Answered prayers for 40 Days for Life:
Pensacola, Florida abortion clinic closes

WASHINGTON, DC – With a very brief legal notice in the local newspaper, a Pensacola, Florida abortion facility quietly announced its closing. The clinic was the site of three 40 Days for Life prayer vigils, including one that just concluded this Sunday. The notice read, “As of October 30, 2009, The Community Health Center of Pensacola will be terminating its practice.”

The clinic was facing a choice between closing its doors or paying a $413,000 state fine for an expired laboratory license. The clinic management did not pay the fine and instead closed its doors. State health officials told WEAR-TV that they had offered the abortion facility a reduced fine as part of a settlement agreement – but they never received a response. The abortion center staff would not comment to reporters, but the legal notice in the newspaper suggests that the closure is permanent.

“There had been an abortion clinic in that location for 25 years,” said David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life. “People have prayed there that abortions would cease, and it was during the fall 40 Days for Life campaign – the peaceful, prayerful presence of faithful Christians – that it was finally announced that this facility, where untold numbers of unborn children perished, was closing. That is not just a coincidence. God works in mysterious ways, and this is indeed an answer to prayer!”

This is the fifth closure of an abortion facility that has been the site of a 40 Days for Life vigil.

The local 40 Days for Life coordinators were not aware that the closing was made official last Friday, the 38th day of the fall 40 Days for Life campaign. They arrived as planned for prayer on Saturday and Sunday and continued their vigil. The legal notice appeared in Monday’s newspaper.

“This fall’s campaign has been the most incredibly blessed 40 Days for Life effort yet,” Bereit said of the fifth coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign, which was conducted simultaneously from September 23 to November 1 in 212 communities covering 45 American states, five Canadian provinces and one location in Denmark.

“There have been 571 lives spared from abortion that we know of this fall,” he said. “There have been eight abortion industry employers who have left their jobs. And two abortion centers have announced their closings. It’s been a most eventful 40 days.”

In addition to the Pensacola facility, a Planned Parenthood clinic in Kalispell, Montana announced its decision to close its doors, citing a decline in business as the reason for the closure. That clinic was the site of a 40 Days for Life prayer vigil last spring.

Among the eight employees who have left the abortion business is Abby Johnson, who was until October 6 the director of the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Bryan/College Station, Texas. She resigned after experiencing a change of heart. Johnson had worked at the clinic for eight years and had witnessed six 40 Days for Life campaigns outside that facility and has now joined the peaceful prayer efforts outside her former workplace.