New Jersey officials have reportedly launched a billboard campaign in Texas with the aim of urging abortionists to relocate to the Garden State, where abortion is legal.
According to KERA News, the campaign debuted last week with billboards placed in Houston and Dallas near university hospitals and medical schools. The state launched a similar billboard campaign in 2022, targeting southern states that had enacted abortion restrictions.
“New Jersey’s goal is to make sure that people know that this is a safe place to practice full spectrum reproductive healthcare,” said New Jersey Health Commissioner Kaitlan Baston, who said that the state is a “beacon of safety” for abortionists.
“We want to make sure providers know that we protect providers here,” Baston said. “We’re not necessarily stealing providers from other states. We’re just letting them know this is a safe space to practice.”
ChooseNJ.com screenshot (2022 billboard campaign)
This is not the first time that abortion advocates have launched billboard campaigns in order to promote abortion in states with preborn protections.
In 2023, Planned Parenthood ran a billboard campaign in Idaho, reminding the state’s residents that abortion was still legal in Washington and Oregon. That same year, the organization Shout Your Abortion ran a billboard campaign in southern states claiming, among other things, that the intentional and direct killing of preborn children by their own mothers is “God’s plan.”
In 2022, California Governor Gavin Newsom also pulled the religion card to promote abortion in states with pro-life protections, using a Bible verse in an attempt to persuade people across the country to travel to California to kill their preborn children.
Despite the attempt of New Jersey officials to attract abortionists, a recent study published in JAMA Network Open has shown that OB-GYNs in states with pro-life protections have not fled these states due to their inability to commit abortions. In fact, according to the study, there has been a greater increase of OB-GYNs in “abortion ban” states than in “abortion-protective” states.
