Pro-abortion activists aggressively harass peaceful pro-life prayer vigil in Germany

By Walter Sánchez Silva

ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 6, 2024 / 18:32 pm

Tomislav Čunović, lawyer and executive director of 40 Days for Life International, denounced a March 1 attack by abortion activists on a group of people peacefully praying for an end to abortion in Frankfurt, Germany.

In a March 3 statement, Čunović said the attack was carried out by about 20 individuals “from the extreme left” who harassed, threatened, and insulted a group of people who were praying the rosary about 100 feet from the facilities of the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) in the Palmengarten area, a distance established by law for this type of peaceful demonstration.

“Although this arrangement also respects the participants’ right to assemble and the privacy of pregnant women who visit the center, and does so in a proportional and legal manner, as required by the courts, neither the abortion lobby (Pro Familia or IPPF ) nor their sympathetic political elites are willing to accept this constitutional solution nor the legal reality,” the executive director of 40 Days for Life International pointed out.

“Despite threats of physical violence, the vigil participants refused to disperse. Some assailants wearing hoodies approached them and shouted in their faces, harassing them, mocking them, insulting them, provoking them, and intimidating them with aggressive behavior,” the pro-life leader said.

The people who were praying remained in place while the attackers placed garbage cans, electric scooters, and large wooden pallets from a nearby construction site in front of them. They wrote in English on the pavement “My body my choice,” a common slogan used by abortion advocates to defend the taking of innocent life.

Čunović noted that “at least one of the attackers was already known to a vigil participant. He had mooned them during a vigil at the same location in the fall of 2023 in the presence of several women and a child.”

Police failure

The executive director of 40 Days for Life International noted that the police took about 20 minutes to arrive, an unusual response time, and that “instead of determining what was going on and taking action against the suspects … they reprimanded the victims and asked them to remove the barricades” that their assailants had set up.

Meanwhile, “the suspects who remained in the vicinity were allowed to continue harassing the pro-lifers with boom boxes at full blast, as if nothing had happened.”

“Although there were well-founded grounds for [charges of] coercion, threats, incitement to hatred, insults, damage to property, theft, obstruction, and disruption of an lawful assembly, and although several witnesses present had video recordings of what happened, the officers refused to file a criminal complaint and take down the IDs of the suspects who were still nearby,” Čunović said.

Christian witness

The leader noted that “it’s public, pro-life Christian witness that rankles the abortion lobby and the sympathetic political elites. They want to silence the Christian conscience that reminds us of the divine commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill.’”

Čunović condemned the attack and called “on the authorities to thoroughly investigate these incidents and punish those responsible.”

The 40 Days for Life Lenten campaign in Germany is holding prayer vigils in Munich and Stuttgart in front of abortion clinics, and in Pforzheim, Stuttgart, Passau, and Frankfurt in front of IPPF facilities.

This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.

Walter Sánchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa (https://www.aciprensa.com). With more than 15 years of experience, he has reported from important ecclesial events in Europe, Asia and Latin America during the pontificates of Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. E-mail: walter@aciprensa.com