Event Reports

Abortion changes you. That is the message Michaelene Fredenberg is presenting to US commuters through her current advertising campaign.

According to LifeSiteNews, 2000 posters are displayed throughout the New York subway system for the next four weeks, as well as 5 billboards in St Louis. The posters carry a variety of messages from women, men, grandparents, siblings and friends who have been touched by abortion.

The ad campaign presents an alternative to the common misconception that everything will be alright after an abortion. Far from alright, many women find that the procedure that promised an easy solution, only brings more problems.

One poster features a young woman. The text reads, ‘I thought life would be the way it was before – at first I felt relieved, the abortion seemed to erase the problem, things are different now, I wish I could go back – abortion changes you.’

The Abortion Changes You website features personal stories and poems by those who have experienced abortion. Most describe the profound impact that abortion has had on their lives.

Michaelena, 44, was inspired to undertake the campaign after her own journey after abortion. “I thought the abortion would erase the pregnancy. I thought I could move on with my life. I was wrong,” Fredenburg explains on the website. "Abortionchangesyou.com is a safe place for those touched by abortion to begin their healing journey."

Report from the organisers:

The 40 Days for Life campaign in Melbourne is now over the half way mark and has been very successful in more ways than one. The timeslots are regularly filled with any number from one to 16 pray-ers.

On one occasion, a 'people mover' from St Peter Chanel turned up with 8 more pray-ers just as a tattooed woman in her late thirties passed the group and became very agitated! She accused the prayers, and anybody who wanted to listen, of condemning her for aborting her baby. Two pregnancy counsellors with the Helpers of God's Precious Infants asked her to come away from the group to allow her to vent her anger. She hesitated, but fortunately the rest of the pray-ers moved away and  continued praying with renewed earnest! That gave the counsellors the opportunity to allow her to express her pain and anger to them.

About 10 minutes later a counsellor and the woman embraced. It was very moving. It turned out that she was a lapsed Christian and was thrilled to be given the Divine Mercy chaplet and a Miraculous Medal -a memory of her youth. The woman was herself a counsellor for drug, alcohol and physically abused women. She was also grieving the loss of a close friend who had suicided after being forced by her family to have an abortion.

She was appalled to hear that the abortion clinic 'counsellor' was an employee of the clinic and not independent. The much subdued woman was given all the information she needed from the sidewalk counsellors to help start her own healing process.

On another occasion, late in the afternoon, a young Asian couple arrived at the clinic unaware that it had closed for business. This allowed some of the prayers to engage them in a friendly conversation. The young man was studying accountancy and his girlfriend was studying nursing. His girlfriend was pregnant; now a mother.

They did not really want an abortion but being overseas students they were not eligible for Medicare and so had to find $10,000 dollars to have the baby in Australia!!! Of course they did not have that kind of money! They could not go back home to have the baby because of their shame at failing their parents' high expectations. They were given brochures that showed the development of the baby and the pain of abortion and later the couple were found reading these in their car.

The important point here is that private prayer is of course important. However, do not let that be a cop out! We do need a real presence of pray-ers to show that there are people who care enough to be there praying for anyone contemplating an abortion or to offer any help which may be needed.

Our Lord is asking each and every one to do our bit to stop this slaughter of the innocents! Do you hear His call? Please register a time slot on the vigil schedule to be a witness for life!!!!

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh is "not to be trusted" when she says abortion will not be liberalised in Queensland, according toVictorian Liberal MP Bernie Finn.

Mr Finn addressed more than 800 pro-life supporters at Brisbane’s Rally for Life last weekend. According to the Catholic Leader, the march was predominantly peaceful, although one of 28 pro-abortion protesters was arrested for failing to obey police orders to stay away from the guest speakers' Queens Park stage.

Other speakers included Cherish Life Queensland state president Teresa Martin and Toowoomba GP and Queensland secretary of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life Dr David van Gend.

Ms Martin said Mr Finn in his speech said "exactly such an undertaking as Anna Bligh's (not to decriminalise abortion) was given in Victoria". "Mr Finn said, despite this undertaking, within months the pro-abortion legislation was 'done and dusted'," Ms Martin said.

"Not one amendment out of 60 proposed was allowed - not even the one that proposed that doctors and nurses should have a conscience vote in such matters."

Ms Martin said it was "alarming" to think such legislation could be passed in Queensland or "anywhere else for that matter".

Laws introduced in Victoria requiring doctors and nurses to assist with abortions could eventually be introduced in Queensland, one speaker warned.

"Never before in history have doctors been at the whim of their patients," Ms Martin commented.

A 6000-signature petition against decriminalisation of abortion was also presented to State Member for Beaudesert Aidan McLindon.

At the conclusion of the rally hundreds of balloons with pro-life slogans such as "Cherish Life" were released.

The organisations sponsoring the rally included Cherish Life Queensland, Right to Life Australia, Australian Family Association, Family Voice Australia, Lutherans for Life, Catholic Medical Guild of St Luke, Fertility Care, National Civic Council and the John Paul II Centre for Family and Life.