In 2022 for the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children, Sunbury Christian Church in Sunbury, Ohio, became another memorial location as its members gathered to pray and hear testimony of a woman who regretted her abortion and experienced amazing restoration from the Lord.
“God gave us a beautiful day to remember our children lost to abortion,” one participant noted. She identified herself as AJ’s mom.
“The ceremony, testimonies, beautiful headstone and garden, offered a time to honor and heal,” she said. “Thank you to all who organized the event and invited us to participate. I will always remember this day!”
Sunbury Christian Church Lead Pastor David Cahoon explained for those gathered at last year’s memorial there why the church had decided to place a memorial stone and participate in the National Day of Remembrance.
“We created this space for mourning because life is sacred,” Cahoon said.
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The National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children has been a collaborative effort between Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, Priests for Life and the Pro-Life Action League.
The first Day of Remembrance was held in 2013, and the memorial has continued to grow since that time, to now approximately twice its original scope.
September 9, 2023, was the date for the next National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children which is an opportunity to awaken the conscience of those who attend as the reality of abortion is witnessed through a solemn time of prayer and testimony.
The president of the largest network of pregnancy help in the U.S. and internationally remarked on the profound nature of the day of remembrance.
"As a whole, we celebrate life with joy, excitement, wonder, and welcome," Jor-El Godsey said. "Yet on this day of remembrance we make time for those that were not welcomed as the gift the God of the Universe intended."
"Each life is still a person of wonder created in God's image to be celebrated even through tears of loss," Godsey said. "We will never know, this side of heaven, the beauty and value these lives would have contributed to their families or ours. It is in this remembrance that we renew our vision, and our efforts, to secure a culture that welcomes all of God's precious gifts with open arms and open hearts."
Pro-life leader Frank Pavone spoke to the particular significance of this year's event.
"The National Day of Remembrance is more important this year than ever, now that Roe is gone," he said. "The reason is that in the absence of the fake mantra that there is a “constitutional right to abortion,” people can think more clearly about what an abortion is and what harm it does. In fact, in Dobbs, the Court has encouraged us to do exactly that. The American people are wrestling more with questions about what status the unborn child has in our culture, and how much of a person that baby is."
Pavone had made an appeal to pro-lifers to participate in the National Day of Remembrance via email.
“I always saw the impact these ceremonies had on the participants,” he said.
“It was sanity in the midst of insanity,” said Pavone. “It was a proper response to children who had been killed, rather than a twisted celebration of a ‘reproductive right’ that doesn’t exist.”
“This event honors the bodies and memory of our brothers and sisters killed by abortion," he said, "and calls on pro-life Americans to gather at the gravesites of these children."
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The intent for the National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children is to move in the hearts of people from seeing abortion as an abstract idea to the reality of the death of innocent children by holding this nation-wide annual event at the gravesites and memorial stones commemorating the loss.
“When people become aware of the reality of abortion, they can more easily cut through the lies by which some try to justify it, and the natural apathy to which human nature is inclined,” a news release from Citizens For a Pro-Life Society (CPLS) said.
Eric Scheidler, Executive Director of the Pro-Life Action League, issued a press release for the annual event. He noted there are over 200 prayer vigils taking place this year mourning the loss of 65 million unborn victims of abortion.
Scheidler called the event, “an important channel of healing for families hurt by abortion.”
A woman named Erika told Scheidler, “I wept for my two babies whose lives were lost to abortion. But in the midst of my tears, I thanked Jesus for the hope I have, knowing I will see them again, and for the healing he has done in my life so I can use my story to bring the same healing to others.”
Even in states where the law now protects the unborn, these events act to confront the evil abortion has wrought on our nation. A time to seek forgiveness and receive healing from the wounds of abortion.
“After all, we have burial services not for ‘concepts,’ but for human persons,” Pavone said. “And when we gather for these services, we express the mourning that should mark the lives and hearts of all who seek to build a culture of life.”
“Pro-life activism begins with a broken heart,” Pavone wrote. “It begins when we can mourn the killing of the children we could not save.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
