Pulse

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We are winning the battle for life at the local level. Abortion facilities continue to close at a record pace … including 87 closures in 2013, which is the most since Roe v. Wade.

40 Days for Life has worked closely with pregnancy resource centers … by partnering with them locally and speaking at their events, highlighting the need for their life-saving work.

These wonderful organizations are the unsung heroes of the pro-life movement as they offer free alternatives to abortion, including ultrasounds, pregnancy tests and materials for newborn babies.

Pregnancy help centers now outnumber abortion facilities in the United States 3 to 1. Praise God! When 40 Days for Life campaigns work closely with pregnancy care centers, it saves lives. Here are just a few examples.

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ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI

A St. Louis vigil participant tells of a young woman whose unborn baby was diagnosed with a heart defect. The doctor told her that might be an indication of Down syndrome, so she was encouraged to have an abortion.

She didn’t want that, but she had no insurance and nowhere to turn.

But when she and a relative approached this volunteer outside Planned Parenthood, he directed them to the pregnancy care unit across the street. As they left later, he asked if they’d found the help they needed. They smiled and gave a big thumbs-up.

“Simply hearing this story moves my heart with gratitude,” said Brian, the 40 Days for Life leader in St. Louis. “What a blessing … to affirm the life of this woman and her child, even when others refused to.”

FORT MYERS, FLORIDA

An abortion-minded young woman arrived at the pregnancy help center that’s across the street from the Planned Parenthood facility … which is where the 40 Days for Life vigil is in progress.

She asked the help center’s staff, “What are those people doing on the sidewalk? Are they always there?”

“She was told that they are 40 Days for Life volunteers who are praying for her and her baby,” said Paula, the local coordinator in Fort Myers. “By the time she left the clinic, she had told the staff that she’d had a change of heart and decided to keep her baby!”

Paula said the vigil’s prayer location is far from Planned Parenthood’s front doors, and it’s often difficult to reach out to women on their way inside. “So it means volumes to our team to hear this good news.”

BOISE, IDAHO

40 Days for Life participants in Boise have been praying for a 19-year-old who was 15 weeks pregnant. Karen, the local leader in Boise, says the teen and her mother went to Planned Parenthood to ask about an abortion.

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However, they also went to the pregnancy help center next door to get a free ultrasound. “In spite of compassionate care and counseling,” Karen said, “the mother took her daughter back to Planned Parenthood, where they discovered the abortion could not be performed there this late into the pregnancy.”

Planned Parenthood referred her to another abortionist, who could only offer the girl and her mother a list of late-term facilities in other states.

“All this time,” Karen said, vigil participants “were praying and praying — and asking if we had heard anything.” The director of the pregnancy care center stayed in touch with the girl and her mother. The girl said she had been taking pre-natal vitamins, which the director saw as a positive sign.

The mother finally acknowledged that her daughter would not be having an abortion and was going to have the baby. It took a lot of work – but obviously, it was worth it!

Reprinted with permission from 40 Days for Life.