Ten years ago, pro-life attorney Lauren Muzyka saw a need to help people participating in sidewalk advocacy and decided to fill the vacancy in program support through a new non-profit.
She said she saw people, although trained in some way, “fizzle out because they didn’t have infrastructure or support behind them.”
Fulfilling a need, seeing results
Muzyka worked in the pro-life movement for many years, including serving as campaign strategist for the national 40 Days for Life organization, and she had experience in sidewalk outreach and advocacy, praying at abortion facilities.
“I witnessed with my own eyes the transformative power of prayer and outreach in front of an abortion facility,” she said.
Still, she saw a need for a stream-lined sidewalk outreach program.
“Having that front-row seat to see what was going on in local pro-life communities – again, it really showed a need,” Muzyka said. “Where there’s a crisis and a desire, there is a call. The Lord just moved me forward to say, ‘What if we could put together a program for busy [people] and they could just slide right in?’”
She launched Sidewalk Advocates for Life on April 1, 2014, after developing comprehensive tools and strategizing a program. During the past 10 years, the organization has experienced incredible results, growing to 282 locations, and seeing amazing transformations.
“The Lord has saved more than 22,000 babies, which is a great blessing,” Muzyka said. “We’ve also been privileged to help 89 abortion workers leave the business. When you help enough clients and help enough workers, it’s hard for abortion facilities to stay open – we’re hitting them at both ends of their business model, and so we’re celebrating 55 facility closures as well.”
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Purposeful mission and partnership
The purpose of Sidewalk Advocates for Life is to “train, equip, and support” people praying at abortion facilities in their outreach to women and their partners or family members going into “abortion and abortion-referral facilities,” Muzyka said.
Pregnancy help organizations play a vital role in this endeavor.
“We cannot do what we do without pregnancy resource centers, without that partnership in our local communities,” she said.
“We never tell a woman, ‘Don’t have an abortion,’” said Muzyka. “We always want to empower her with the choices available to her – parenting, adoption, those life-affirming choices – but we want to have somewhere to send her.”
Muzyka added, “The way we look at it is we’re doing crisis intervention, and pregnancy help centers are doing that ongoing crisis management. We’re like the paramedics arriving at the scene of the crash. Our goal is to get her to the hospital, which is Christ, but the body of Christ is inside our pregnancy resource centers. Our goal is to get that woman to the life-affirming pregnancy center.”
Tweet This: We’re doing crisis intervention & pregnancy help centers are doing that ongoing crisis management-Lauren Muzyka, Sidewalk Advocates for Life
Because Sidewalk Advocates for Life has a presence in more than 280 communities, those advocates work with more than 280 pregnancy help organizations. That partnership is critical.
“We see ourselves as a team for life. We’re a team for life with Heartbeat International and other pregnancy help organizations,” Muzyka said. “Pregnancy centers have systems of support that have been tested through the decades. They’re the jacks-of-all-trades in our communities, and they’re the ones that are able to line her up with insurance, a job, or a place to live, and connect her with a plan to help her and baby for the long-term.”
“So, we see ourselves as the gateway to life-affirming resources in the community and beyond,” she continued. “In each one of those communities, we always have a partnership with a pregnancy center on the ground … so we have somewhere to send her.”
Shining light in dark places
This international organization, based in Allen, Texas, creates reports every two weeks, statistics gathered from the 282 affiliated groups.
“We see what the Lord has done of late,” Muzyka said.
During the first two weeks of April, 197 babies were saved.
“That’s a huge blessing!” she said.
Sidewalk Advocates for Life now has outreach in other countries, with groups present in Mexico, Columbia, and Puerto Rico.
“We’re beginning to grow internationally,” Muzyka said.
She foresees the organization continuing to grow as she and her team accept applications for affiliation every quarter.
“We consistently see a net growth,” she said.
Although some may drop away due to various circumstances, the organization sees about 95 percent renewal rate, Muzyka said.
“The pro-life communities that are with us, which consists of random groups of volunteers, folks with a local Right to Life group, pregnancy centers [stay on],” she said. “We have pregnancy centers that are literally running our sidewalk advocacy program as an arm of their ministry, and what’s beautiful is that they continue to find support and tools and what they need through us to continue their mission.”
“We’re looking forward to moving forward full-steam ahead to cover all abortion and abortion-referral facilities in America in the next several years,” said Muzyka.
Summer celebration planned
Sidewalk Advocates for Life, in conjunction with other pro-life organizations, plans to host a special weekend this summer to mark the anniversary of the Dobbs decision. Called Celebrate Life Weekend, the event runs June 21 to 23 and takes place in Washington D.C.
“It really is this beautiful, unprecedented display of unity between pro-life organizations,” Muzyka said. “We’re going to be co-sponsoring with Students for Life of America, ProLove Ministries, And Then There Were None, and 40 Days for Life. It’s going to be one big weekend that includes a conference, a gala, and a rally at the Lincoln Memorial.”
Combining the Pro-Life Women’s Conference and the Sidewalk Advocacy Conference, three days of workshops offer tracks on reaching men/dads, empowering women, and peaceful activism, Muzyka said. She and members of her team serve as speakers. Other speakers include David Bereit, founder and former CEO of 40 Days for Life, current 40 Days for Life CEO and President Shawn Carney, The Radiance Foundation Founders Ryan and Bethany Bomberger, abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins, among many others. The purpose of the advocacy track is to “train, equip, and support people” for their return to their state with the hope of seeing each state “embrace life,” Muzyka said.
A person doesn’t have to stand and pray at an abortion facility to be a sidewalk advocate, she stated.
“In today’s day and age, we’re all sidewalk advocates,” she said. “We all need to be able to help a neighbor who’s facing an unexpected pregnancy. These skills are universal skills, skills everybody needs to know to help their friend and neighbor.”
Encouragement to fight ‘the good fight’
Although the United States is in a post-Roe world, pro-life Americans cannot quit, no matter what state they live in, Muzyka said, and she offered encouragement to pro-life organizations and people.
“I want to encourage people in the post-Roe battle … keep up the good fight,” she said. “Some people in some states are becoming discouraged, wondering if their state will ever become pro-life. And in other states, we tend to rest on our laurels.”
“I want to encourage people that, no matter where we are, our work is not done,” Muzyka said. “Just because Roe was overturned doesn’t mean unexpected pregnancy ended. Sidewalk advocates are on the ground in every single state, even in the pro-life states because we still have the abortion referral centers … referring to the nearest abortion facility, often 300 to 600 miles away. Just by being there on the ground for these women … no matter where we are … we can still help save lives.”
Editor's note: Sidewalk Advocates for Life has been an advertiser on Pregnancy Help News, which is managed by Heartbeat International.
