A Quiet Day for Life

Each of the past two years I have participated in the nationwide 40 Days for Life campaign at Regions Hospital in St. Paul (this will be my third year). This fall marks the largest campaign, yet, with vigils at 238 locations.

Today is Day 28 and, as of this morning, 337 babies have been saved in the current campaign. As national director, Shawn Carney, put it:

A baby saved, new people coming out to pray for the first time, and even the presence of pro-abortion opposition are all good signs that the campaign is working!

As for me, I will be heading in to St. Paul later this week.

It is the quiet that always strikes me there; outside the hospital, near the capitol and downtown. In light of the innocents who are at risk, it is easy to make martial comparisons, imagining yourself riding to the rescue. After all, it is spiritual warfare of a sort. Like any spiritual war, we begin with prayer and fasting. And we do call it a campaign. However, it can be in the quiet, even if it is there for only an instant, when a confused and desperate young woman chooses an alternative to abortion, when a staffer rolls the mouse to click the send button on his e-mail that objects to the hospital where he works running an unpublicized abortuary, when the Planned Parenthood counselor takes the first step out the door that she will never enter again. It often is in that instant of quiet that a person crosses the tipping point to the side of life.

And in the spirit of creating quiet, today is Pro-Life Day of Silent Solidarity.

Students from more than 3,500 school campuses are participating in Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity to raise awareness about the injustice of abortion by taking a vow of silence for one day in solidarity for the more than 3,000 children who die from abortion each day.

Red arm bands and duct tape will identify them as taking part in the Pro-life Day of Silent Solidarity.

Anyone can participate (you don’t even have to be a student) and you can use the time of silence to pray and fast for an end to abortion.

So stay quiet today. It'll do a baby some good.