Recently, our area pro-life efforts made history, but to truly appreciate it all, let’s go back a ways.
Ever since the first murmurings of plans for a pregnancy-resource center just south of the Moorhead abortion facility, on a plot of land overrun by weeds and a sagging building, we began envisioning how drastically this addition could aid our outreach.
How wonderful it would be to redirect abortion-minded individuals right instead of left off Highway 75—toward life over death! In the old location in Fargo, the extra blocks between the life-giving facility and its counterpart at times proved an obstacle. In these situations, every minute matters.
So we waited eagerly for the new Women’s Care Center to be raised and readied for lives that hang in the balance every Wednesday, when abortions are scheduled.
Despite the more attractive presence and proposal of the bright pink building over the 1960s brick facility to its north, our hopes of many cars rerouting to life did not pan out as dramatically as we’d dreamed. Unfortunately, the majority still enter the parking lot that likely will lead to their child’s death.
The Women’s Care Center is prepared and ready to receive abortion-vulnerable clients, both with triage-type measures on Wednesdays especially, as well as practical, everyday education and guidance that can change lives. I’ve sometimes wondered, though, if they, too, wish for more dramatic turns and last-minute miracles.
Recently, however, it happened, on Ash Wednesday, at the start of our area’s first-ever 40 Days for Life spring campaign.
I’d just arrived and was walking across the street from my parking spot just east of the Women’s Care Center when I noticed one of our sidewalk advocates talking to a couple in the parking lot there. “Is something happening?” I asked our coordinator, wondering if the sidewalk advocate was redirecting an abortion client. “We’re not sure yet,” she responded. “We’ll have to wait and see.”
We soon learned that the couple was in fact a “redirect,” having come with the intention to abort their child—an intention that was “aborted” instead by the swift actions of the advocate offering new possibilities. They agreed to visit with the Women’s Care personnel, who welcomed them with practical and compassionate help.
We were relieved when, later, we saw the car exiting the facility and away from the abortion business. The advocate told us they’d decided to cancel their appointment—for now—but were still weighing their options.
It was time to pray in earnest for this conflicted couple, who was, apparently, worried about the mother’s age and any associated health risks.
Fear can so often pull us off course. I’ve been guilty of this myself. But recently, I was reminded of how fear shackles us, as this couple ultimately realized. A few weeks after that day, we learned their ultimate determination: yes to life. Praise God!
Reflecting now, I think about all the resources and time that went into that beautiful new pink building. Some might wonder if we have come out ahead.
Certainly, we haven’t been seeing the horde of redirects like we’d envisioned, but the building is there—a miracle in itself—and within it, people dedicated to ushering in new life, ready with their skills, resources and love.
We might not have the privilege of seeing this little one come into the world. We might not learn whether he or she became a famous scientist who cured cancer or something much humbler. But we do know that the world of this couple just opened up into a million possibilities that would have died with their dead baby, had they chosen that route.
A new child will be in our world, God willing, by the year’s end because of a sidewalk advocate’s loving persistence; because of a trained counselor encouraging a decision toward life; because of the grace of a loving Father who knew this child before they were formed in their mother’s womb.
We don’t have to wonder too long as a community whether we’ve come out ahead. The price of this one soul now growing next to its mother’s heart is worth its weight in gold, and God knows its value, even if we can’t yet fully grasp it.
This triumph, which happened on the first day of our area’s first spring 40 Days for Life effort, will now go down in history: as the first save of our spring campaigns, and, as we recently learned, the 3,800th save in the 45-year history of Pro-Life Action Ministries (PLAM), our St. Paul-based training organization. And finally, in heaven’s record book of earthly victories.
[Note: I write about my experiences praying for the end to abortion at the sidewalk abutting the Red River Valley’s lone abortion facility for New Earth magazine — the official news publication of the Fargo Diocese. I hope you find “Sidewalk Stories” helpful in understanding the truth about abortion and how it plays out tragically in our corner of the world. The preceding ran in New Earth’s April 2026 issue.]
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