Two pro-life groups will hold a demonstration today outside of Kentucky’s last remaining abortion clinic. As part of their protest, the groups will used an 8-foot-tall and 16-foot-wide Jumbotron to show onlookers what happens to a baby during an abortion, The Christian Post reported.
Operation Save America and Created Equal organized the event, which will take place outside Louisville’s EMW Women’s Surgical Center.
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In an email to The Christian Post, Created Equal National Director Mark Harrington referred to Kentucky as “ground zero in the abortion wars.”
“The pro-life movement needs to focus on making Kentucky the first abortion-free state in America,” he wrote.
Harrington also called the Jumbotron video “the most effective use of our resources,” as it “bypasses the fake news media” by delivering an “uncensored message that goes directly to the people.”
“People stop and pick up tons of our literature after seeing the Jumbotron video,” he added. “They eagerly want to know more about abortion.”
“If it’s the public policy of our country that abortion is legal, then abortion should be shown publicly,” Harrington said. “If people are upset with the video, then they should be upset about abortion, not those who are showing it. We’re just depicting what happens every day in America.”
The graphic Jumbotron video made its first appearance at the 2012 March for Life in Washington, D.C. Harrington acknowledged that reactions to the controversial video are often mixed.
“Some are shocked into silence, others express horror that these images are real, and others are struck by deep sadness. Many confess that they had ‘no idea abortion looked like that,'” he said.
The protest comes as EMW is challenging Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin’s order to shut down the clinic in March, claiming that the facility violates state law.
“EMW’s lawsuit … calls the order ‘blatantly unconstitutional’ and asks a federal judge to bar the Bevin administration from revoking the EMW clinic’s license,” the Courier-Journal reported after the time the suit was filed earlier this year. “EMW, joined in its lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union, said the clinic already complies with the law and says that if the state succeeds in forcing it to close, ‘abortion will be effectively banned in the commonwealth.'”
Wednesday’s protest coincides with Operation Save America’s national conference in Louisville. In light of the event, the EMW clinic filed a temporary restraining order against the group, in effect until Saturday, the final day of the conference.
OSA leaders agreed to ensure that protesters remain within a designated buffer zone surrounding the clinic, WLKY-TV reported.
In a statement issued earlier this week, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said the temporary restraining order will “maintain public safety and protect both the rights of individuals seeking access to EMW and the protected First Amendment rights of individuals wishing to communicate directly with EMW’s patients and providers.”