Protesters interrupted peaceful pro-life sidewalk counselors outside an abortion facility in Frankfurt, Germany, on March 1.
40 Days for Life is currently holding its spring campaign in which prayer warriors gather peacefully and pray outside abortion facilities around the world. In this instance, the participants were praying in front of the Pro Familia (IPPF) center, standing within the “buffer zone” area approved by the City of Frankfurt for this type of gathering.
According to a statement from 40 Days for Life International, a group of approximately 20 individuals disrupted and threatened the pro-life participants as they were praying. As the statement describes:
Some of the disruptors then began to approach the participants of the prayer gathering, shouting in their faces, harassing, mocking, insulting, provoking, and intimidating them with aggressive behavior, including wearing hoods pulled over their heads. While the prayer participants remained steadfast in prayer, holding their rosaries, the disruptors brought trash bins, e-scooters, and massive wooden pallets from a nearby construction site, piling them up at eye level in close proximity to the praying individuals, to further express their threats and coerce the participants of the vigil to leave their location.
At least one of the protesters was known to the prayer participants, as he had previously exposed himself to them as they were praying.
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The 40 Days for Life statement also noted that the police response to the incident was disappointing. Though the police were called, it took them 20 minutes to arrive, and they allowed the aggressors to continue their demonstrations in front of the abortion facility.
According to the statement:
Although suspicion of coercion, threats, incitement to hatred, insult, property damage, theft, and disruption and obstruction of a non-prohibited assembly arose, several witnesses were present and video recordings were available, the arriving police officers refused, even after repeated polite requests from the responsible assembly leader, to file a criminal complaint or record the personal details of the disruptors and suspects still nearby.
40 Days for Life said that the peaceful witness to life often evokes an angry response from abortion supporters. “[T]hese praying individuals pose no threat, but rather attempts are made to silence them because they dare to advocate for the constitutionally guaranteed right to life of conceived and unborn children through public prayer. It is the public Christian testimony for life that the abortion lobby and its sympathetic political elites evidently have a problem with.”
