By Elizabeth O’Brien

COLLEGE STATION, Texas, July 26, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A groundbreaking, grassroots campaign has taken hold of communities throughout the United States. The mission is to storm Heaven with 40 days of prayer and fasting for an end to abortion.

David Bereit, a noted pro-life speaker from Texas who pioneered this campaign, stated in a press conference that the movement was born out of the "prayer and frustration" of pro-life activists. He said that increasingly many people have felt worn out with the pro-life battle and discouraged by the apathetic silence of their local churches. In 2004, however, a small group of volunteers banded together in College Station Texas, calling out to God to re-energize the pro-life movement. Less than three weeks later the first 40 Days for Life (40 DFL) Campaign began.

The 40 DFL are an intense time during which people pray, fast and spread the pro-life message throughout their community. The movement is a wake-up call, said Bereit, restoring a sense of urgency in the fight against the industry that claims the lives of 4000 unborn babies each day in America.

The components of the campaign are very simple, but not easy. In fact, Bereit claimed that it might be the "single probably most challenging activity I have ever participated in during my time involved in pro-life efforts." First, it starts with prayer and fasting. This means starting with God and begging him to allow the nation to repent. There is an "incredible spiritual power" in fasting, says Bereit, which not only includes food, but anything people decide to sacrifice. Throughout the entire effort, underlined Bereit, "you have to be willing to do more than you are asking anyone else to do."

Secondly, the campaign entails a 24-hour vigil. This will take place around the clock for a total of 960 hours in front of the local abortion clinic or Planned Parenthood office. It brings public attention to what is going on, sends a message to clinic employees, and helps any young women who might be considering an abortion.

Finally, a grassroots outreach movement is necessary to reach every corner of the community. Door-to-door and word of mouth invitations to join people in prayer have gained the movement tremendous media coverage, first locally, then state-wide and internationally.

Shawn Carney, host and executive producer of the new EWTN show "beingHUMAN," described the overwhelmingly positive results. After the 2004 campaign in College Station, over 1000 people in the local community got involved in the pro-life movement, and pregnancy centers saw a huge increase in visitations. Participants reached out to 25,000 homes in the area to spread the pro-life message. Most importantly, he added, abortion numbers went down by 28% that year. "Lives were saved at the end of the day," and hope was restored in the community. Other communities throughout the States joined in and reported a miraculous birth of fresh spirit and increased numbers joining the pro-life movement.

Since then, 40 DFL has proposed a nationwide Campaign that will take place this fall. Countless communities and thousands of people will join in solidarity across the United States as they pray and fast together.

From August 7-15th communities will be able to register for the National 40 Days for Life Campaign. Communities don’t need big numbers; the event is tailor-made to the needs and resources of each. The bottom line requirement is that the effort must remain "peaceful, prayerful and legal" at all times.

From August 16 to September 25 will be a period of training during which communities will receive weekly conference calls, planning guidelines, flyers, and other literature. Communities will also be able to set up an interactive web presence on the 40 DFL website to start networking with others.  Finally, from September 26 through November 4 the actually Prayer and Fasting Campaign will take place.

Dave Bereit challenged people to join in, saying, "This is the time to make a decision to do something. I believe that this fall people of faith across our country are going to transform our nation and are going to shape history and are going to mark the beginning of the end of abortion."

He continued, "And you have a decision to make. Are you going to be on the front line being able to tell your children and your grandchildren, ‘I was right there when history was being shaped.’ Or are you going to sit on the sidelines and just watch as history is shaped and passes you by."

Already 400 communities in 45 states have expressed interest in the campaign, and 1600 people have downloaded the planning instructions manual. In Wisconsin alone, 40 DFL is scheduled to take place in front of every single abortion clinic in the state this fall.

Downloadable 40 Days for Life Report:
http://www.40daysforlife.com/about.cfm

40 Days for Life Sign-Up:
http://www.40daysforlife.com/splash.cfm

See previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

‘40 Days for Life’ Vigil outside Houston Planned Parenthood Clinic
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2006/oct/06100207.html

40 Days for Life - Praying and Fasting Outside Planned Parenthood for All of Lent
http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07030604.html

WASHINGTON, D.C., July 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – After the Supreme Court's ruling that same-sex “marriage” is a constitutionally guaranteed right, many Americans have asked, “How did we get here?” Last month's opinion tells us the road stretches back more than 50 years.

Justice Anthony Kennedy's ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges gave additional proof that the legal basis for same-sex “marriage” is inextricably tied up with abortion-on-demand and other aspects of the sexual revolution.

In his 5-4 decision, Justice Kennedy says the newly discovered constitutional right to enter into a homosexual “marriage” is granted, in part, by the “right to privacy.”

