Residents in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, woke up Friday to the monumental Christ of the Ozarks statue draped with a massive banner that read “God Bless Abortions.”
The guerrilla “activist art collective” called Indecline took credit for hanging the banner and said in a press release reported by KNWA Fox24 that it was meant as a “direct response to the dramatic attempts being made in Arkansas and throughout the South, to ban abortion services to women in need.”
The group smuggled the banner, which spanned more than 44 feet, on the property Thursday night and hung it on the statue of Jesus just before sunrise Friday, according to the report.
Indecline wrote on its Instagram page they are not “pro-choice or anti-life,” but sent the message as a way of saying “abortion is a g*****n miracle worth celebrating.”
“In Arkansas, there is only one 65-foot statue of Jesus. There is also only one abortion clinic,” the blaspheming group wrote. “No professional sports teams. Just a bunch of angry men with no outlets, writing outrageous laws about vaginas. That, and the second highest rate (by state) of infant mortality. It’s hard to see how ‘pro-life’ can be so myopic in its vision of what life is.” The group states that Jesus “would understand the concept of a difficult decision [of having an abortion]. He supposedly had to make a few of them and understood sacrifice very intimately.” Just to make sure nobody assumes they somehow sympathize with Jesus, they added that since the statue is visible from miles away, “so we just treated it like a billboard.”
The 67-feet-tall statue is located on Magnetic Mountain at an altitude of 1,500 feet. It overlooks the Victorian village of Eureka Springs, its arms spread from fingertip to fingertip is 65 feet; it is made of 24 layers of white mortar on a steel frame and weighs over two million pounds, according to the Great Passion Play, the property owner of the land where the monument is located. The Christ of the Ozarks is one of five giant statues of Jesus in the world and one of only two in North America, according to the Encyclopedia of Arkansas.
A live video of the banner being cut down was posted on the Great Passion Play’s Facebook page at 9:15 a.m. Friday morning, the Arkansas Democrat Gazette. reported.
“The Bible says what man intended for evil God intended for good,” noted Kent Butler, director of operations at the Great Passion Play, referring to the story of Joseph in Genesis. “We’re a place of hope, love and peace.” Butler said they plan to use the banner as work cloths for church groups coming to the company grounds to do painting and renovation work on the property during the coming months.
The Great Passion Play has reported the crime to the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office, said 5News.
The local lawmakers were disturbed by the incident. “Abortion is a crime against humanity, and it is really horrible that you have groups like this who support this level of death in our society today. So, I hope they are prosecuted,” Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert said.
Indecline is already capitalizing on its sick stunt, selling t-shirts of the Christ of the Ozarks statue with a “God Bless Abortions” sign for $30 apiece. (The sizes include one intended for 6-12-month-old babies.) The proceeds will go towards the Arkansas Abortion Support Network, the group said.
This is not the group’s first pro-abortion “project.” In March, they vandalized a “Worried? Jesus offers security” billboard in Mississippi, changing the wording to, “Worried? Planned Parenthood offers abortions.
Arkansas — considered the “most pro-life state” in the country — in March banned most abortions except in the case of saving the mother’s life. “We must abolish abortion in this nation just as we abolished slavery in the 19th century — all lives matter,” Republican State Senator Jason Rapert, the bill’s sponsor, said in a statement.
Governor Asa Hutchinson also approved a measure requiring victims of rape and incest to have first reported the crime to law enforcement before they could undergo an abortion past the state’s 20-week limit.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood filed a lawsuit in May, demanding the law be struck down. “We are not going to stand by while Arkansas attempts to deny people their constitutional right to abortion care,” as the ACLU representative called the procedure of taking an unborn baby’s life.
