Fighting for the Unborn

Fighting for the UnbornCan prayer be one of the most powerful tools in the campaign for the sanctity of life across America? John Aman, president of Broward Right to Life, thinks so. He sees it as a “local solution to a national problem.”

Therefore, Aman and others have acted locally to join a national campaign called “40 Days for Life,” which is taking place this fall in 314 cities. Starting on September 26, activists started gathering in front of abortion centers in 49 states and the District of Columbia, as well as locations in seven Canadian provinces and four overseas nations.

The most visible component of 40 Days for Life is a peaceful prayer vigil carried on for 40 days outside places where children are aborted. In Fort Lauderdale, you can see people standing in front of the All Women’s Center at 2100 East Commercial Boulevard, seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Last year, this abortion center and the more than 20 others in Broward County performed more than 12,000 abortions. That is 33 babies a day—more than the number of children in the average Broward County school classroom.

But, through 40 Days for Life, the number of abortions in some communities is diminishing. When the first 40 Days for Life campaign was launched in Bryan and College Station, Texas in the fall of 2004, there was an astounding 28 percent decline in abortions in that community.

John Aman is serving as the campaign director for the Fort Lauderdale campaign. He says, “Prayer is an underused asset in the battle to defend unborn children. And it is the secret of the success of 40 Days for Life.”

That success includes saving 5,928 lives from abortion—and those are just the ones that are documented. However, this is not the only measure of the success of 40 Days for Life. In addition, 69 abortion workers have quit their jobs and 24 abortion facilities have closed their doors and stopped performing abortions following local 40 Days for Life campaigns in their communities. “We’re absolutely thrilled to be a part of this nationwide prayer effort and look forward to hearing about the babies saved and women protected from abortion here in Broward county, all because the people in Broward prayed,” says Aman.

Fort Lauderdale is one of the 46 first-time campaign locations this year, including one in Kampala, Uganda. During the local campaign, communities engage in prayer and fasting for an end to abortion and maintain a peaceful vigil outside local abortion centers. Not only does this result in saving the lives of children and alerting the community to the presence of abortion centers in their local area, it also protects women from the devastation that comes through abortion.

A new study recently published in Denmark has demonstrated that, compared to child birth, both early and late abortion is associated with a significantly higher risk of death to the mother. In the study, researchers reviewed medical records for almost half a million women who had their first pregnancies between 1980 and 2004 and compared these records with the death register and the abortion register. They limited their study to the maternal mortality associated with the first pregnancy.

The results were dramatic and conclusive: the women who delivered their babies had lower pregnancy-associated mortality rates than the women who had early or late abortions. This held true for every time period measured—from 180 days to 10 years following the abortions.

Furthermore, early-abortions (before 12 weeks) accounted for an 80 percent greater risk of mortality in the first year and a 40 percent greater risk of mortality over 10 years compared to the risk for women who gave birth.

Since the national 40 Days for Life ministry began carrying on its mission to “bring together the body of Christ in a spirit of unity during a focused 40 day campaign of prayer, fasting and peaceful activism,” more than 15,000 church congregations have participated in the 1,894 campaigns that have taken place in 440 cities. At total of over 525,000 individuals have joined together to pray and fast for an end to abortion.

As Lou Engle, president of The Call, a ministry that hosts 12 hour prayer rallies, says, “We have fought the battle for the ending of abortion in politics, in the press, on the ground, and in every way. But prayer and fasting is the most powerful weapon in the arsenal of the church to bring forth social justice. It affects the unseen world where spiritual powers release destructive ideologies.”

If you would like to know more about the local 40 Days for Life campaign and how you can be part of this local solution to the injustice of abortion, visit: 40daysforlife.com/fortlauderdale.

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