View additional photos from the event.
DaytonDailyNews.com
KETTERING — Like many proud grandmas, Judy Weckesser carries a photo album, happily showing off Jake and Josh, her 5-month-old twin grandsons.
But Weckesser hopes her cute snapshots will elicit more than “oohs and ahhs” from those who view them. She hopes they’ll help change minds as well.
“If the (birth) mother had aborted them, my daughter would not have been able to adopt these twins,” she explains. “She and her husband wanted babies for 10 years, but were unable to have them.”
The Kettering woman’s tearful testimony Sunday, Sept. 20, helped kick off the national 40 Days for Life campaign that began locally in front of the Women’s Med Center abortion clinic in Kettering.
A group of 85 men, women and children gathered to sing hymns, pray and share plans for the outreach effort being promoted simultaneously in communities throughout the United States.
The 40 days of the effort will include prayer and fasting, special programs, educational outreach and peaceful vigils at abortion facilities.
“This particular clinic needs to be bathed in prayer,” said Vivian Koob, founder of Elizabeth’s New Life Center.
Koob introduced the program Sunday and said the Kettering clinic continues to do abortions up to 24 weeks into a pregnancy. “No matter the procedure or the gestational age, each time an abortion is done, a baby dies and a woman and man are left wounded — emotionally, spiritually and sometimes physically,” she said.
The Rev. Mike Spencer, of Grace Missionary Church in Celina, was keynote speaker. He told Sunday’s gathering how his life changed after becoming a Christian in 1983 and viewing the film “The Silent Scream.”
“I walked out of the building sick to my stomach,” said Spencer, who decided at that moment to become “a voice for the unborn.”
The Most Rev. Daniel Pilarczyk, archbishop of Cincinnati, led a recitation of the rosary before the rally.
“If we don’t have reverence for human life, we are easing ourselves into a society in which nobody is safe,” he said. “If you can kill little babies, you can kill anybody.”
For more information about 40 Days for Life, go online to: www.40daysfor life.com/dayton.
Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2440 or MMoss@DaytonDaily News.com.
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