40 Days for Life co-coordinator extols value of prayer, persistence
Urges Fourth Degree Knights to spend time on the sidewalk and in Adoration
A woman Kathy Forck had never met stopped her after Mass at the St. Thomas More Newman Center in Columbia to thank her for her grandchild.
The woman’s daughter who was pregnant at a difficult time had insisted on going to Planned Parenthood in Columbia for an abortion.
“And yet, when she went up there, as she told her parents, ‘There were PEOPLE out there praying, and I just couldn’t do it,’” said Mrs. Forck, co-coordinator of the Columbia 40 Days for Life Campaign (40daysforlife.com/columbiamo).
“And now this woman and man have a beautiful grandchild,” she stated.
Such an encounter at church has happened not once but twice for Mrs. Forck since she and a growing group of prayer warriors took to the sidewalk outside the place where about 800 abortions per year were performed in 2009.
“When people are on the sidewalk praying, up to 75 percent of the abortion appointments are canceled,” she noted quoting Abby Johnson, former Planned Parenthood director.
Mrs. Forck was the featured speaker at the February dinner meeting of Knights of Columbus Dan C. Coppin Fourth Degree Assembly 573 in Jefferson City.
She thanked all the members who take part in the sidewalk vigils in Columbia, and encouraged others to spend time on the sidewalk during the current 40 Days for Life campaign, which continues through March 28.
“Joe Scheidler, godfather of the pro-life movement, would say, ‘Every day, do something pro-life,’” she declared. “So I encourage you: Every day, do something. Say a prayer. Go up to Planned Parenthood. Stand on that sidewalk. Once you do that, you’ll never be the same.”
She pointed out that the number of induced abortions in Missouri had fallen from about 11,000 in 2008 to a documented 39 in 2020.
“Thirty-nine precious babies lost,” she said. “But that number — down from 11,000, with 800 of them right here in our diocese — shows how God has worked through you!”
She also thanked her fellow front-line prayer warriors in the assembly, as well as those who pray from home, and those who take special hours to pray in Adoration and offer Masses for this intention.
Mrs. Forck and her husband Mike have been active in pro-life advocacy since shortly after they got married 13 years ago.
She talked about a woman she knew well, who bucked her doctor’s advice that pregnancy was too risky for her and said “no” to his offer of abortion.
“Not only did she give birth to that baby, but to seven more!” said Mrs. Forck. “She was Planned Parenthood’s greatest nightmare!
“Her example all through the years that ALL babies are precious — that’s why I do what I do,” said Mrs. Forck. “They’re ALL blessings. And life is worth GIVING, even at the risk of your own.”
Mrs. Forck talked about how the Holy Spirit had led her to Columbia to offer prayerful witness outside Planned Parenthood, to the women who were there for abortions because they thought they had no other choice.
She began praying on the sidewalk in the cold and sharing information about My Life Clinic, the pro-life pregnancy resource center across the street.
Quickly, as could only happen as they were led by the Holy Spirit, people started joining her. Then came 40 Days for Life, and the beginning of the end of abortion facilities in Missouri.
The persistent prayerful presence, the proliferation of pro-life alternatives and the enactment of stronger state medical requirements and stepped-up enforcement for abortion facilities spelled an end to abortions at the Columbia Planned Parenthood.
But employees there still do abortion referrals for the clinic in Overland Park, Kansas.
“So we’re not going anywhere,” said Mrs. Forck. “We’re going to be out there praying until that place actually closes and referrals for abortions cease.”
Through prayer, action, education and advocacy, Missouri is close to becoming the nation’s first abortion-facility-free state.
“We have trained women and men on the sidewalk who talk to these women and young teens coming to Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test,” said Mrs. Forck. “And we send them to My Life Clinic in Columbia or to wherever they need to go to keep their baby.”
She noted that there are now four times as many pregnancy help centers in this country than Planned Parenthood abortion clinics.
She implored everyone in her audience to take a public stand for life.
“Dare to tell the truth to your children and your grandchildren,” she said. “Go to Eucharistic Adoration. Pray for the end of this horrible thing called abortion.
“I truly believe it will end,” she stated. “But we have to work at it. We have to be vigilant! And in the end, it’s all God’s work.”
