GERMANTOWN, Maryland, December 7, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Hundreds of Maryland pro-life protesters gathered at the Germantown Reproductive Health Services abortion clinic on Monday morning, where they vowed to do all in their power to peacefully oppose Leroy Carhart’s deadly late-term abortion business.
Carhart recently abandoned his Nebraska late-term abortion business to escape a new law prohibiting abortions past 20 weeks based upon fetal pain, and has taken up shop at the Germantown, Md. Abortion clinic. Monday was his first day at the new facility.
In response, a crowd of pro-lifers gathered at a press conference to protest and join in “spiritual warfare” against the abortion industry. The event was hosted by Rev. Pat Mahoney from Christian Defense Coalition and Michael Martelli from Living Hope for Life.
“We will work to ensure that Maryland will not become the late-term abortion capital of America,” Mahoney vowed.
Pro-life leaders, including HLI interim president Msgr. Ignacio Barreiro, Concerned Women for America president Wendy Wright, Kristan Hawkins of Students for Life of America, and Peter Sprigg, Senior Fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council and a Germantown resident, also took to the podium to deliver strong words against Carhart’s deadly trade.
“This generation refuses to accept LeRoy Carhart’s vision of the world,” said Hawkins. “We refuse to buy into the lie that in order to achieve equality or in order to complete our education or to be successful in our careers that we must kill our own children and allow men like him to violate our bodies.”
Msgr. Barreiro emphasized that, “Our Lord wants us together to pray, to pray strongly that his will be done, and that not a single child in America and in the whole world will be killed by abortion. … We are committed that the abortionists will be converted. May the Lord hear our prayer.”
Another speaker prayed that God would “touch the heart of Leroy Carhart” to “change him and make him stand for you and your gift of life,” and to “give him a Damascus experience” like the apostle Paul, who “persecuted the most weak among us” before his conversion. Others prayed that the hearts of women contemplating abortion might soften towards life, and for post-abortive women to experience healing through faith in Jesus Christ.
At one point a pro-abortion “minister” with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice attempted to take the podium, before Rev. Mahoney emphasized that only pro-life clergy were to speak.
Pro-abortion protesters surrounded the podium with signs reading “pro-faith, pro-family, pro-choice” and “this clinic stays open.” Pro-lifers knelt quietly or stood with tape across their mouths bearing the word “life” to symbolize the silencing of unborn children. The event ended with a slow prayer procession around the abortion mill.