Pro-lifers gathered at nearly 100 abortion clinics across the United States last month in an annual witness to life before the feast of Christ’s birth. For over a decade, those who join the Peace in the Womb Christmas caroling event have rarely seen the direct impact of their witness. But 2024 included confirmation of two unborn babies saved from abortion thanks to the sound of Christmas carols.
The annual event is organized by the Illinois-based Pro-Life Action League, whose executive director, Eric Scheidler, revealed the miraculous saves in a Jan. 7 email to supporters.
“Pro-lifers in both Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Boston, Massachusetts reported that while they were singing their carols, mothers came out and told them that they couldn’t go through with their abortions,” he wrote.
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Previously, Scheidler and his team were alerted to the save in Boston via a Dec. 23 email from Rita Russo, who organized the caroling in that city. She related that a woman left the Planned Parenthood facility where a group was caroling on Dec. 14, having decided against her planned abortion. Russo, who was not present at the 2024 event but has organized caroling since 2016, also shared the testimony from an eyewitness.
“We have a wonderful Hispanic community in Boston that is very faithful to the cause for life,” Russo told Pregnancy Help News in an email. “They come and pray at Planned Parenthood every weekend. For the caroling, they bring their songs in Spanish. We take turns and sing together in English and Spanish.”
On Dec. 14, a mother left the abortion facility and approached one of the sidewalk counselors who spoke Spanish. She explained, per a translation referred on a week later, that “when I heard the Christmas carols, I could not do it.”
The Hispanic pro-lifers also obtained the mother’s contact information to help her access resources such as baby clothes, diapers, and food.
“It makes a huge difference when you can speak to the client in her own language,” Russo added. “Hearing the carols in her own language touched her heart and saved her baby.”
This was reportedly the “first baby saved in Boston that we can definitely attribute to the caroling,” a miracle that was described by Russo as “a joy for everyone involved.”
Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles away, another baby was being saved from abortion in Milwaukee.
According to a statement released by Dan Miller, the state director of Pro-Life Wisconsin, which sponsored the caroling witness in Milwaukee, the miracle “has never happened before.”
Miller explained that he “offer[ed] a songbook to all” of the escorts at the abortion clinic on Dec. 14, following a request from one who wanted to join the singing.
“As we were all singing away, our sidewalk counselors were busy talking to the moms and dads who were coming in or going out of the abortion center,” he said. “It wasn’t too long after we started singing that a mom told one sidewalk counselor that she ‘decided against the abortion.’ Praise the Lord!”
Miller likened the interaction to “one story from the front lines on Christmas Eve in World War I, when the soldiers stopped shooting at each other for a time as they joined together to sing Christmas carols.”
He concluded his statement with a call for pro-lifers to “pray for peace in our world and peace in the womb.”
Tweet This: Babies were saved in Boston & Milwaukee after pro-life advocates sang Christmas carols at abortion centers with the Peace in the Womb event.
The annual Christmas caroling witness outside abortion facilities began locally in Chicago, Illinois in 2003, during which a woman abandoned her plans to have an abortion and told pro-lifers outside the clinic her decision while they were singing Silent Night.
The Pro-Life Action League began coordinating it as a nationwide event in 2014, according to John Jansen, the organization’s project coordinator.
“Empty Manger Christmas Caroling, that was the original name for it,” he told Pregnancy Help News in a phone interview. “We actually constructed our own manger, brought it out and then placed it near the entrance of the abortion clinic.”
This name pointed to the “expectation of the Christ Child, because we always do this during Advent, leading up to Christmas,” Jansen explained, adding that it also served to “symbolize the sadness of an empty manger, of an empty crib, when an abortion happens. That a child who should be born is not.”
In more recent years, the title of the event has been changed to Peace in the Womb. The theme of the annual musical witness is displayed on banners provided by the Pro-Life Action League to carolers each year, aiding in helping to show the purpose of the people gathered outside abortion clinics across the United States each December. The event in Alaska received some advance media coverage.
“Like so many other events that we do, this obviously involves public witness, and so there is the act of just going out to the abortion clinic, bearing witness and just singing Christmas carol,” Jansen said. “Most of the time, we don’t know if we have any direct impact, if any babies were saved. But occasionally, like we had this year, there were two that we actually found out about for sure.”
Last month’s two known saves came amid 91 total caroling locations that hosted events in 2024. The Pro-Life Action League told location leaders and volunteers that they were “part of these babies being saved,” describing it as “a collective effort.”
“Absolutely,” Jansen said when asked if there was a good volunteer response to the event. “What we’ve heard from numerous people over the years is that this event in particular is a really good way to get people to come out to an abortion clinic who have never been there before.”
He noted that, over the years and perhaps most intensely during the Biden administration, there has been resistance to the idea of going to abortion clinics. Pro-lifers have been concerned about potential legal issues, violence and aggression in response to even peaceful protest.
“I think going to sing Christmas carols is a good way to help people who are a little apprehensive to dip their toes in the waters of pro-life activism,” Jansen said. “It’s not confrontational at all, it’s certainly not hateful or condemning at all. It’s the opposite, I think. What’s more loving, what’s more inviting, than singing Christmas carols?”
The Pro-Life Action League was founded in 1980 “with the aim of saving unborn children through non-violent direct action,” per its website. The organization’s next event, as advertised on its website, will be held on Good Friday, April 18. This year's Way of the Cross for Victims of Abortion will also be hosted at various locations across the country. Those interested in participating can find more information here.
