A decade after Gosnell’s conviction: remember

In a jail cell somewhere, a man is serving a life sentence for the premeditated murder of three children. He was also convicted of manslaughter in a woman’s death. He committed his crimes in a state where there was a death penalty statute; he escaped execution by promising not to appeal if he were sent to prison.

The man is Kermit Gosnell. I don’t know if he still uses the title “Doctor” since his conviction; I’m pretty sure his license was suspended somewhere along the way. Gosnell, an OB/GYN, committed late-term abortions in circumstances that left a trail of dead and injured women. Sometimes, children survived his attempts to abort them. He snipped the necks of some of those stubborn survivors to ensure their demise.

Have the people who have come of age in the past decade of the pro-life movement learned about him? I want to make sure the answer is yes.

In correspondence with a reporter during a series of jailhouse interviews in late 2013, Gosnell wrote, “I believed my deeds were in a war against discrimination, disenfranchisement, undereducation and poverty.”

Remember that Gosnell’s crimes were discovered accidentally, as law enforcement came calling at his clinic on another matter altogether.

Marking ten years since his conviction, I want to recall the grand jury report that ought to be on the shelf of anyone who cares about women’s health and the right to life.

Gosnell’s trial involved surgical abortion work. In the ensuing decade, chemical (drug-induced) abortion has become by far the most common abortion method. Even so, Gosnell’s actions and their consequences remain relevant, if only to highlight what people are capable of if we forget about human dignity for any length of time

“We find common ground in exposing what happened here”

I think the most important single document in the Gosnell case was the 2011 grand jury report that led to the trial.

Here, the jurors summarize the facts presented to them.

On February 18, 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and detectives from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office executed search warrants at the Women’s Medical Society, a clinic operated by Dr. Kermit Barron Gosnell at 3801-05 Lancaster Avenue in Philadelphia. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the District Attorney’s Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit had been investigating Gosnell and his clinic for months, based on reports of illegal prescription drug activity.

During the drug-trafficking investigation, District Attorney’s Detective James Wood learned from one of the clinic employees that a woman had died in November 2009, following an abortion procedure. Detective Wood discovered other disturbing details about Gosnell’s medical practice. The premises were dirty and unsanitary. Gosnell routinely relied on unlicensed and untrained staff to treat patients, conduct medical tests, and administer medications without supervision. Even more alarmingly, Gosnell instructed unlicensed workers to sedate patients with dangerous drugs in his absence. 

Based on this information, Detective Wood believed that further investigation of the woman’s death the previous November was warranted. The detective searched for a police report on the incident, but finding none, he went to the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office to try to identify the woman and to find out more about her death. Detective Wood learned that the dead woman was Karnamaya Mongar, and that her toxicology report revealed an extremely high level of Demerol, a drug Gosnell used at the clinic to anesthetize patients.

In light of this suspicious death and the other significant health and medical concerns, DEA Agent Stephen Dougherty invited personnel from the Pennsylvania Department of State (which regulates doctors and the practice of medicine) and the Pennsylvania Department of Health (which regulates health care facilities) to accompany law enforcement officers on the February 18 raid. No one from these agencies had visited the clinic in more than 15 years, even after the Department of Health had been informed of Mrs. Mongar’s death months earlier. 

The search team waited outside until Gosnell finally arrived at the clinic, at about 8:30 p.m. When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as “filthy,” “deplorable,” “disgusting,” “very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,” and “by far, the worst” that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. 

There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets.

All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates. 

Investigators found the clinic grossly unsuitable as a surgical facility. The two surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary – Agent Dougherty described them as resembling “a bad gas station restroom.” Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed. There was no functioning resuscitation or even monitoring equipment, except for a single blood pressure cuff in the recovery room. 

Ambulances were summoned to pick up the waiting patients, but (just as on the night Mrs. Mongar died three months earlier), no one, not even Gosnell, knew where the keys were to open the emergency exit. Emergency personnel had to use bolt cutters to remove the lock. They discovered they could not maneuver stretchers through the building’s narrow hallways to reach the patients (just as emergency personnel had been obstructed from reaching Mrs. Mongar). 

The search team discovered fetal remains haphazardly stored throughout the clinic – in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers. Some fetal remains were in a refrigerator, others were frozen. Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent of the fetuses were probably older than 24 weeks in gestation – even though Pennsylvania law prohibits abortions after 24 weeks. In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. 

