Planned Parenthood launches ‘40 Days of Prayer’ for abortion

by Kathleen Gilbert

SRPP 'Clergy for Choice'

EUREKA, California, April 11, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Although Planned Parenthood has frequently complained of pro-life prayer vigils - particularly the biannual 40 Days for Life Campaign - one California Planned Parenthood affiliate seems to have chosen an unusually direct way of countering such efforts.

Last month, Six Rivers Planned Parenthood (SRPP) of Eureka, California, launched a campaign called the 40 Days of Prayer: Supporting Women Everywhere. The campaign, as noticed by Liberty Counsel, lists 40 different prayers for those involved in the “sacred care” of abortions to continue protecting, providing, and embracing the procedure - including mothers, escorts, abortionists, and everyone involved except the unborn children.

Some examples include Day 14, a prayer for “Christians everywhere to embrace the loving model of Jesus in the way he refused to shame women,” and Day 38, for “a cloud of gentleness to surround every abortion facility. May everyone feel calm and loving.”

The event is scheduled from March 18 to April 27 and includes several local gatherings “in celebration of women and reproductive rights,” according to a press release.

The campaign is being advertised under SRPP’s Clergy for Choice, who bill themselves as “religious leaders who value all human life.” The prayers themselves are credited to Faith Aloud, a “religious and ethical voice for reproductive justice” based in St. Louis.

The event appears to mimic an increasingly prominent thorn in Planned Parenthood’s side.

The 40 Days for Life Campaign, an emphatically peaceful prayer and fasting event in hundreds of cities in the U.S. and around the world, has reported saving at least 5,838 children from abortion, closing 22 abortion clinics, and prompting 69 providers walk away from abortion work since its inception in 2007.

Planned Parenthood affiliates have derided the campaign as “40 days and nights of intimidation and harassment” and routinely encourage supporters to pledge a donation for every new pro-life witness praying outside abortion clinics during the events.

Liberty Counsel likened Planned Parenthood’s latest tactic to Nazi Germany’s attempts to use religion to dehumanize the portions of society they sought to exterminate.

“Planned Parenthood’s attempts to develop a ‘spiritual’ aspect to the pro-abortion argument can seem comparable to the religious leaders in Germany who supported Adolf Hitler and the Nazis. It was wrong then and it is wrong now,” wrote LC in a press release Tuesday.

David Bereit, National Director of 40 Days for Life, told LifeSiteNews.com that the counter-campaign wasn’t entirely new.

“Some say that ‘imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,’ but when that imitation is being used to promote the killing of innocent children, we are anything but flattered,” said Bereit.

While he has seen the same “prayers” mockingly displayed outside during 40 Days for Life campaigns,” he said it was the first time he had seen the invocations officially sponsored by a Planned Parenthood affiliate.

“Planned Parenthood has stooped to a new low by exploiting pastors and churches to ‘celebrate’ the slaughter of babies made in God’s image and likeness,” he said. “They certainly wouldn’t be doing this if 40 Days for Life wasn’t having a devastating impact on their abortion business!”