Sidewalk Counseling with Created Equal’s Summer Interns

*This is an AI generated transcript, and may contain errors*

Mark Harrington (00:00):

Today we’re coming to you live from Planned Parenthood here in Columbus, Ohio, and I’ll be interviewing our summer interns who will be on the sidewalk this morning. Sidewalk counseling, trying to reach out to women. We’ll interview each one of them. Also, I have as my guest, Gabe Vance from Catholics for Life, a familiar name to many of you, so stick around. You don’t want to miss this program. All right, welcome everybody. The Mark Harrington show, your radio activist Mark Harrington with Gabe Vance from Catholics for Life. We are out front of the Planned Parenthood here in Columbus, Ohio. Ohio. Unfortunately, as you well know now, is a destination state because of the passage of issue one less than November. Gabe, you’re out here how many times a week or at least in front of the facilities here in Columbus?

Gabriel Vance (00:59):

Five days a week. I’m outside of the facilities.

Mark Harrington (01:01):

Praise the Lord brother. Good for you. Have you seen an increase in clients, if you want to call ’em that, mothers to come here to kill their babies since the passage of issue one? Yeah,

Gabriel Vance (01:14):

A little bit. Here at Planned Parenthood, not a whole lot has changed because there’s not, the amendment has affected a lot of Ohio’s laws yet putting injunctions on the current pro-life laws we have. So a little bit, just really even the last two weeks. So here at Planned Parenthood, it’s been real sad. I mean you can kind of see the parking lot behind us, but there’s been days where they’ve had them double parked in the handicap spot, other parking spots, parking in the grass underneath that billboard you can see back there, here on the side street. So there have been some days like that where it’s been very busy and that’s sad to see because every car is a baby as a child.

Mark Harrington (01:47):

And we’re getting reports from Cincinnati, and I’ve talked about this on the radio program about how that planned parented because it’s on the border there at Kentucky and Indiana is seeing 20% of their clients are from out of state, and that’s why we have our ultrasound van set up there. Praise the Lord. So, hey Gabe, tell us how you do this. I mean, if people aren’t familiar with sidewalk counseling, what is that?

Gabriel Vance (02:12):

So Sidewalk Counseling is just having a Christian on the sidewalk. They’re present praying interceding for the children, for these babies, for the mothers, the fathers of families, those who are coming here and really everyone involved in the abortion, even the staff and doctors, the escort, security. And our job to be there is to be a presence there to share Christ’s love to pray and then to offer help to extend help to that mother or that father, whoever we can reach. We usually stand with signs showing what abortion is, with showing Preborn, babies, showing helplines where people can turn to get help. And then we offer literature and say, good morning, my name is Gabriel. Would you come down and take information for me? There’s help for you. Talk about help for that mother, the life, the dignity of her baby, God’s grace being there for her to provide for her.

(02:56):

Talk about the dangers of abortion, how that can impact her. If there’s any lawsuits or things against the clinic or maybe with the doctors, a botched abortion, something like that. Anything you can really share with this mother to try to turn her. And we’re always referencing them to pregnancy resource centers that they’re right here. We have one right across the street here at this Planned parent. We really have two across the street, two different ones that we can refer mothers to. And then of course to talk to them about abortion per reversal to talk about the infinite mercy of

Mark Harrington (03:23):

Jesus. Yeah, I noticed you have to sign the abortion pill reversal. Sign over here. I’m with Gabe Von, and he’s a familiar face to many of you. Of course he was with Created Equal for several years and then started Catholics for Life. But he’s still on the front lines of the battle. And here regularly, we’ve had some problems with security here, thankfully it looks like they’ve reassigned that security guard, which is good, allows us to have access to the women. Now Gabe, we understand that this is the last resort, right? When a woman gets here, mother already pregnant, I mean 99, 90% of ’em are going to go right in the door. So we know that. So it’s important to reach ’em sooner and that’s what create equal does. And you do as well, as much as we’re able. But people have to be here. In fact, this sidewalk should be full with protesters today. It’s not. But a lot of people say, well, it’s too late. You’re wasting your time. Most of the women are going to go inside. Why do you bother?

