Texas Moves to Put Unborn Jesus Pro-Life Statue on Capitol Grounds

The Texas House of Representatives has advanced a plan to erect an 8-foot pro-life statue on the Capitol grounds. It is the Virgin Mary holding a fetus in a steel bowl.

The Senate Concurrent Resolution 19 does not refer to the Texas Life Monument as religious – it says “the bronze sculpture depicts a mother with an unborn child cradled in a world-shaped womb.” The artist, devout Christian Timothy Schmalz, said he initially intended the sculpture to depict Mary and Jesus. But now, placed on the grounds of the Capitol in the state which has led the charge on abortion bans, he said it takes on a more secular meaning as a celebration of life. The location in an anti-abortion state adds to the symbolism. He asked: “What better place than a place that is in a sense responsible for the protection of the new mothers within the world?”

When the first version of the sculpture was installed in Rome in 2022, Vatican News described it as “depicting the Blessed Virgin Mary with the unborn Christ.”

Another version of the monument, titled the National Life Monument, sits at a seminary in Washington D.C.

“Those are, in a sense, Christian places obviously, and what I love about this is that the message that we all should celebrate the mother is a message that is absolutely universal,” Schmalz told the Chronicle. “This does not look like a normal Mary with the blue veil and everything like that. Of course it does have a veil, but that's just part of the form that represents that swirl within the piece, but I hope that one can see their own mother in it.”

Given the steel womb’s visual similarity to a surgical bowl and the work’s pro-life nature, the Chronicle asked if the statue was meant to ask the question, what if Jesus was aborted? “Actually, that didn’t cross my mind at all,” Schmalz said. “But you know what they say: that a good piece of work finds its own symbols and people can interpret it in different ways, how they wish.”

He said the vision behind the bowl was to have a reflective material that viewers could see themselves in, or that the sunset could glow out of. In some ways, he said the piece offers a twist on the more than millenia-long Christian art tradition of depicting the Annunciation, when the angel Gabriel informed Mary she would carry the son of God. “This one just has a window so you can see what's inside,” he said.

The statue will be privately funded by donors, according to the resolution put forth by Sen. Tan Parker, R-Flower Mound. It won’t be Schmalz’s first statue in Austin, either. Placement of his Homeless Jesus sculpture – depicting a lifelike Jesus sleeping on a bench – was funded by an unknown donor. That statue received a blessing from Pope Francis near the beginning of his papacy, and landed in Downtown Austin at Central Presbyterian Church in 2015.

The Texas House passed the resolution Tuesday to approve this statue’s installation. Wednesday, it was sent to the Governor’s desk, on the same day that the House voted to advance the Life of the Mother Act, which aims to clarify when doctors can provide life-saving abortions. Under current Texas law – which bans all abortions except life-saving ones – doctors report that they’re not sure how close to death a woman must be before an abortion becomes legal.

“People are afraid to have children these days,” Schmalz said. “Well, this is a visual argument against that, and this is saying life is beautiful, so let's embrace it, and let's have more beautiful humans being created.”