Pro-abortion NYC statue moving to St. Louis park, official says

Missouri’s attorney general criticized on Thursday a soon-to-be-installed statue in a St. Louis park neighborhood. Attorney General Catherine Hanaway said a statue promoting abortion would be installed Monday between two churches in Fox Park. The state attorney general claimed that residents have lamented the sculpture as a “demonic affront to faith.” She also contended that neighborhood residents had little ability to give their input on the art before it was installed.

The attorney’s general office confirmed to WORLD that the statue called “Witness” was created by Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander in 2023. The 18-foot-tall sculpture is of a gold-colored woman, with spiraling horns, whose limbs turn into roots, and who wears a hoop-skirt frame. In a previous statement, Sikander said the work portrayed the spirit and grit of women who fight for the ability to have abortions, mentioning the late Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

WORLD has reached out to Sikander for comment on Hanaway’s remarks, but did not immediately hear back.

Has the statue been protested before? The sculpture was first displayed in New York City’s Madison Square Park before being moved to the University of Houston in 2024. But Texas Right to Life called the statue a satanic memorial to Justice Ginsburg. Several conservative groups joined in protesting the work. Later that year, an unknown individual beheaded the statue as Hurricane Beryl passed through Houston. Sikander wrote in a Washington Post op-ed that she planned not to repair the statue to recognize the hatred and division in society.

The neighborhood’s park was first established in St. Louis in 1917. It features statues of figures such as the crusader king Louis IX of France, President Thomas Jefferson, and St. Francis of Assisi.