The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered at the clinic that evening and turned over to the Philadelphia medical examiner, who confirmed that at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable. 

…Had state and local officials performed their duties properly, Gosnell’s clinic would have been shut down decades ago. Gosnell would have lost the medical license that he used to inflict irreparable harm on women; to illegally abort viable, late-term fetuses; and to kill innumerable babies outside the womb….Let us say right up front that we realize this case will be used by those on both sides of the abortion debate. We ourselves cover a spectrum of personal beliefs about the morality of abortion. For us as a criminal grand jury, however, the case is not about that controversy; it is about disregard of the law and disdain for the lives and health of mothers and infants. We find common ground in exposing what happened here, and in recommending measures to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.

Link to full report: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/URLs_Cited/OT2015/15-274/15-274-1.pdf

Abortion-friendly politicians, indifferent regulators

There was a law in Pennsylvania against late-term abortions. Gosnell ignored the law. There was also a law about inspecting abortion facilities on a regular basis. Like every other abortion regulation in the state back then, it was unenforced as a matter of state policy. In 1993, Governor Tom Ridge, an abortion-friendly Republican, ordered inspections halted, lest they prove a “barrier” to women seeking abortions.

Ridge certainly greased the skids for the abortionist to race along unimpeded.. Even in the days when inspections happened, though, they were infrequent. More from the grand jury: “The [Pennsylvania] Department [of Health] had contact with the Women’s Medical Society [Gosnell’s facility] dating back to 1979, when it first issued approval to open an abortion clinic. It did not conduct another site review until 1989, ten years later. Numerous violations were already apparent, but Gosnell got a pass when he promised to fix them. Site reviews in 1992 and 1993 also noted various violations, but again failed to ensure they were corrected.”

NARAL said pro-lifers were to blame

Abortion advocacy groups were silent when Gosnell came to trial, speaking out only after national news outlets were shamed by a journalist into covering what had been dismissed as a local crime story. (The journalist knew this was about human rights, not about the Philadelphia police blotter.) NARAL – that’s National Abortion Rights Action League – used its own blog to put damage control into overdrive.

From NARAL: “We may never know why Gosnell preyed on women and put their lives at risk. But what we do know is why women would turn to someone like him instead of a reputable provider elsewhere: anti-choice politics have put safe, affordable, legal abortion care out of reach for many women….The horrific conditions in Gosnell’s clinic are an example of what happens to women and our basic dignity when abortion isn’t available through safe and legal providers. It is why we fight every day.”

NARAL failed to mention a few things, like the fact that Gosnell was on trial for killing a woman, not just children. NARAL didn’t mention the trial at all, actually.

FACT: Gosnell was operating legally, and as far as the state of Pennsylvania was concerned, he was operating “safely” – because inspections had been suspended by the governor, so no one was in a position to say a facility was “unsafe.” As for “affordable,” NARAL’s writers surely knew that the cost of abortion rises as pregnancy advances (one factor in the massive increase in chemical abortions today). For late-term abortions, “affordable” would have to mean “cut-rate.”

Gosnell was reputable, as far as his state of Pennsylvania was concerned. Women going to him for abortions weren’t likely to know he was a butcher. Semika Shaw died under his care in 2002, but that wasn’t enough to prompt a state investigation, nor did it draw attention from abortion lobbyists. Where was NARAL when she died? What happens when “legal” providers are the ones undermining women’s basic dignity? Gosnell showed us the answer: they are called to account only when something accidental brings their actions to light.

What do you want to bet that if Gosnell’s facility HAD been inspected after 1993, fellow abortion providers would have cried “intimidation!” at the first peep from the inspectors?

While advocating in New Hampshire for pro-life public policy, I had many occasions to listen to NARAL lobbyists and their allies. They consistently opposed bills to require reporting of abortion statistics, establish genuine informed consent, and require increased scrutiny of abortion providers. What was it they wrote? “It is why we fight every day.”

Gosnell’s butchery was only discovered by law enforcement by accident. Resistance to abortion regulation is what kept his business humming along. NARAL is an integral part of that resistance.

Human dignity, or housekeeping?