That right, first propounded by the court in 1965's Griswold v. Connecticut ruling, also conferred a woman's right to abortion-on-demand, according to the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

“Same-sex couples have the same right as opposite-sex couples to enjoy intimate association,” Justice Kennedy wrote last month, in an opinion that quoted Griswold. “Like choices concerning contraception, family relationships, procreation, and child-rearing, all of which are protected by the Constitution, decisions concerning marriage are among the most intimate that an individual can make.”

“As far as the right to life is concerned, that is the most troubling line in the opinion,” wrote Kelsey Hazzard, a pro-life lawyer, in an analysis of the decision posted at the Secular Pro-Life blog. That sentence “can be read as polite legalese for killing preborn children.”

But Kennedy actually put the same-sex “marriage” case on stronger ground even than abortion. “Justice Kennedy was smart,” Hazzard wrote. “By writing an opinion that does not cite any abortion cases, he has assured that Obergefell will withstand the reversal of Roe and Casey.”

Instead, he based his argument in part on the case that granted Americans the right to use contraception.

That lawsuit was brought by Estelle Griswold, the former executive director of Planned Parenthood in New Haven, against the state of Connecticut. Lawmakers had passed a law forbidding anyone, married or unmarried, from using contraception. Planned Parenthood challenged the law all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

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On June 7, 1965, Planned Parenthood prevailed.

Justice William O. Douglas wrote that, while the “right to privacy” is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution – much less the right to birth control – the idea flows from ideas embedded in the Constitution.

“Specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance,” he wrote.

For the state to determine whether married couples used contraception would require an invasion of their privacy, Douglas wrote; thus, couples had an inalienable right to contraception.

“Griswold took a major leap for women’s health by removing state interference with one of the most important and private decisions an individual considers: whether and when to have a child,” wrote Elizabeth G. Taylor, the executive director of the National Health Law Program (NHeLP).

That ruling applied only to married couples. The right to privacy was then extended for unmarried individuals to use contraception in the High Court's Eisenstadt v. Baird decision in 1972.

And one year later, the right to privacy emanated further, to grant women the “right to choose” an abortion.

Over the last 50 years, the “right to privacy” has been used to cover every form of sexual practice, displacing the public's right to object on moral grounds – something contained in Kennedy's 2003 Lawrence v. Texas ruling.

Finally, last month, that right – granted in Griswold and expanded in Eisenstadt, Roe, and Casey – demanded a nationwide legal recognition of homosexual relationships on par with heterosexual marriages.

Thus, Lauren Barbato could write in Bustle that “marriage equality may very well not be here on June 27, 2015, without Estelle Griswold and her fight to provide birth control to New Haven couples.” 

July 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – The Nigerian Catholic Bishops Conference has made a forthright defense of the institution of marriage, following the U.S. Supreme Court decision redefining the institution and an Irish popular referendum ushering the new definition of marriage into the Emerald Isle.

"The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria would like to once again reiterate the perspective of the Church on more recent developments concerning the sanctity and dignity of human life and the institutions of marriage and the family all across the world," reads the statement signed by Archbishop Ignatius Kaigama of Jos, president of the Nigerian Bishop’s Conference, and Conference Secretary Bishop William Avenya of Gboko.

The Nigerian bishops write in the statement, released on Wednesday, that the intensifying homosexual political pressure "will tend to provoke a notable and rapid shift in public opinion about the nature and meaning of marriage and family as it has been known for millennia," which has in turn has resulted in legislative and judicial maneuvers to redefine marriage.

"We wish to state that this is a sad, unjust and lamentable situation based largely upon a distorted perception of natural law, the will of God and human nature," the bishops say.

The bishops note that many of the world's leading economies – including Canada, France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and now the United States of America – have gone down the path of legalizing same-sex "marriage". That worries them that these nations will exert economic and cultural pressure on traditional societies' “morality and values.”

The bishops expressed concern at "the persistent and continuous propagation and globalization of the homosexual lifestyle and the effort to redefine marriage which is a distorted view of human sexuality, coming especially from the Western world.”

The bishops call on Nigerian legislators to wary of accepting these Western trends, for the sake of families, because "endorsing homosexual unions or 'same-sex marriage' will be devastating and detrimental to our nation of Nigeria, as it will lead to the inevitable deconstruction of the family and the society at large, with other serious but negative implications."

Furthermore, they appeal to those involved in media, music, entertainment, teaching, medicine, marketing and business "to become faithful gatekeepers by protecting the public from the infiltration of this propaganda, which is often spread through various media and forums."

Finally, they appeal to parents to teach their children "the immutable meaning of marriage so as to strengthen them to stand fearless by the indelible truth in a rapidly changing world," and to young people to hold firmly to the "sound religious and cultural values that celebrate the beauty and blessings of marriage as the lifelong union between one man and one woman."

"We hereby re-emphasize," the Nigerian bishops conclude, "that marriage is the sacred union of one man and one woman for the begetting and care of children. It forms the core of the family, which is the bedrock and foundational cell of our civilization and as such judges to shun all pressures and protect all Nigerians from the growing but dangerous influence of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender propaganda."

