Billboards reading “Stop Having Kids” and similar slogans have been spotted across Texas.
Stop Having Kids (SHK) is an organization that seeks to normalize “antinatalism and childfreedom.”
According to their website, “Antinatalism is a stance that it is wrong for humans as a whole to procreate.”
The group’s “Why Humans Should Stop” page argues that because everyone experiences suffering, it “is in everyone’s best interest to not be forced into existence.”
The first billboard advertising campaign began in 2021 in Salem, Oregon, and the group soon began setting up activist chapters across the country. Members would stand in public areas holding signs that promote statements like “Normalize Antinatalism” and “Parenthood Regret Is a Silent Epidemic.”
Stop Having Kids spokeswoman Ashley Riddle told Willamette Week that the goal of street outreach is to have as many conversations as possible. “People share their stories about being child-free or wishing they were never born or their parents saying that they regret having them,” Riddle said.
According to a GoFundMe page used by the organization to raise money for signs in Houston, the billboards are currently located in the Austin area, Sugar Land, Cypress, and Pasadena, Texas.
This photo was taken by a member of my staff in Austin…
Make no mistake about it, THIS is the climate catastrophists' final goal. Their movement has always been anti-human — at least now they are being honest about it. pic.twitter.com/bIDdoKhL6B
— Wayne Christian (@ChristianForTX) July 11, 2023
In an April update on the page, SHK announced a generous donor completed their goal of $7,635, but “the entire city of Houston [was] unwilling to let SHK advertise.”
Notably, Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner was recently met with backlash for supporting a controversial anti-sex offender registry organization.
SHK’s webpage has also elevated the subreddit r/childfree, which follows the accounts of young women as they search for doctors who would sterilize them. SHK promotes female sterilization for women who have decided they do not want kids or for the purpose of “gender affirmation.”
Brady Gray, the president of Texas Family Project, told Texas Scorecard, “Initiatives like ‘Stop Having Kids’ are ignorant to the joys of parenthood and encourage a generation to live selfish lives. The sad reality is, for many who are deceived by this promise of ‘freedom’ and prosperity, by the time they realize the folly of their ways, it will be too late.”
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