If only Gosnell hadn’t been such a ghoul about keeping babies’ corpses and body parts, he would very likely have escaped prosecution on the premeditated-murder charges.  If the only evidence of the murder of children had been testimony by Gosnell’s staff, his attorneys would have had a field day impeaching those witnesses. The attorneys tried that anyway, even with the sickening physical evidence.

Gosnell’s crimes did not consist principally in the filth of his office. If he had kept a clean place, the snipped babies would still be dead. We’d just be less likely to know about them. A tidy facility wouldn’t have helped Karnamaya Mongar survive a drug overdose. Declaring Gosnell an outlier, as some abortion advocates did after the trial, means nothing if it is only an admonition to maintain good housekeeping.

I shudder even ten years later at the thought of how many mothers were maltreated by Gosnell’s poorly-trained or untrained staff. We’ll never know. Most – not all – survived. Thank God for a staffer who testified against Gosnell at his trial, and in so doing threw some light on the women who didn’t think they were risking death when they walked into the office. The abortionist, operating legally, paid no mind to their dignity.

More from the grand jury: “Gosnell set up his practice to rely entirely on the untrained actions of his unqualified employees. They administered drugs to induce labor, often causing rapid and painful dilation and contractions. But Gosnell did not like it when women screamed or moaned in his clinic, so the staff was under instruction to sedate them into stupor.”

Lessons yet to be learned

The Gosnell grand jury recommended a five-year statute of limitations for illegal abortions beyond 24 weeks. “Like infanticide, illegal abortions can go undetected for years, or forever. There is no one to complain and, most often, no witness to testify. Again, the jurors were frustrated that we could not recommend charges against Gosnell for scores of crimes we know he committed.”

New Hampshire’s not Pennsylvania, but consider for a moment what penalties can mean in an abortion law, now that the Granite State has a 24-week abortion limitation of its own (the Fetal Life Protection Act). There was a push just this year to strip penalties from FLPA. Abortion advocates said that FLPA’s penalties are discouraging doctors from practicing in New Hampshire. (Practicing what?)

What else has happened to New Hampshire abortion policy in the wake of Gosnell? Nothing.

How about licensing abortion facilities as ambulatory care facilities? That was among the Gosnell grand jury’s recommendations. “There is no justification for denying abortion patients the protections available to every other patient of an ambulatory surgical facility, and no reason to exempt abortion clinics from meeting these standards.

That message is one of several that hasn’t quite made it to the New Hampshire State House.

We don’t know how many women choose abortion in New Hampshire, and we don’t know their reasons. We don’t know how many abortions are “early” or “late-term.” We don’t know what the medical protocols are for born-alive babies after attempted abortion. We have no clue whatsoever what is the rate of post-abortion complications for women. We don’t know who’s doing abortions. There is no restriction on who may perform abortion. The term “women’s health” is constantly being misused by abortion advocates. Children’s welfare doesn’t apply if the child is preborn and unwanted.

We can do better. That was true ten years ago, and it’s true now.


From my bookshelf: I recommend Gosnell: the Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer by Ann McElhinny and Phelim McAleer (HatTip Books, 2017). At an event with the authors a few years ago, I listened as McElhinny said this: “I never trusted or liked pro-life activists. Even at college I thought them too earnest and too religious. Fast forward to April 2013 and Kermit Gosnell’s trial in Philadelphia, when everything changed….[The] images shown in the courtroom were not from activists, they were from police detectives and medical examiners and workers…What they said and the pictures they showed me changed me. I am not the same person I was.”

NH Senate rejects abortion bills

The New Hampshire Senate today rejected two pro-abortion bills. “Inexpedient to legislate” (ITL) motions on HB 88 and HB 224 were adopted 14-10 along party lines, with Republicans in the majority.

I carry no brief for the GOP, but if your senator is one of those Republicans, I’d say now is the time for a thank-you message.

HB 224 would have nullified the Fetal Life Protection Act, New Hampshire’s 24-week abortion limitation, by removing civil and criminal penalties on providers doing late-term abortions outside of the exceptions outlined in FLPA. HB 88 declared abortion “vital” to liberty and equality, and would have prevented future statutory limitations on abortion.

The votes were the culmination of intense lobbying and public engagement by pro-life Granite Staters. As reported earlier on this blog, the Senate public hearing on HB 224 attracted more than 40 speakers in opposition to the bill. People were rightly concerned.

