Just WHO is Interfering with Choice?

This year, over 330 women have gone to the abortion center intending to destroy their child, and instead turned away. They chose life, and every one of them that requested the help of Cities4Life ministry and its partner ministries has received it. Countless lives have been transformed by the redemptive message of the Gospel and the tangible help of loving Christians and the network of pro-life ministries in our city.

Friday, I was calling out to a woman sitting on the steps outside the abortion center. I suspected she had a friend in the center, so was sharing life affirming information: 

The truth of God. The truth of tangible resources and help we could offer. The truth of human development in the womb. The truth of the devastation of abortion. 

I don’t always use a megaphone because I don’t want to look like a cheerleader, but the more days and longer I am on the sidewalks of the abortion center, the more compromised my vocal cords become. I need the megaphone for my quiet voice to reach the women.

At any rate, as I was calling out, one of the “pro-choice” women tried to block me by standing an inch from me and holding two 3x4 foot foam signs in my face. I am an avid biker, runner, and kayaker...so could probably outlast anyone on that sidewalk in a pacing contest. I spoke while pacing back and forth. It would have been comical watching the “pro-choice” woman try to stay even with me, especially when I did quick pivots, had it not been a life or death struggle for the baby involved. I KNOW that our ministry can help those women and babies. 

Why would the people who espouse the religion of CHOICE not want this choice to be heard?

“This is harassment,” the ‘Pro-choice’ woman cried, whipping out her phone to videotape me, “She doesn’t want to listen to you.”

“Ma’am,” I said to the woman, “Do you want me to stop talking?” 

“No,” she said, “I may not listen but you don’t have to stop talking.”

So I didn’t stop. Not till she told me that she had heard enough now.

One woman chose life, and stopped in the driveway and tried to reach out for our information. Three ‘pro-choice’ people blocked her from our counselor and screamed at her to drive on, move out of the driveway. She drove away, without our name and number and countless resources that could help her in her pregnancy and early years with that baby.

The FACE act (Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances) prohibits certain activity by “protesters” outside abortion clinics. We cannot obstruct or interfere with traffic or people in and out of the clinic. Challenges to the FACE act went to the Supreme Court level with the determination that sidewalk counselors could step towards cars or pedestrians to offer them literature as long as we did not hinder or interfere their forward progress. The FACE act specifically defines “interfere” as “to restrict a person’s freedom of movement.”

A couple of days ago, a policeman told us we could not step across the driveway to offer literature to a stopped car as it was “interfering” with the vehicle’s progress. He said it was based on a city ordinance. I asked him to define interference. He said it was not defined. I asked if he knew about the FACE act which did define interference and did give us the right to step towards a car to offer literature. He was not familiar with it. I asked if a city ordinance could be in violation of a Federal law. He said he was just doing what he was told by his superiors to do. However, we showed him the FACE act and the definition of interference and how it conflicted with what the city was claiming we could not do. He said he would get back to us.

That day, I received a text from a mom in an abusive situation, under threat of homelessness, who stopped for our literature earlier in the week. She saw her twins on our ultrasound, chose life, received a whole host of resources and help, including domestic violence resources and counsel, job assistance, housing resources, and free counseling for both her and her estranged husband. In a week, nearly every issue she presented as the reason to abort has been  altered. She said she is so excited about her twins...and so grateful to us for “interfering” in her plans to abort.

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Today is my birthday. Rather than sending me the gifts you had planned to FedEx my way (;-D), consider sending a donation to Cities4Life to help fund legal counsel in fighting the attempts to shut us down. Maybe a baby doomed to die at that abortion center will instead be celebrating a birthday...like this one:

Isaiah 55:11 

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.