- DALLAS, Texas, January 20, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-lifers in Dallas are celebrating 2011 as a “record year” in which the lives of 819 babies were saved from certain and terrible death at the city’s five abortion clinics.
“We are not responsible for these ‘saves,’” local pro-lifer Becky Visosky told LifeSiteNews, “we are merely instruments of God’s grace. His compassion is what converts hearts and saves precious lives. We are just blessed to stand in the gap to offer His hope to the hopeless.”
The year’s record number of saves for the city’s pro-lifers was a 276 increase from 2010, in which 543 babies were saved. Dallas pro-lifers led by the Catholic Pro-Life Committee of North Texas and the Respect Life Ministry of the Diocese of Dallas have recorded 5522 babies saved from abortion since their pro-life ministry took off in 1997.
Staff at Dallas’ abortion clinics were reportedly not pleased by the large loss of business.
“At least two of the five clinics have attempted to make women’s access to the sidewalk counselors more difficult,” said Visosky, Director of Communications for the Respect Life Ministry in the Catholic diocese of Dallas.
The Routh Street Women`s Clinic reportedly rerouted its clients to prevent them from interacting with sidewalk counselors. Another abortion mill, Southwestern Women`s Surgery Center, went as far as placing “visual property lines on the cement,” says Visosky, and has tried to “dissuade counselors from talking to clients and from displaying signs offering information and free services to pregnant women.”
Despite the efforts of abortion staff to stop the pro-lifers from reaching out to abortion-minded women, Visosky knows with certainty that their pro-life efforts are changing hearts and saving lives.
While there were 819 confirmed saves last year, there were almost as many “hopeful turnaways,” with 740 women departing the abortion centres but without vocally confirming their intent to choose life.
“If an abortion-minded woman who has been counseled affirmatively tells us that she has decided not to abort her child, and she departs from the abortion center (with no record of her return), she is counted as a confirmed save,” said Visosky.
The Dallas pro-lifers believe that the vast majority of women who come to an abortion centre do not want an abortion but are there because they feel like they have no other choice. The baby is not “the problem”, the pro-lifers say, but “the woman’s circumstances”. With this mindset, the group presents itself as a peaceful, prayerful presence that is there to listen to women and to offer them loving alternatives to the pain — both for the mother and her baby — of abortion.
The Dallas pro-life team heavily invests their time to reach out to women seeking abortion, maintaining a pro-life presence at the city’s five abortion clinics during an accumulated 100 hours per week. The pro-life presence is always supported by prayer partners, says Visosky.
“We did make a concerted effort to ‘step up’ not only our prayers but also our expectant faith as a community last year,” says Visosky. The pro-lifers’ theme last year was, “It’s Time for the Miraculous!” which Visosky says was based on the words of Jesus where he speaks about having ‘faith to move mountains.’”
The prayers of the Dallas pro-lifers is not only moving mountains, but moving abortion clinics. There were 13 abortion clinics operating in Dallas in 1990. Now there are only five.
“We increased our faith and began to pray specifically that the ‘mountain’ of each abortion center in Dallas would ‘move’ out of Dallas, that the ‘mountain’ of each person’s heart, especially those seeking abortions, would ‘move’ to conversion, and that God would work greater miracles than we had ever seen before. We did, and He did!”
Dallas pro-lifers are marking Saturday’s 39th anniversary of the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, which has resulted in the death of over 52 million children in America, with a March for Life and a pro-life rally. They were 9,000 strong last year, says Visosky, and are hoping for an even greater attendance this year.
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