In all my years of sending out email alerts to Leaven for the Loaf subscribers, I have never seen such high readership and so many forwarded messages as I did for the emails on these bills. People didn’t stop at reading; they acted.

Today’s vote kills the bills and prevents them from proceeding to Governor Sununu’s desk.

I’d like to think that’s it for this year’s abortion nonsense in Concord, but the state budget is now being crafted and the fine print bears watching. Remember that the Fetal Life Protection Act made it into law as a budget item (part of HB 2 in 2021). Just as pro-life policies can be inserted into the budget, so can abortion-friendly policies. I’ll keep an eye on that.

Act Now: Senate to vote Thursday April 13 on abortion expansion bill and “access to abortion care act”

Summary: State senators need messages from their constituents immediately, urging them to vote “inexpedient to legislate” on HB 224 and HB 88.

The New Hampshire Senate is expected to vote Thursday, April 13 on the Judiciary Committee’s recommendation of “inexpedient to legislate” (ITL) on HB 224 and HB 88. The votes will come only two days after the committee’s 3-2 ITL votes along party lines, with Republicans in the majority. 

HB 224 would strip penalties from the Fetal Life Protection Act, preventing late-term-abortion providers from facing any civil or criminal penalties for illegally aborting preborn children after 24 weeks’ gestation. If HB 224 passes, FLPA will be effectively nullified.

HB 88 declares abortion to be “vital” to liberty and equality, and would prevent enactment of any future legislation that would “restrict or interfere with” abortion.

Senators need to get the message before Thursday 4/13: vote ITL on HB 224 and HB 88. The “Who’s My Senator?” link on the General Court website will let you determine your senator’s name and contact information. Let your message be brief, clear, courteous, and immediate. Send a message even if you attended the hearings or used the online testimony system. 

HB 224-FN would expand abortion in New Hampshire, returning us to the days of legal unregulated abortion throughout pregnancy. Instead, voting ITL – inexpedient to legislate – will kill the bill. That’s the way to go.

If HB 88 passes, it would block any future legislation deemed to “restrict or interfere with” abortion. The sponsor calls it the Access to Abortion Care Act. Again, ITL is the right vote.

Do not assume that party lines will hold. Every senator needs to hear from pro-life constituents.

No bargaining: pro-life, period

HB 224 needs to be ITL’d. So does HB 88. Killing one and passing the other and calling that a “compromise” would be an unacceptable outcome. This is no time for horse-trading. Save that for the state budget.

Unlimited abortion as a recruiting tool?

The April 6 committee hearing on HB 224 was packed. The hearing lasted four hours. I stayed for one hour, which was more than enough to get the gist of the pro-HB 224 argument.

Chief sponsor Rep. Dan Wolf (R-Newbury) claimed that his “straightforward” bill was “about attracting [medical] providers” to New Hampshire. “We should not have draconian threats hanging over our doctors,” he said. Dr. Ilana Cass, Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, testified that FLPA makes it harder for her to recruit physicians. Other health care professionals expressed concern over the possibility of being considered criminals. Lobbyists from ACLU and New Futures sang different verses of the same tune.

The essence of the message conveyed by HB 224’s supporters was this: we need to recruit doctors who can abort viable healthy preborn children of healthy mothers, and who will do it with literal impunity – or who will stand by silently while their colleagues do so.

Pro-abortion demonstrators pose in front of the State House in Concord, 4/6/23. Ellen Kolb photo.

Pro-lifers came out in force

Fortunately, the abortion advocates didn’t have the April 6 committee hearing to themselves. A half-hour before the hearing began, the room was already full, with dozens more people in the hallway outside. Once the hearing got underway, more than forty people testified against the bill, far outnumbering speakers in support. Pro-lifers did what they had to do: they turned out in force to defend FLPA and call for the defeat of HB 224. 

Pro-lifers also managed to find their way to the online testimony system, with 1353 people signing in as “opposed” to the bill. 

Even a self-identified pro-choice legislator couldn’t stomach the bill. Rep. Bob Lynn (R-Windham) is a former New Hampshire Supreme Court Justice. Although the House was in session upstairs as the Senate hearing unfolded, Rep. Lynn took time to testify against HB 224, saying “I’m a pro-choice person” but that he wasn’t in favor of making abortion legal until the moment of birth. He said the bill creates “special rules for doctors.” Rep. Lynn was accompanied by his Windham neighbor, Rep. Katelyn Kuttab, who stressed that HB 224 was about “aborting viable healthy babies.”