Gabriel Vance (04:24):

Because that’s not true. Because like Mark said, the overwhelming majority of people here are going to ignore us. But there are people that are on the fence about whether they should be here, whether they should kill their baby. I’ve talked to women that have been praying, asking God, I think this is wrong. I think I shouldn’t do this. And we’ve seen when Christians are here present on the sidewalk, I’ve kind of looked at the numbers. We’ve seen about one out of 50 moms decide to cancel their appointment when a Christian is here offering help. Yes, praise God. By his grace, we’ve seen one out of 50 moms choose your mind. And each month we’ve seen with, I have a lot of people who report to me that are out here throughout the week and we’ve seen each week we have multiple confirmed saves of mothers that tell us they’re keeping their babies. So the overwhelming majority of babies are still lost, are still killed here, but we’re there to reach and save those babies that we can, the last land of offense to be here where the babies need us most urgently.

Mark Harrington (05:12):

Yeah, the scripture’s clear. It says rescue those being led away to death. It’s a command it friends, we know where they’re going. They’re coming here. We know to go where to go to rescue them. And so if you think, what can I do on the abortion issue, it seems like we’re losing these state constitutional battles currently. We are. Hopefully with this year it’ll be different. But there are things you can do practically. One of ’em is to come out here, simply pray, and I say simply pray. Pray is the number one thing and to be a presence. Because even then women that drive up here and they see people out front, they think, maybe I shouldn’t do this. I’ve heard so many testimonies you have as well. When someone who’s their mind say, I prayed, you may not even be a Christian or whatever, they say, God, send me a sign if I shouldn’t do this. And here we are. And they say, well, that was the sign. That’s all I needed. And we’ve had testimonies like that all the time,

Gabriel Vance (06:13):

Even from the abortion industry too. Mark, I read an article once of a director of an abortion facility that says, the larger of a gathering there is outside the facility. It doesn’t really matter what nature, but the larger it is, the more cancellations they have, the larger more people outside, the more cancellations. Even if there’s some people maybe there of an abortion facility in your area and there’s one or two people out there already go join them. Because the more people that someone coming in sees the bigger of a difference that makes. And the more people that are sacrificing to be there and praying and pleading God to pour grace into these mothers hearts, to bring about their conversion and to rescue their children.

Mark Harrington (06:49):

So your website, what is it?

Gabriel Vance (06:51):

CatholicsforLife.Us

Mark Harrington (06:53):

Catholics for Life, us. Gabe Vance is my guest here today. He is out front of the abortion mills on a regular basis. And we’re seeing, unfortunately, the parking lots beginning to fill up. Thankfully there’s a pregnancy resource center right across the street. We’re seeing people go inside, which is good, right? Yes. That’s what we want, right? Yes. We want people to be offered those alternatives, but sometimes they don’t come here, we got to go to them. That’s why

Gabriel Vance (07:17):

We’re out here. They just don’t know about it. They don’t know, but we got to tell ’em and then they will come here. Exactly.

Mark Harrington (07:22):

Exactly. So again, Catholics for Life, what’s the website again?

Gabriel Vance (07:25):

Catholics for life.us. And if you’re in central Ohio on our website or Catholics for Life, us slash Facility Ministry, there’s a link on our home beach. We list all the times where the two facilities in central Ohio are open and there aren’t people here. You know what, mark? We’ve had just an outpouring of, I think God’s grace sending labors the harvest. So we’re down to just one hour that we need somebody at the facilities to have a Christian presence here from open to close Wednesday mornings from nine to 10:00 AM so somebody from Columbus is watching. And then there’s other times where some people need a partner, they’re here by themselves.

Mark Harrington (07:57):

It’s such an important ministry. So get involved. You can go to Catholics for Life’s website. Okay. Gabe Vance is my guest. Thanks Gabe. Keep up the good work.

Gabriel Vance (08:04):

Thank you so much, mark. Thank you for your work. God bless you, mark. God bless you.

Mark Harrington (08:08):

Thanks a lot. Okay, friends, I hope you enjoyed the interview with Gay Vance. My good friend and colleague in the battle here with Catholics for Life at Gig was a staff member for Created Equal for many, many years and has been a warrior for the pro-life issue for so many years. And right now I’m joined by some of our new interns that are here for this summer for our bootcamp. We have several of them and I want to go and introduce each one of them to you. And also we’re going to get kind of perspective as to why they would spend their summer doing this, when they could be doing a lot of other things. So I’m going to go down the line. What’s your name and where are you from?

Gavin (08:52):

My name’s Gavin. I’m from Mansfield, Ohio

Mark Harrington (08:55):

And Gavin’s a second year. What does the second year person do?

Gavin (08:59):

We spend a bit more time in the office with the rest of the staff helping out wherever we can.

Mark Harrington (09:06):

Yeah, the second year internship is really to give them a better idea of what would be actually to do this full time because some people are under the impression that we’re always out here planned parent or on a college campus, which we’d love to be more of that, but we also have other duties that we have to do and that’s why Gavin’s here for a second year. And your name and where are you from?

