Every Saturday, a group of us gathers outside the Planned Parenthood headquarters in Rochester, N.Y., to pray and offer help to women. We say a Rosary, a Divine Mercy Chaplet, and assorted other prayers. This group actually got started praying outside another Planned Parenthood, but then that one closed. Hooray.
Every fourth Saturday we are joined by Protestant pro-lifers for Stand Together for Life. That larger, peaceful vigil begins with a Rosary, and is followed by Scriptures, hymns, updates on ministries and pro-life activities, and a featured speaker.
The music is often led by a fellow ex-seminarian.
The featured speaker today was Deacon Mike Kristan. In addition to his parish duties, Deacon Mike heads two ministries, one combating human trafficking, the other helping men fight sexual and porn addiction. He is also involved with a new initiative with his wife, Dr. Angela Kristan, a new, pro-life, pro-woman health center. Among the services the center will offer is assistance for those struggling with fertility, promoting ethical, moral treatments (and not IVF).
One of the myths about pro-lifers is that they don’t care about the women and children after birth. But the people involved with the Stand Togethers show this to be false.
Just diagonally across the street from Planned Parenthood is a Pregnancy Center where women and families can get infant clothes, car seats, diapers, clothing for older children and adults, food, pregnancy tests, referrals, sympathetic ears, and more. The center also sponsors an ultrasound van that comes on a regular basis to the offer an alternative to the women.
Some of the Stand Together leaders hold baby showers for the women they help, offer rides, provide support and mentoring, and more - and sometimes even take women into their own homes.
For some of the women, there are also alternative health care and housing assistance offered. One of the housing options is a home where women can live for up to two years while they do what they need to do to support themselves and their children - finding housing, finishing school, securing a job, etc. I helped to found that home.
The goals of our efforts at the Stand Togethers are to save lives, to protect and help women, to change hearts and minds, and, hopefully, to see abortion made illegal.
We will continue to pray until that occurs. Love will end abortion.
Pax et bonum
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