Day Seven, received this e-mail from 40Days for Life.
Dear Jack,
I received a report from Houston that was both eye-opening and heartbreaking.
People participating in the 40 Days for Life vigil watched as a young man who appeared to be in tears walked into Planned Parenthood with his girlfriend and her mother.
When they left some time later, he was most certainly crying — and obviously quite upset.
I’ll let one of the prayer vigil participants pick up the story…
I watched him head down the street, alternating
between wiping the tears from his face and punching
the buildings in anger and frustration as he passed
them. Eventually he headed back toward the parking
lot. As he approached, I went to him first. All I
could think to say was that I was so very sorry for
his loss. He began to cry again.
Then a truck pulled up leaving the parking lot with
his girlfriend and her mother inside. The girl’s
mother yelled at him to get in and cursed him as he
opened the door. He had one foot inside, then
stepped back out and closed the door. As she drove
away he promptly sat down on the curb and cried
like a baby. Three of us sat down beside him — all
men — and cried with him.
Eventually, he began to talk. He was probably in
his very early twenties. He told us that his
girlfriend did not want to keep the child because
she feared they would not be able to provide for
him. He asked her how she could destroy a life
based on a hunch. He told her this child had a
heartbeat and a soul and deserved to live. He even
tried to convince her to, at the very least, put
the child up for adoption.
I was struck by the fact that this young man knew
all this simply because his heart told him it was
true. He was wise well beyond his years and he was
hurting terribly.
I was struck by the clear reality that fathers have
so little to do with whether their own children
live or die. I also couldn’t help but notice that
despite the high volume of Planned Parenthood
volunteers around, none of them approached him.
Before I left him, he stood up to hug me. All I
could tell him was what I truly believed — that
today, his child knows that his/her father fought
for it. That to his child, he is a hero and that
someday he would know that also.
Please pray for this young man and others like him.
The tragedy of abortion is real and happening every day. No one knows that better than he.
I sincerely hope this young man comes to embrace the exceptional advice he was given; but that will most certainly take time. I cannot even begin to imagine the anguish.
This is a first-person account of what abortion does to fathers. Who knows how many others have walked in his shoes, as there are more than a million abortions every year — and more than 50 million since the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that opened the floodgates to abortion on demand.
Let’s pray even harder!
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EWTN NETWORK TO AIR 40 DAYS FOR LIFE SPECIAL TONIGHT!
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Congratulations to Fort Howard Council #5382 for earning their third consecutive Columbian Award for the fraternal year 2008-2009.
