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Pro-life prayer campaign targets abortion clinics
By Joyce Coronel, The Catholic Sun
February 21, 2008
A national Lenten prayer campaign that aims to stem the tide of abortions is off to a fast start in the Phoenix Diocese.
Dubbed “40 Days for Life,” the pro-life prayer effort is being waged at 12 local abortion clinics and is led by an East Valley mother of eight, Anita Usher.
Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted has endorsed the project.
In a recent letter to priests and parishioners of the diocese, Bishop Olmsted said, “It is my prayer that 40 Days for Life will grow to be a powerful movement in our nation’s history and that, cooperating with God’s grace, it will move us closer to the day when our unborn brothers and sisters are protected in law, and abortion, itself, becomes unthinkable.”
The prayer campaign began with a rally in the parking lot of the 1st Way Pregnancy Center Feb. 2. Kay Allen, the clinic’s executive director, said they addressed the role of the pregnancy centers in the pro-life movement, “working with one woman at a time and walking with a woman through her crisis instead of abandoning her to rhetoric.”
The crowd processed over to a nearby abortion clinic, the site of a 40 Days prayer vigil. A couple days into the prayer campaign, a woman who was seeking an abortion spoke with one of the people praying outside. The woman accepted an escort to 1st Way for a pregnancy test and ultrasound who then changed her mind about ending the pregnancy.
The 24-hour prayer vigils are part of what Usher sees as a spiritual battle in the quest to establish a culture of life. Providing assistance to women who may need help with a crisis pregnancy is a key element of the campaign.
At the corner of Alma School Road and Galveston Street in Chandler, a group of women prayed on a recent Friday morning in front of a plaza. Many might not know that, nestled alongside small businesses such as a vacuum repair shop and a chiropractor, is a Planned Parenthood.
At one Mesa location, the clinic is situated beside a restaurant.
Usher said she found irony and tragedy in the location of abortion clinics. Pushing an empty stroller, meant to symbolize the babies lost abortion, she pointed across the street to Community Church of God, a large, Protestant church.
St. Mary, her parish, is just blocks away. Sixth-grade students from St. Mary-Basha Catholic School are planning to join in the 40-day vigil.
“We’re letting them kill our brothers and sisters,” she said as her eyes filled with tears, noting that one of Planned Parenthood’s Mesa locations sits just blocks from St. Timothy Parish.
Fran August, a member St. Anne Parish in Gilbert, said that her pastor, Fr. Greg Schlarb, has been very supportive of the 40 Days for Life campaign. He had parishioners sign up and promise to help with the prayer vigils.
Genny Jones, the respect life coordinator for St. Anne, was also on hand to pray outside the clinic. Her pastor prays every day at Mass for the success of the campaign.
“We need people to come out and pray in front of every one of the Planned Parenthoods in this city,” Jones said. “Children are dying in many of these abortion facilities and where they are not dying they are being referred to place that will kill them.”
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