Standing room only outside hearings on HB 224 and HB 88. Ellen Kolb photo.

HB 88 hearing

The HB 88 hearing didn’t begin until the one for HB 224 had ended on April 6 – meaning it didn’t get started until a little before 6 p.m. Few of the grassroots pro-lifers who had taken time from work and family to come to the State House could stay that long. There’s a danger that senators will look at the relatively low attendance and assume that HB 88 is somehow less offensive than HB 224. 

It’s not. Both bills deserve to be killed decisively.

Senate Judiciary Committee to hold hearing on HB 224 and HB 88 Thursday April 6

Having passed the New Hampshire House, two pro-abortion bills will get a public hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday, April 6. The hearing is scheduled for room 100 of the State House in Concord. HB 224-FN is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. and HB 88 for 1:30.

As a practical matter, there’s no way all the testimony on HB 224 -FN will be over in half an hour. I expect the dual hearings to last all afternoon. Showing up for the first hour will be important; there will be sign-up sheets near the door of the hearing room allowing attendees to sign their names & indicate opposition (or support) for each bill.

The bills

HB 224-FN would remove penalties from the Fetal Life Protection Act, New Hampshire’s recently-enacted 24-week abortion limitation. FLPA would thus become unenforceable and useless. HB 88 would declare abortion to be “vital to the equality and liberty of all individuals.” While the text of HB 88 leaves FLPA in place, that won’t matter if FLPA has no enforcement mechanism. HB 224-FN is more dangerous, given Governor Sununu’s expressed willingness to sign it.

In short, HB 224-FN will expand abortion in New Hampshire, returning us to the days of legal unregulated abortion throughout pregnancy.

Both bills ought to be ITL’d: voted “inexpedient to legislate” in committee and on the Senate floor.

What you can do

You can attend the hearing. Allow plenty of time to find parking. Wear good shoes, since you’re likely to be standing in the hall for however long you’re there. The hearing room doesn’t have a large capacity, and no one is allowed inside once the seats are filled – so the hallway will be occupied by people listening to the hearing online.

Right now, register your opinion on the Senate’s online testimony system. You do not have to provide a full statement. Clicking “oppose” is enough. Your name and position on the bill will be visible to the public. The Senate has a handy guide to the online system as well as how to submit testimony in person. Brief, courteous, and clear are always good rules to follow.

Contact your own state senator to express strong opposition to both bills, particularly HB 224-FN. Do not assume Republicans will see things your way; HB 224-FN has Republican co-sponsors. Also, I’ve heard from a voter that her Republican senator told her HB 224 isn’t that big a deal, since late-term abortions don’t happen here anyway.

(She said that with a straight face, despite knowing there’s no requirement to collect and report abortion statistics in New Hampshire. I wasn’t born yesterday. I’ve been around for all the stats bills that have gone down to defeat over the last 20 years or so. But I digress.)

If you email or write to your senator, be sure to mention that you live in that senator’s district. Provide your address for confirmation.

Printable handout with information on HB224-FN and the Senate process

Click on this link for a printable PDF with information on HB 224-FN and with contact information for all 24 senators: https://mcusercontent.com/a2d953b9f956aaa8e14accaac/files/bede0f41-a03b-674d-e64d-8266b3f46731/oppose_HB_224.pdf

Subscribers to the Leaven for the Loaf email updates have this PDF link already. If you’re not receiving the emails, you can sign up here.

40 Days for Life speaker comes to NH: “thank you for your Yes”

On a nippy Thursday, fifty miles away from the New Hampshire State House where the House was in session, people committed to peaceful pro-life action gathered on a small-town sidewalk. They were in front of a town hall which sits next door to an abortion facility. Turning away from news about life-issue legislation, they were there to hear a story of encouragement and hope.

Ramona Treviño shares her story

Texas resident Ramona Treviño is the outreach director for the international 40 Days for Life effort. In a whirlwind tour last week, she spoke at seven regional 40DFL campaign events, including three in New Hampshire. I caught up with her in Greenland.

