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Sep 18, 2008 4:59 pm US/Central
Unborn Fetus Pictures Displayed On Moving Truck
PLANO (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
A pro-life group from California has brought one of their 'rolling fetus' billboard trucks to North Texas.
Chopper 11 captured video of the truck, displaying pictures of unborn fetuses, as it traveled on a Dallas highway. The billboard covered truck was at Wednesday's Carlos Santana concert at the Superpages.com Center in Dallas and is scheduled to be at Saturday's Southern Methodist University (SMU) vs. Texas Christian University (TCU) football game and at other events.
Thursday afternoon the truck pulled into Plano and began making the rounds at a shopping center.
Some people who saw the vehicle said the shocking images are a good idea. "A lot of people haven't seen what it really looks like and what it really does and maybe they need to before they can make up their mind," Michael Grijalva told reporters.
Other had a very different reaction to the images. "The baby was all red, the six of a dime. The fetus was the size of a dime," said driver Richard Venus, who is against the billboard images. "It looked like the baby was dead or had been mutilated. [It was] too graphic for me."
Officials with the City of Plano say they have no laws or codes prohibiting what the truck is doing. However, officials with the City of Dallas say the billboards are illegal, citing premises advertising violations.
The non-profit Los Angeles-based Center for Bio-Ethical Reform says the vehicles are part of an effort to raise anti-abortion awareness. The group currently has two delivery trucks displaying 22-by-7 feet images of aborted fetuses.
During on-air broadcasts both CBS 11 News and TXA 21 News chose not to show the entire 22-foot image. The picture on the truck traveling through North Texas is graphic and some call it disturbing. Click here to see it.
"It disappoints me. I wish your producers had more courage to show it, but I understand it. I'd say that about half of the stations don't show it," said Bill Calvin with the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform. "But even then if you go on the air and say, 'This trucks driving around Dallas with pictures of abortion and these pictures are so ugly and so upsetting we chose not to show them', that's our message."
According to the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform their "Reproductive Choice Campaign" displays the graphic images as the trucks travel throughout the country. The group says their purpose is to "change the way people perceive abortion."
The moving billboards hit Texas for the first time a month ago in Houston and San Antonio and earlier this month rolled through the streets of Austin.
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