Spring Break
'40 Days for Life' prays to end abortion
By: Melissa Appel
Issue date: 9/22/09 Section: News
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40 Days for Life is a 24-hour prayer vigil starting Wednesday until Nov. 3 in front of Planned Parenthood. Coalition for Life, which organizes the campaign, hopes the sight of people constantly praying in front of the business will cause others to think about abortion and the lives it affects.
The idea is to bring awareness in our community and an end to abortion in the Brazos County community," said Coalition for Life communications director Bobby Reynoso. "When you do it for 40 days straight, you have an intensive amount of prayer being shot up to heaven, and you have something tangible for people driving by."
40 Days for Life is a peaceful protest that consists of volunteers standing outside of Planned Parenthood to pray or to hold pro-life signs.
"We're not there to hurt people; we're there to educate people, make sure that people have taken an honest look to what abortion does to women," Reynoso said. "This is definitely something of an outreach - make them really think about what abortion is and what it does to them and their children."
While Coalition for Life stresses the peaceful nature of 40 Days for Life, Planned Parenthood and pro-choice groups have questioned the group's methods.
"They continue to do these 40 day harassment protests," said Abby Johnson, health center director for Planned Parenthood in Bryan. "It seems kind of silly because their claim is that the first year they did it, there was a reduction in the number of abortion procedures done, which is ridiculous because, if you look at our numbers, there has been a steady increase in all of our numbers."
Planned Parenthood said the event is more of an annoyance than an effective way to reduce the number of abortions performed.
"It is anything but silent," Johnson said. "They continue to harass our patients about getting any of our procedures. It's really just a nuisance. It's never slowed down our business."
40 Days for Life first began in College Station in 2004 with approximately 60 students and volunteers. By 2007, Coalition for Life had noticed that other communities had begun to mimic the 24-hour a day, seven days a week model of praying in front of abortion clinics. Today, the protest is a biannual event with participating cities around the state, country and world. More than 200 cities have organized 40 Days for Life campaigns for this fall.
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