Texas group’s controversial NYC anti-abortion billboard removed

An Austin-based anti-abortion group’s controversial New York City billboard has been taken down, according to reports from various media outlets. Heroic Media founder Brian Follett is also behind the new Life Always group that put up the billboard targeting African Americans, as the Texas Independent previously reported.

A spokesperson for Lamar Advertising (the company that owns the billboard) said the company decided to remove the billboard because of “concerns for public safety,” according to CNN.

The spokesperson told CNN that the company did not object to the content of the billboard — featuring a picture of a young African American girl and the message “The most dangerous place for an African American is in the womb.” Rather, the spokesperson said patrons were harassing wait staff at a restaurant in the building to which the billboard was attached, and a protest had been scheduled for today.

A Life Always spokesperson told CNN that more billboards will appear “across the country” in the next couple of months.

In December, Follett told the Texas Independent that he hoped to help groups establish crisis pregnancy resource centers in major urban areas such as Chicago and Washington, D.C. He also said he planned on expanding Heroic to places such as Houston, Connecticut and the Los Angeles area.

The Wall Street Journal reported the advertisement cost $20,000 and was expected to be up for a month, and that Life Always now does not expect to be charged.

Read the Texas Independent for previous reporting on the Follett family’s frozen food fortune and large-scale philanthropy, plus Heroic’s campaigns in Florida and Texas.

Read the Florida Independent for previous reporting on a prominent Florida Republican who said he “does not condone” Follett’s comparison of African American abortions to “genocide,” plus Mike Huckabee’s continuing support of Heroic Media despite criticism from a Democratic Florida congresswoman.