Members of Orthodox Christians for Life, a group that opposes a woman’s right to choose, held a prayer vigil outside Planned Parenthood’s health care facility in Long Island City on Saturday, March 20.
Father Martin Kraus with Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in East Meadow, Long Island, led the small prayer circle of one woman and eight men for female patients who are faced with the difficult choice of terminating a pregnancy.
He addressed the small crowd after the prayer service, pointing to the yellow markers on the clinic’s sidewalk to ensure social distancing.
“We have lives. Women who feel that they’re in a bad spot, and they have no other resources,” he said, claiming that women who seek abortions don’t know better and feel trapped.
When asked if he intended to shut down Planned Parenthood, he responded that it wasn’t his goal but to pray for those who have no way out.
“We pray that people don’t feel the need to have abortions. We see it as a loss of life,” Father Kraus said.
Even in the case of rape — Kraus said he felt heartbroken for those who found themselves in this terrible situation — he was adamant that God would provide for them.
“Even if somebody is going through such a horrible thing, we believe that there may be a way through prayer. And by God’s grace, we can help them,” he explained.
One of the protesters, Rick, who didn’t want to disclose his last name, chimed in and admitted that he used to be pro-choice growing up, not understanding what the big deal was. He recommended watching the 1984 documentary “The Silent Scream” by Bernard Nathanson. The video depicts a fetus screaming in pain during the abortion procedure, a claim debunked by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. The medical community described the film as “misleading and deceptive.”
“I think just understanding the idea of conception and how far the idea of abortion is going. You have pre-term pregnancies and stuff like that,” Rick said, who thought it was alarming that New York state allowed late-term abortions. New York’s Reproductive Health Act, signed into law in 2019, states that abortion may be performed after 24 weeks into pregnancy if “there is an absence of fetal viability, or at any time when it is necessary to protect a patient’s life or health,” according to the New York State Senate website.
“The process of giving birth, it’s very much a rite of passage for many women and, you know, but as far as the actual health of the baby, the baby is very much alive as a person individually inside the womb,” Rick added.
He also questioned the high rate of cesarean sections, claiming that a woman’s body was made to give birth. Doulas have told him that they have seen women push out their child on the stretcher while they were on their way to the operating room for a C-section.
“If you take the sort of the caveman example, a woman giving birth in a bush and the saber tooth tiger shows up. She’s gonna feel uncomfortable and stop giving birth. And then, once you see from the cave again, then maybe she’ll give birth. Whereas you know, in the hospital, you might have people going in and out, so I guess you could say what I’m getting at is this whole idea of more organic and natural is always better, spiritually as well as physically,” Rick said.
The group bases their anti-choice beliefs on the gospel and statements by the late Professor Mathews-Roth, an associate professor with Harvard University Medical School. She expressed, “It is incorrect to say that biological data cannot be decisive. It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception. Our laws, one function of which is to help preserve the lives of our people, should be based on accurate scientific data.”
Dimitri Baranov, who attends St. Nicholas Antiochian Church in Brooklyn, founded the group in December. Saturday’s prayer circle was the third held outside a Planned Parenthood facility in the past few months.
Instead of joining other anti-choice organizations, he opted to start his own group to highlight the importance and vision of the Orthodox Church.
“We are open to people who want to join us. But, I mean, the point of starting Orthodox stations was to provide for New York was just to highlight the important service the ministry provides,” Baranov said.
Denise, who also didn’t want to disclose her last name, said it was her first time attending the prayer circle. She stressed that the prayer event was not a protest and that she wasn’t anti-choice but pro-life.
When asked how she felt about late-term abortions when the mother’s life was in danger, she answered, “[The mother] has to give birth to the child that’s alive or a child that is dead. So I don’t see that there’s a real difference at that point. Now, if the woman goes into pre-term labor, she needs to deliver the baby. If the baby dies, then that’s, you know, God’s will. And if the baby lives, that’s God’s will. It’s not something where she needs to go medically induced, you know, prior to it.”
Since the landmark ruling of Roe vs. Wade in 1973, which protects a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion without government restriction, extreme religious groups have been trying to overturn the law.
Planned Parenthood, a constant target of anti-choice groups, provides health care services, like yearly wellness exams, including potentially life-saving breast and pelvic exams to mainly low-income and uninsured patients. According to its 2020 report, clinics across the country have treated 2.4 million patients, including transgender patients and 321,001 male patients. The percentage of all Planned Parenthood health services that are abortion services is 3 percent.
