The University of Houston canceled an event to introduce a new sculpture exhibited on campus after an outpouring of objections from antiabortion groups. The activists claim the sculpture displays satanic imagery and abortion rights messaging.

University officials say the event never happened last week because the artist was unavailable to give a scheduled talk. But the artist wrote on social media that she wasn’t the one who canceled.

The sculpture, “Witness,” by Pakistani American artist Shahzia Sikander, is slated for an eight-month stay at the Public Art of the University of Houston System collection. It features an 18-foot woman with thick, gold braids that resemble rams’ horns and arms and legs that look like roots. The woman also wears a hooped skirt with mosaic details and a distinctive collar that is an homage to the signature lace judicial collars worn by late U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

“The recent focus on reproductive rights in the United States after the Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade, which guaranteed the constitutional right to abortion, comes to the forefront,” Sikander wrote in an artist statement describing the symbolism of “Witness” and a second sculpture called “NOW” installed in New York. “The enduring power lies with the people who step into and remain in the fight for equality. That spirit and grit is what I want to capture in both the sculptures.”

The sculptures are part of a multimedia collection, co-commissioned with the Madison Square Park Conservancy in New York, called “Havah … to breathe air, life,” referring to the Urdu word for “air” or “atmosphere” and the name of the biblical figure Eve in Hebrew and Arabic.

Sikander was scheduled to give a talk about the artwork at an opening event on Feb. 28, but the sculpture swiftly drew condemnation from antiabortion organizations on and off campus, The Texan and other local news outlets reported.

Texas Right to Life, an antiabortion advocacy organization, released a blistering statement, describing the sculpture as having “satanic imagery to honor abortion” and memorialize Ginsburg. The group referred to it as an “idol” with “braids shaped like goat horns and arms like tentacles” and called for it to be protested. The statement also highlighted an interview Sikander did with The New York Times in which she said her other sculpture was called “NOW” because reproductive rights are currently under attack. (“NOW” is also a gold, female figure with ram-like horns and roots for arms and legs.) The group also took issue with Sikander saying Eve could be considered the “first lawbreaker” in a video about her artwork.

“Disobedience to God certainly should not be esteemed by society, much less lauded with a statue,” the statement read. “On the contrary, art should reflect truth, goodness, and beauty: three timeless values that reveal the nature of God. Art cannot have beauty without truth. Art cannot have truth without goodness. A statue honoring child sacrifice has no place in Texas.”

Coogs for Life, an antiabortion student group on campus, also said on Instagram that the artwork “idolizes abortion.”

“Moments like these are what remind us of what we stand for, and how much we are committed to it,” the post read. “The pro-life movement persisted under Roe v. Wade, and we will persist even with the erection of this statue on our doorstep.”

Canceled

Bryan Luhn, interim director of media relations at University of Houston, wrote in an email to Inside Higher Ed that the opening event was canceled because of the “unavailability of the artist.”

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