Vandals shoot up "Thou Shalt Not Kill" billboard outside abortion clinic

Paintball vandals defaced a pro-life billboard outside a Buffalo abortion center early this week creating large round black splotches that look menacingly like bullet holes through the central image of the unborn baby, reports Peter J. Smith, LifeSiteNews.com.

The "You Shall Not Kill" billboard set up by pro-life advocates near the Buffalo GYN Womenservices abortion clinic on Main Street was riddled with about 20 round black and dark purple paint splotches late Monday night from either a paintball device or a launcher for paint filled balloons. The vandalism gives the violent visual effect of bullet holes through the middle of the sign, which features a picture of an unborn baby in the womb, flanked by images of a boy listening to his pregnant mother's stomach and a pregnant woman's stomach. Above the three pictures in red letters is the biblical commandment "You Shall Not Kill."

"This is absolutely a violent act. It is a criminal act, even the District Attorney has said it is criminal mischief," Marie O'Connor, a pro-life activist from Amherst involved in setting up the billboard, told LifeSiteNews.com. "We have been in touch with the Buffalo Police and the FBI. The Erie County District Attorney has said that although it is a stretch, it might be prosecuted as a hate crime for criminal mischief."

"I'm hoping it can, because it is very clear that in this area there is not a single billboard that was damaged as violently as ours," O'Connor stated. "If you're there in person, you can see the aim was strictly toward the fetus with the umbilical cord showing. That was the focus of all this damage."

New York State's Hate Crimes Law of 2000 defines "hate crimes" as crimes in which "victims are intentionally selected, in whole or in part, because of their race, color, national origin, ancestry, gender, religion, religious practice, age [over 60], disability or sexual orientation." The law says that "Crimes motivated by invidious hatred toward particular groups ... send a powerful message of intolerance and discrimination to all members of the group to which the victim belongs" that is incompatible with a free society

Erie County District Attorney Frank J. Clark told the Buffalo News that criminal mischief can be a hate crime, such as a swastika spray-painted on a synagogue. "Theoretically, I think this could be a hate crime," he said, "but I think it is a stretch."

The billboard had gone up a month and a half ago about 100 feet away from the abortion clinic after pro-life advocates held the area's first 40 Days for Life prayer vigil outside the abortion center from late September through early November.

O'Connor said that pro-life individuals and families themselves have financed putting up the pro-life billboard just south of the abortion clinic, which may have infuriated abortion supporters convinced the sign would disappear after a month once all the money was spent.

"It's probably frustration on the part of pro-abortionists that not only have we not gone away, but we've made the message clearer, and we've kept it on the closest billboard to their killing chamber," said O'Connor.

The billboard is being repapered Monday.

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[01/14/2008]

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