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2018 pro-life Christmas caroling

CHICAGO, Illinois, December 21, 2018 (LifeSiteNews)Pro-life advocates singing Christmas carols outside abortion facilities saved at least two lives from abortion this past weekend.

In Wood Dale, Illinois, a woman left the abortion facility where pro-life carolers were signing and came to tell them she and her boyfriend decided to keep their baby.

Similarly in Orange, California, a woman who had been moved by the caroling came out of the Planned Parenthood there, telling pro-lifers she had decided to keep her child.

Pro-lifers were able to get the Illinois couple to a local pregnancy center and give them a gift of baby booties for their child, according the Pro-Life Action League, and the California woman was also directed to a local pregnancy center and given a baby sweater for her child on the way.

The group has organized pro-life caroling in some form for 16 years, most recently with the Peace in the Womb theme.

“The fifth annual Peace in the Womb caroling day was a great success,” Pro-Life Action League Assistant Communications Director Matthew Yonke told LifeSiteNews. “With 96 locations nationwide, we brought the message of Christmas hope to abortion facilities from New York to California and all points between.”

With Christmas approaching, the Pro-Life Action League organizes the event as a reminder that while many are making joyful holiday plans, some mothers facing untimely pregnancies are making “much more sorrowful plans” in planning an abortion.

So to bring the light of Christmas to one of the darkest places there is – where babies are aborted – pro-life Christmas carolers met outside the Chicago-area abortion facilities and others this past Saturday, with the message of Christmas hope.

The Pro-Life Action League registered Peace in the Womb caroling events in some 30-plus states between Saturday and other December dates, with some still to come.

The Peace in the Womb caroling day allows pro-lifers to let women seeking abortions know through the Christmas hymns and their presence that there are other hopeful options, and to make help available to the women if they choose life for their child.

More than 90 people turned out Saturday to sing carols for the seven different abortion facilities in the two Illinois caroling tours – four on the Chicago tour, and three in DuPage County.

“We were thrilled to hear about two babies saved from abortion this year – that we know of,” Yonke said, “and there were very few negative interactions with police or passersby.”

The exceptions last Saturday occured in Chicago, where pro-life carolers had both pro-abortion counter-protesters attempting to drown out their carols with kazoos and interference from police.

Planned Parenthood called the police on the carolers at its Lasalle and Division location. Three squad cars arrived during the caroling to make the pro-life crew disperse, with police initially telling the group they had to move down the road because of the Chicago “Bubble Zone” ordinance. But the pro-lifers eventually convinced the officers the ordinance requires no such thing.

“The police interference is nothing new here in Chicago, where they have been misapplying the city's ‘bubble zone’ ordinance since the day it passed all the way back in 2010,” Yonke said. “Fortunately, after getting them to look at the actual text of the law, the officers backed off their misinterpretation and allowed the caroling to continue uninterrupted.”

Despite those difficulties, Pro-Life Action League Executive Director Eric Scheidler said he received great reports from pro-life caroling events held around the U.S. Saturday.

For example, passersby spontaneously joined the caroling group in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, and in Kettering, Ohio, the pro-life caroling group held a diaper drive for their local pregnancy resource center.

“And in Clearwater, Florida, the abortionist left early!” Scheidler said.

In Billings Heights, Montana, the group had a living nativity along with their caroling, with children dressed as angels and shepherds.

During caroling at AAnchor abortion facility in Glen Ellyn, Illinois, Scheidler offered a reflection on the meaning of Christmas that included the idea that the very bricks of AAnchor cry out for redemption.

“The message of the Christmas angels is, Be not afraid,” Scheidler said. “This is the same message our carolers are sharing with abortion-minded mothers.”

“Whatever fear might be bringing them to the abortion clinic,” he said, “we want to help, in any way that we can.”

Nine lives were saved nationwide with the 2016 pro-life caroling campaign, six in Orlando, Florida, alone.

The Pro-Life Action League expressed gratitude to everyone who came out around the country as part of this life-saving effort. The group looks forward to expanding to even more locations in 2019.