By Tom Strode
WASHINGTON (BP) -- When 40 Days for Life launched a nationwide campaign in 2007, no plan existed for a follow-up. That fall effort was both the first and only, as far as its leaders knew.
"We had no intention of doing a second campaign," said Shawn Carney, 40 Days for Life's campaign director. "I think the summer of '07, if you could sum it up for me, we had absolutely no idea what we were getting into."
Now, more than five years later, the organization's twice-yearly events have become a vital, inspirational component of the pro-life movement. When volunteers gathered Feb. 13 at 261 locations for the first day of the latest campaign, they did so with a significant record of participation and results. Since 2007, reports by 40 Days for Life regarding its campaigns show:
-- More than 6,700 unborn children have been spared from abortion.
-- 28 abortion facilities have closed, and 76 clinic workers have left their jobs.
-- More than 550,000 people representing more than 15,500 churches have participated.
In addition, thousands of women and men have avoided the consequences of choosing abortion, many post-abortive women have received help and untold numbers have become active in the pro-life movement.
What has happened since that first campaign has confirmed the accuracy of a sense the leaders of 40 Days held regarding pro-lifers and abortion.
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Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press
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