The Catholic bishops of Nigeria have repeatedly and unequivocally expressed their support for the protection of life, real marriage, family, and human dignity, and denounced the attempts by Western countries to impose the culture of death on Nigeria.

“The right to life is the first of all fundamental human rights,” the bishops stated in a document published at the end of the Plenary Assembly held in February 2013, under the theme of "Faith and Dignity of the Human Being."

A communiqué issued last year following an international pro-life march and conference organized by the Catholic Bishops of Nigeria held in Abuja called for the Church to be “more courageous and consistent in pro-life activities in favor of human life, marriage and the family as counter-cultural antidotes to anti-life ideologies and practices.”

The Catholic bishops of Nigeria's Ibadan Ecclesiastical Province said in a statement at the beginning of their International Pro-life and Pro-family Conference held at the University of Ibadan in April that "the adoption or promotion of same-sex unions undermines the right to life, right to freedom of conscience, religious liberty, respect for moral and cultural values.”

"It also harms the innocence of children, degrades marriage and family life and destabilizes society, now and in the future," the Ibadan bishops stated.

The full text of the July 8th statement on the stand of the Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria on Marriage, Family and Human Society is available here.

GENEVA, July 9, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) – A pro-family resolution has been passed by the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva of “unprecedented” force and reach, thanks to a coalition of African and other developing countries, China and Russia and a support group of socially conservative NGOs.

“This is unprecedented, a tremendous victory for the family,” Sharon Slater, the head of Family Watch International, told LifeSiteNews. “It is the first time ever in the history of the United Nations that a comprehensive resolution has been passed calling for the protection of the family as a fundamental unit of society, recognizing the prior right of parents to educate their children, and calling on all nations to create family-sensitive policies and recognize their binding obligations under treaty to protect the family.”

The voting on the “Protection of the Family” resolution was 27 for and 14 against, Slater noted. Those opposing the motion included the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland and other Western European countries, while its sponsors included Russia, China, Belarus, and more than a dozen Muslim and African countries. The four abstaining members of the council—Brazil, Mexico, Argentina and Macedonia—probably were forced to do so by the rich countries opposing the bill.

“The developed countries probably put huge pressure on the others to stop the bill or insert amendments undermining its intent by threatening to withhold foreign aid,” said Slater. “We applaud those who were able to stand up for the family, and we ask people to write to them to thank them.” (FWI provides a webpage to help people send these supportive letters.)

Austin Ruse of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM), also termed the resolution “a tremendous victory for the pro-family world” and a defeat for the small but powerful group of anti-family groups supported by developed countries and the United States. Several attempts were made by feminist and pro-LGBT groups to first defeat and then amend the resolution by inserting “reproductive rights”--a euphemism for abortion, and by replacing “the family” with “families” and by inserting inclusive language to apply the resolution to sexual minorities.

The passage of the resolution was predictably condemned by feminist and sexual advocacy groups. The Sexual Rights Initiative, for example, called it “a set back to the advancement of the human rights of individuals as it seeks to elevate the family as an institution in need of protection without acknowledging the harms and human rights abuses that are known to occur within families, or recognizing that diverse forms of family exist.”

Specifically, it claimed, “Families perpetuate patriarchal oppression, traditions and harmful practices, and…human rights abuses do occur within families (i.e., marital rape, child abuse, FGM [female genital mutilation], early and forced marriage, dowry related violence, so-called ‘honour’ killings and other forms of domestic violence).”

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Nonetheless, said Ruse, “The globe was with us on this resolution. Only a small number of countries backed the LGBT agenda. You can be certain the United States lobbied with great energy against this resolution. Supporting the LGBT agenda is a primary objective of U.S. foreign policy.”

Slater said the resolution was particularly significant because its preamble assembled dozens of past UN resolutions, binding treaties and foundational declarations, all recognizing “the family” as a cornerstone of society, a defender of human rights, a transmitter of social, cultural and religious values, primary educator of youth, and, just in time for current negotiations at the UN in New York City on sustainable development, a positive force for economic development.

Significantly, the resolution also recognized the family as a “crosscutting” value—one that national policy makers must avoid weakening in pursuit of other policy goals.

Ruse said that the UN bureaucracy, including the High Commission on Human Rights, act as if the United Nations already protect sexual orientation or gender identity from discrimination, even though this has not been recognized in resolutions. “The bureaucracy is out of control.”

Nonetheless, said FWI’s Slater, the passage of such a powerful resolution will undermine efforts of feminist or LGBT lobbyists to use the UN to bend individual countries to their agenda. “The next step is to get pro-family language and policies included in the policies on sustainable development,” said Slater.

The victory marks the growing impact of the UN Family Rights Caucus, a coalition of pro-family NGOs that supported the national delegations in Geneva.