The Greenland participants welcomed Treviño to her first visit to New Hampshire on a cold but sunny Wednesday morning. She responded in kind. “It’s beautiful. I couldn’t be more blessed.”

Ramona Treviño speaking at 40 Days for Life event
Ramona Treviño of 40 Days for Life, speaking in Greenland NH. Ellen Kolb photo.

“I’m a living witness to what the power of prayer does. This for me is a special time of the year, not only ’cause it’s Lent, but also this time of year, twelve years ago, is when I left my position at Planned Parenthood, and had a beautiful conversion that can only be attributed to the Holy Spirit and the grace that was poured out because of your witness, the power of prayer, and fasting.”

Her journey from PP to 40DFL

Catholic by upbringing – “culturally Catholic,” she called it – she knew enough to consider abortion unthinkable when she became pregnant at 16. Her parents agreed, and she gave birth without support from the child’s father. Later, she met and married a man with whom she entered fully into her faith. Even so, “unfortunately, I accepted a position working for the nation’s largest abortion [provider]” a year and a half later. The provider was Planned Parenthood, and the facility was near her Texas home.

How did she end up there? She offered several reasons. First, “ignorance.” While she knew Planned Parenthood provided birth control, STD testing, and well-woman exams, she wasn’t aware that it was a powerhouse of the abortion industry. “I didn’t know that every year they’re responsible for 300,000 abortions in this country.”

She also believed something that I’ve heard time and again from former abortion workers. “I really thought I was helping women. I thought I was going to be preventing abortions. Also, I was of another mentality: I personally wouldn’t have an abortion, but every woman has the right to choose for herself…. And in my [facility] we didn’t perform abortions under our roof. The surgical center in Dallas-Fort Worth was where abortions took place. And that was another way that I justified and rationalized working for PP. I thought my hands [were] clean.”

“You guys showed up.”

What changed? “You guys showed up,” “you guys” being participants in 40 Days for Life. Trevio described listening to Catholic radio one day in her car in Advent of 2010 and hearing a promotional message about 40 Days for Life. The message included the news that the following spring’s campaign would be outside her facility. She was startled.

“I had never heard of 40 Days for Life up to then. [It was the] first time I had heard of this peaceful prayerful vigil that was going to be held for 40 days outside of my facility. It was going to kick off on Ash Wednesday.and of course, being Catholic, I thought ‘maybe God’s trying to tell me something.’ …Now we had always had protesters outside our facility. And you know, these protesters would kind of yell at the women to try to get their attention….They didn’t strike me as loving people.” In the 40 Days for Life message, “there was something about hearing these words: ‘a peaceful and prayerful vigil’ – that really put my soul at peace.”

The 40DFL campaign began. At one point she actually went to the prayer witnesses and asked them for prayers. She had become uncomfortable working for PP, and a priest had advised her to leave, but still she hesitated. The campaign leader later joined in prayer for her, and he asked if he could share her prayer request with others.

That impressed her greatly “He asked for my permission. I think that was huge. It meant he saw me as a person with dignity, and not as some prize to be won.”

Let that sink in for a moment. I sometimes need to be reminded that other peoples’ stories are not mine to share until they give their consent.

“What did you do?”

Many more details went into her decision to leave PP shortly after the end of that 40DFL campaign. The scales were tipped in favor of life as she listened to Catholic radio (there’s that influence of media again!) a couple of days after Easter. “An elderly gentleman had called in and he was sharing his own experiences with praying in front of his local abortion facility….[T]he radio host said to him Thank you, sir, for all that you do for the unborn. Thank
you for your witness. Because at the end of our lives, we’re all going to stand before God. And He’s going to ask you ‘did
you know about abortion? Did you know babies were being ripped from their mothers’ wombs limb by limb? More than
3000 per day?’ And then He’s going to ask you ‘what did you do?’ And that was my moment in which my conscience
was completely illuminated.” Three days later, her time at PP was over.

Now, twelve years later, Ramona Treviño works for 40 Days for Life. “The truth is, guys, you’re my heroes.” She pointed out that during this campaign in 604 cities worldwide – the largest 40DFL campaign to date – 248 abortion-minded women have chosen life. “Something’s happening. And our prayers are unitive. God is answering our prayers. You are answering that call: ‘what did you do.’ Thank you for your Yes.”