As Sidewalk Advocates serve pregnant moms and others on the sidewalk, their efforts to provide life-affirming local resources can add up to a beautiful outcome: the permanent closure of their local abortion facility.
Encouraging these individuals to visit the nearby pregnancy-help organization or pro-life OB/GYN can, one client at a time, erode the abortion facility’s business – to the point where it no longer makes fiscal sense to keep the doors open.
In other situations, Sidewalk Advocates may observe incidents or actions that must be reported to police or healthcare agencies, and the abortion facility’s law-breaking or poor patient care can lead to fines, loss of the abortionist’s license, and – ultimately – the closure of that facility.
Because Sidewalk Advocates for Life has a goal of covering every uncovered abortion facility in the country with loving, peaceful, and law-abiding Sidewalk Advocates, it’s important for us to keep track of the numbers. That’s why you’ll hear us sharing the glorious news when an abortion facility shuts down.
But not every abortion facility closure is represented in our SAFL tally of closed facilities. We only increase our closure count if Sidewalk Advocates had an active presence at that facility – and their life-affirming outreach, their sharp observations of dangerous or illegal behaviors, and their persistent prayer contributed to that particular facility shuttering forever.
Not surprisingly, when the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in its Dobbs decision in June of 2022, a number of abortion facilities quickly closed. In the intervening months, even more facilities have shut down as more states have greatly limited or outright banned abortion.
Here’s the exciting news: Today, Sidewalk Advocates for Life has increased our closure tally by an even dozen. Located in states where abortion is banned or greatly limited, these particular facilities could have been converted into facilities that refer women for legal out-of-state abortions – what we term “abortion-referral facilities.” The abiding presence of Sidewalk Advocates, and the culture of life they help create in a community, surely played a role in the decision to, instead, shut them down.
To God the glory for the end of Roe – and for the resulting shutdown of so many abortion facilities across the country. As we continue to serve on the sidewalks outside abortion and abortion-referral facilities across the U.S. and beyond, we pray for the ultimate closure of every single one of them in a future where abortion is not only illegal, but unthinkable.