DALLAS, Texas — A Texas-based group that identifies itself as a “reproductive justice” organization for African American women has purchased a billboard advertisement in Dallas that claims “abortion is self-care.” The advertisement has been characterized by some as downplaying the murder of the unborn as if a woman were taking a day to be pampered at the spa.

“Black women take care of their families by taking care of themselves. Abortion is self-care” the billboard reads, adding the hashtag “TrustBlackWomen.”

The advertisement, which is featured off Interstate 35E in the Oak Cliff neighborhood, was purchased by The Afiya Center, which, according to its website, aims to “serve Black women and girls by transforming their relationship with their sexual and reproductive health through addressing the consequences of reproduction oppression.” The organization is run by Black women itself.

The billboard comes in response to another billboard that was purchased by area pastor Stephen Broden of Fair Park Bible Fellowship Church and the National Black Pro-Life Coalition, which read, “Abortion is not healthcare. It hurts women and murders their babies.”

The Afiya Center blasted the billboard on its website, stating that it sought to “shame and stigmatize us for ending a pregnancy.”

“Shaming Black women for ending a pregnancy means denying our right to make decisions about our own bodies—bodies we have to live in and with every single day. It means ignoring the reasons why access to abortion is important, simply because you think you know what’s best,” the group wrote.

“Barriers to access to critical reproductive health services, along with a culture of shame and stigma about abortion, are tools that perpetuate the cycles of poverty and oppression that Black women have faced for centuries,” it claimed. “Abortion care, and other reproductive health options, are tools of self-care. We must trust Black women to make decisions about what to do with our bodies and our lives.”

The Afiya Center Co-Founder Marsha Jones also told NewsFix that the advertisement made her angry, and so the organization decided to put up their own message. The “abortion is self-care” billboard, which the group also posted to social media—arguing that abortion is about a woman’s right to autonomy and asserting that “bundles of cells aren’t people”—has generated both applause and outrage.

“Abortions are self-care. Abortions are necessary medical care. Abortions are a part of reproductive freedom. Abortions aren’t shameful. Shout out to the Afiya Center for the fire-[expletive] billboard,” one commenter wrote.

“Self-care is not just taking a bubble bath and getting a massage. It’s standing up for yourself in the face of a world that thinks they know what’s best for you,” another commented. “Self-care is making a decision about your body because it’s yours. Point. Blank. Period. Self-care is making the best out of your situation based on your circumstance.”

“Wow. So for Black women, killing our offspring is like a day at the spa,” a third lamented.

“‘Self-love’ is not aborting the most innocent ones; that is called looking out for self, selfishness,” another remarked.

“This billboard is the sickest thing I’ve seen all year,” one likewise stated. “Abortion is murder! Self-care is preventing pregnancy in the first place.”

As previously reported, Scripture teaches that our lives are not our own, and that those who have been regenerated by the Spirit of God are to no longer live for themselves, but to align every area of their life with the will of God.

2 Corinthians 5:15 reads, “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them and rose again.”

1 Corinthians 6:20 also states, “For ye are bought with a price: therefore, glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.”

Romans 6:13 and 19 instruct, “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. … [F]or as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity, even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.”

1 Thessalonians 4 3:-8 likewise teaches, “For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication—that every one of you should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God. … For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness. He therefore that despiseth, despiseth not man, but God, who hath also given unto us His Holy Spirit.”

Become a Christian News Network Supporter...

Dear Reader, has ChristianNews.net been of benefit and a blessing to you? For many years now, the Lord has seen fit to use this small news outlet as a strong influential resource in keeping Christians informed on current events from a Biblical worldview. With much compromise and many falsehoods in modern-day Christianity, we strive to bring you the news by keeping Christ and His word in focus. If you have benefited from our news coverage, please prayerfully consider becoming a Christian News supporter by clicking here to make a one-time or monthly donation to help keep the truth of God's word widely and freely published and distributed. May Christ continue to be exalted through this work!