision for life for the baby they created, regardless of the circumstances. Love family, choose life!”
Billboard in Waco (Photo: Pro-Life Waco)
Go Deeper:
Pro-Life Waco was initially founded by Pisciotta as a pro-life ministry in his church, before it grew into the premiere pro-life organization in the area. And he has stressed the need for pro-lifers to think locally to make a difference. “I don’t want anyone to live in Waco for 10 days without seeing the pro-life challenge in our city,” he said in a recent interview with Live Action founder and president Lila Rose.
Pisciotta and Pro-Life Waco help with that by providing pro-life family-themed yard signs, and by engaging in “public square outreach.”
One notable example was an all-day overpass demonstration from Pro-Life Waco in 2015, calling attention to the Planned Parenthood body parts trafficking scandal. More recently, they launched the “Pro-Life in the Public Square” (PLPS) initiative, with the goal of influencing “communities broadly to change hearts, minds, souls, and votes. The key word is BROADLY—including the pro-life faithful, the pro-abortion hostile, and the mushy middle.”
Their goal is to encourage and equip public square outreach, with pharmacy outreach and yard signs.
Dr. Lisa Miller Munoz with yard signs (Photo: Pro-Life Waco)
Further Information:
Pro-Life in the Public Square (PLPS), an offshoot of Pro-Life Waco, offers yard signs and even billboards to help other pro-lifers who wish to do public square outreach across the country. Pisciotta sent the information in an email to Live Action News:
- Yard Signs for Life community campaigns — The family message is one of five designs available to pro-life and church groups. Orders of 10 to 200 signs are subsidized at $4 per sign. One design works well for a seasonal campaign at Advent and Christmas.
- Billboards at the Edge of Town — for communities where a highway runs through the heart of a small city. PLPS will provide a free family billboard vinyl tailored to your dimensions (as small as 4’ X 8’). Small billboards can be beautiful and powerful, even with a population less than 1,000, when a highway doubles as “Main Street.”
For information and orders, contact John Pisciotta at 254-644-0407 or prolifewaco@gmail.com.
The Bottom Line:
The ultimate goal, as Pisciotta previously stated, is that “the pro-life movement must reverse the early political setbacks of the post-Roe era. We can’t turn the tide without robust local public square outreach.”
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