[Salvation]

UNITED TOUR: Texas (Day 2)

October 31, 2016

There are only two remaining abortion facilities left in Austin, Texas.

One is the Planned Parenthood center where local 40 Days for Life leader Heather Gardner gathered more than 125 people outside for our Austin rally.

One highlight of this rally was meeting a couple who got involved in Austin’s 40 Days for Life campaign to honor their daughter, who lost her life last year. They said she inspired them to follow her example and pray for an end to abortion.

Dr. Haywood Robinson, who serves on the 40 Days for Life board, spoke to the crowd. He talked about redemption – he once performed abortions, but now offers women life-affirming care at a new medical center housed in the former Planned Parenthood building in College Station, Texas.

In San Antonio, they remember the Alamo … and they also remember the unborn!

Thanks to God’s answer to your prayers, more than 12,000 babies have been saved from abortion during 40 Days for Life campaigns … and it sure helps that our local leaders can depend on life-affirming pregnancy resource centers to show mothers they have real options.

Peggy Hartshorn of Heartbeat International told the crowd that you always know when a 40 Days for Life vigil is going on … because there’s an increase in the number of mothers who visit pregnancy care centers. Your presence is really making a difference!

Houston is home to the largest abortion facility in the western hemisphere — the 78,000 square-foot Planned Parenthood buidling.

A great crowd came out for a candlelight vigil and was moved by the testimony of a post-abortive woman who shared about how she and her husband went through an abortion — 42 years ago. They later had three other children. The oldest was at the UNITED rally — the priest who offered the opening prayer!

[Salvation]

Birmingham, England

October 31, 2016

A couple entering the Marie Stopes facility in Birmingham was offered a leaflet, but the young man refused and said they had an appointment to keep.

The volunteer said, “Don’t keep your appointment — keep your baby!”

The man said he didn’t know what she was talking about and that there was no baby.

At that point, his girlfriend began to look a bit sheepish. “It was clear she hadn’t told him why they were coming there,” said Isabel, the local coordinator in Birmingham. “I presume she just said she had some woman’s health problem and he offered to accompany her.”

The volunteer explained to the man that their appointment was at an abortion facility. He then spoke quietly to his girlfriend, but he appeared upset.

They entered the building, but came out again only a few minutes later with a simple message for the volunteers: “We’ll be keeping our baby!”

A second couple arrived at Marie Stopes with their five children. One of the vigil participants took them aside – out of earshot of the children – to offer help. The dad admitted that they had nearly aborted their fourth and fifth children – but he also admitted he was glad they hadn’t.

“After twenty minutes,” Isabel said, “the couple decided they would keep this baby, too, and went happily away.”

As we’re more than a month into the campaign, the vigil’s opponents are getting flustered.

A man pulled up to the vigil site and snatched a couple of posters, threw them into his car and drove off. Volunteers later found him lurking around a block of flats … and soon found the pilfered posters in a rubbish bin.

Marie Stopes is also complaining to the advertising standards authority about the fetal development leaflets the volunteers distribute.

“These signs of opposition are confirming that we must be having an effect,” Isabel said, “and from the fact we’ve had four saves — it seems to be a very positive effect!”