2024 Peoria 40 Days for Life ready to pray

PEORIA—The local pro-life community is gearing up for another 40 Days for Life vigil, but more prayer volunteers are needed.

The campaign, which in Peoria will be held Sept. 25 to Nov. 3 outside the Planned Parenthood facility at 2709 N. Knoxville Ave., emphasizes a peaceful, prayerful, and non-provocative approach to ending abortion.

“Being present on the sidewalks opens the door for counseling women who may be feeling lost or confused,” said local coordinator Anthony Berlinger.

The Peoria Planned Parenthood “health center” offers chemical abortions and has also added surgical abortions for “up to 13 weeks and 6 days after the first day of your last menstrual period.” This is the first time that surgical abortions have been offered in Peoria since Whole Woman’s Health closed in 2019.

A kick-off rally for this year’s Peoria 40 Days will be at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 24, at the Spalding Pastoral Center, 419 NE Madison St. (parking is in the lot at the corner of Monroe Street and Bryan Street).  Keynote speaker Veronica Lamlech from Students for Life will discuss her sidewalk counseling and other pro-life experiences. There also will be opportunities to pick up materials for the vigil.

Peaceful prayer is the rule

The Peoria sign-up page includes suggestions for parking and prayer locations at the vigil site.

The guidance for taking part is simple.

• Sign up for an hour or hours online. Note that participants must sign a Statement of Peace to sign up for hours.
• Show up at your allotted time and pray for an hour for an end to abortion.

The 40 Days effort has had a significant impact since it started in 2007 nationally. The 40DaysforLife.com front page says that since 2007, there have been

• 24,853 lives saved.
• 155 abortion centers that closed.
• 263 abortion workers who have quit.

The Peoria vigil started in 2010, held outside what was then an abortion facility at 7405 N. University St. After that clinic closed in 2019, 40 Days shifted its focus to the Planned Parenthood facility on Knoxville, which had moved from its former Northeast Adams Street location.

Focus on helping women in need

“The focus of 40 Days for Life in Peoria is twofold this year,” Berlinger said.

“Forty Days for Life is uniquely up to the challenge of engaging with these women (who feel the need to go to Planned Parenthood) since our focus is on a peaceful, prayerful, and non-provocative approach to spreading the gospel of life,” Berlinger said. “The goal is to help women in need, not to make them fearful or full of shame.

“Secondly, we are trying to build a more active pro-life community of volunteers. Organizations like ours depend on having people who will assemble groups of their friends or invite their Bible study or small groups to join them in standing vigil for however long they feel they can give.

"The goal is to help women in need, not to make them fearful or full of shame."
Anthony Berlinger

“The churches are great for getting people out there for a day, but having a committed team of individual volunteers who can cover for each other is ideally what we want to do.”

Presence at the Peoria Planned Parenthood facility is critical, Berlinger said, especially now that it is performing surgical abortions.

“They are the face of abortion in this town,” he said.

Volunteers needed for prayer slots

Signup is going a bit slow this year, and Berlinger hopes that more Protestant churches will get involved in 40 Days.

“Signup in the local area has been a little sparse this year from individual volunteers,” he said. “We have received a good response from all the local Catholic Churches in the Peoria area. Each one has taken a day to cover with volunteers from their parishes. We are grateful for the fire with which they are taking it to the pews and hope for a good turnout on the sidewalks for them.”

Former Peoria 40 Days coordinator Karen Guth said that the vigil is “a once-a-year chance to stand up for life at Peoria’s abortion center.”

Even putting the 40 Days signs in yards with their message to “Pray to end abortion” is important, she added.

“I believe it has an impact on women being tempted to abort their babies and all those who have been harmed by abortion in the past,” she said. “We pray for all of them during the campaign, as well as abortion workers.

“It is our chance to make a sacrifice, to cry out to God to help us to bring an end to this evil in our city.”

Depending on God

That dependence on God is critical, Berlinger said.

“Forty Days places a central focus on the intercession of God in making the real difference for ending abortion and giving our efforts meaning,” he said. “When a woman is moved to come talk to us, when a clinic worker starts examining their conscience, or when a mother chooses to keep driving instead of pulling into that facility’s parking lot, it is because God is moving them and working in their hearts to facilitate these changes.

“Apart from Him, we can do nothing.”