Story by Reagan Scott
LINCOLN (SNR) - Nine students from the UNL Newman Center prayed on the sidewalk outside of Planned Parenthood in Lincoln Nov. 19.
Accompanied by Dr. John Freeh, the director of the UNL Newman Institute, and Maggie May, a FOCUS missionary at UNL, the group spent an hour praying the rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet.
Dr. Freeh and May began taking groups of students to Planned Parenthood a few weeks into the semester. Each Tuesday—the day Planned Parenthood performs abortions in Lincoln—they meet at the Newman Center on campus at 7:15 a.m. and drive to the facility near 48th and Old Cheney, where they pray for an hour before heading back to campus.
The morning of Nov. 19 wasn’t as cold as it had been the week before when temperatures hovered around 6 degrees, but Dr. Freeh said 17 students had braved the cold temperatures that morning. The group usually averages 10-12 students.
This is the first time in a few years that groups from Newman have regularly traveled to pray outside Planned Parenthood, and it was in talking last school semester that Dr. Freeh and May decided to revive the practice this school year.
“There’s only so much we can do as students and missionaries and this is one of the most accessible, tangible ways to actually do anything for the pro-life movement,” May said.
“We believe in the power of prayer; it’s real.”
May and Dr. Freeh both commented on the willingness of the students to give up a morning each week to be a prayerful witness for the pro-life movement.
“The students are limited in their time,” Dr. Freeh said, “so it’s a sacrifice for them to roll out of bed early and be down here before 7:30 in the morning.”
He said 70 different people have come to pray with the group over the course of the semester.
Marie Meis, a sophomore at the University of Nebraska, said she prays at Planned Parenthood almost every week because it’s a cause that she believes in wholeheartedly, and she loves getting to know other students who share a common goal.
“We also get coffee and donuts after, which is a great way to start a Tuesday,” she said.
It is Dr. Freeh and May’s hope that the group’s numbers will continue to grow as they continue through the rest of the semester and into next year.
“If we had 50 students here each week that would be a powerful witness,” Dr. Freeh said.
Meis said the group has already heard of someone deciding not to have an abortion after seeing the group outside one Tuesday morning.
Meis said, “While I understand going to pray outside of a building might not drastically change the issue of abortion as a whole, I do hope it affects some people… I hope they consider how strongly someone must feel to do this week after week with almost no reward and I hope it shows them how important this issue is to me and all of those that go.”
For more information, please contact Dr. John Freeh at the Newman Institute for Catholic Thought and Culture: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Maggie May of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, in 2017, 2,020 abortions were provided in Nebraska. There was a a 13% decline in the abortion rate in Nebraska between 2014 and 2017.
Pro-life persons are always welcome to offer prayerful witness with others praying outside Planned Parenthood. Mass is celebrated in the Lincoln Right to Life Pro-Life Center, which opened across the street from Planned Parenthood in 2018, every “Abortion Tuesday” at 10 a.m. The rosary is prayed at 9:30 a.m.
Parking is available at Cornerstone Christian Church, 4849 Old Cheney Rd. Participants should only cross the streets using the crosswalk.
