Healing effort to focus on pro-life advocates in November

 

Silent No More Awareness Campaign

   
 
Pro-life activists are often cursed at, spat on, occasionally assaulted and often reviled in the media. As difficult as that can be, what really can crush the spirit of some pro-lifers is knowing that, despite their best efforts, abortion continues to kill thousands of children every single day.
 
To help pro-lifers continue to carry the cross for the unborn, Healing the Shockwaves of Abortion in November focuses on how activists and advocates can find healing for themselves.
 
“November gives us the opportunity to focus exclusively on how each abortion impacts pro-life advocates. We rejoice when we save lives; we also have to know how to grieve when the lives we tried to save are killed nonetheless,” said Father Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life and pastoral director of the Silent No More Awareness Campaign, which launched Shockwaves in January.
 
Healing the Shockwaves of Abortion is a year-long international educational and pastoral effort to raise awareness about and minister to a wide variety of groups of people who are impacted when a child dies from abortion. These groups include mothers, father, grandparents, siblings, survivors, friends, pro-life advocates and those who perform or advocate abortion. Prayers and healing resources for each group are available at www.AbortionShockwaves.com
Kevin Burke, LSW, co-founder of Rachel’s Vineyard and a Shockwaves architect, recalled the experience of Mike Stack, an ultrasound technician and regional coordinator with Silent No More. 
“As an ultrasound technician, Mike was influential in saving many babies. Yet there were those times he would view the child and the parents still chose to abort,” Burke said. “ It was not until he attended a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat that he was able to see the depth of the grief and pain he carried in his heart and soul and the blessing of grieving those children and entrusting them and their parents to the Lord.”
Georgette Forney, co-founder of Silent No More and president of Anglicans for Life, said she has witnessed first-hand the pain of pro-life advocates.
 
“Last year at the March for Life, an older woman came up to me crying, expressing the pain she felt for all the women who walked into the abortion clinic while she was a sidewalk counselor. Her grief was for their loss and the death of the children. I was grateful Father Frank was present to pray with her and affirm her grief. The change in her countenance, from when she came to me and afterwards, showed the power of acknowledging the loss felt by pro-lifers.”
 
Janet Morana, executive director of Priests for Life and co-founder of Silent No More, agreed.
 
“Anyone who has spent any length of time outside an abortion clinic has experienced the pain of watching mothers walk through those doors and emerge hours later without their child,” she said. “Many pro-lifers do this kind of thing weekly, or more, for years and years. Shockwaves will both acknowledge their commitment to the unborn and help them deal with their grief and trauma.”
 
To arrange media interviews with Silent No More leaders or pro-life activists who have been impacted by abortion, call Leslie Palma at 347-286-7277 or email her at leslie@silentnomore.com
 
The Campaign began November 11th, 2002.  As of February 2015, the Silent No More Awareness Campaign has held 1,436 Gatherings in 17 countries & 48 states with 5,934 women and men sharing their abortion testimonies. Testimonies have also been shared at 104 high schools and universities in the last 4 years, 26 in 2014. There are 2,233 testimonies posted on the Campaign website, with 332 that are shared via video!  Currently there are 16,225 people registered with the Campaign representing 77 countries. People who are not ready to join the Campaign, are invited to register their regret. So far, 4,890 women and 573men have said they regret their abortion or lost fatherhood.  Another552 women and men have posted memorials to their children.
 
The Silent No More Awareness Campaign is a joint project of Anglicans for Life and Priests for Life.  For more information, please visit our website: www.SilentNoMoreAwareness.org