Anara (09:28):

My name is Anara Hubbard. I’m from Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Mark Harrington (09:31):

Alright, Ann.

Molly (09:33):

My name’s Molly Brohard and I’m from Westville, Ohio.

Mark Harrington (09:36):

Alright. And Molly And all these folks come from Great stock. In other words, their parents or other family, they send their kids to the internship. So let’s start out, let’s start with you. Why are you here for a second year? You were here last year, not here for a second year. Why?

Gavin (09:58):

I just didn’t feel like anything I would’ve done back home would’ve been as fulfilling as coming back down to Columbus to work with Created Equal.

Mark Harrington (10:07):

And I’m going to put you on the spot. Does that mean you’re going to work for us full time?

Gavin (10:11):

I’m not sure.

Mark Harrington (10:13):

Come on, man.

Gavin (10:14):

Might go to college or something, but maybe a gap year

Mark Harrington (10:19):

After. All right. We’ll talk. We’ll talk. All right. And how about you? Why did you come here and spend your summer?

Anara (10:26):

Well, because I’ve had the opportunity to do multiple events and trips with Create Equal,

Mark Harrington (10:33):

Such as

Anara (10:35):

The Justice Ride that they do every spring. And just being able to see the impact that we can make and change people’s minds and being able to see other people change their minds and listen to us and support us is really impactful and encouraging to me. And I just really didn’t think that I could or I wanted to do more. And seeing that we can make an impact, I wanted to be a part of being able to make that impact. And so I decided to come with Create Equal and

Mark Harrington (11:19):

Do that. And why did you give up your summer? This is why, because you wanted to have an impact. Why does the abortion issue matter to you so much? When many young people are out doing other things, they could care less

Anara (11:33):

Well. I mean, abortion is the Holocaust of our time. It’s millions of millions of children are dying every day from it. And I mean, it’s always been an important issue to my family. And just in the past couple years, it’s become more real to me that this is happening in the world.

Mark Harrington (11:59):

Have you ever been to a Planned Parenthood before?

Anara (12:02):

I have, yeah.

Mark Harrington (12:03):

And you’ve seen women go in and kill their children. How hard is that?

Anara (12:06):

Yeah, it is very hard to see. A couple days ago when we were back here, I was counseling and got to try to reach out to the women walking in. And it is very discouraging just to be talking to them, try to reach out to them and they don’t listen. But I mean, I know that we’re at least plenty seed. You need to be here. Plenty of seed. Yeah, we need

Mark Harrington (12:33):

To be here. Okay. Molly, what about you? Why are you here this summer? Why did you choose to do this when you could have done all kinds of other stuff? Fun thing, although this is fun, it’s not, I mean, serving the Lord is the best thing to do.

Anara (12:47):

Well, both of my sisters had done the internship before and after I went on my first justice ride earlier this year. Just being able to talk to people and really go to the front lines, it’s really encouraging to be able to see people’s mind change and see that not everyone is for killing babies and that people do understand that this is a horrible thing that’s happening and I just wanted to be able to do more.

Mark Harrington (13:20):

Well, here’s the thing, fans, there’s no mystery as to why Molly’s here and it’s because her family cares about this. And both of your older sisters have been involved and created equal. So this is a lesson that good families, good churches turn out good kids and good kids get involved in ministry. And that’s what we want our kids to do if they can. Not that you have to full-time or anything, but that would be the goal. We want to serve the Lord with all we have. And so let’s turn around. We look at here we are at the Planned Parenthood. We have our abortion victim signs out front. It’s a full parking lot. It’s hard to watch, is it not? I’ve been at this forever and just being here again. Every time I come, it never fails to make me sick to my stomach as to what’s going on inside so quickly. Now, how do you sidewalk counsel? I mean, what would you say if you had 10 seconds to talk to a woman going inside, what would you tell her? 10 seconds Go.

Anara (14:32):

I would say, hi, my name. My name is an I’m here because I care about you and I also care about your baby and I want to help you. And then if I had more time, I’d tell her, we have free resources for you. If you’ll just come talk to us for a minute. We want to help you. We do care about you

Mark Harrington (14:54):

About as much time as you have unless they come over to you. Now, if someone came over to you and started, you got them away from the abortion center, right? They’ve come over to you on the sidewalk, what would be the first things you sell?

Anara (15:07):

Well, I would tell them that right across the street, there is a pregnancy resource center right here in here that can get them free ultrasounds, free pregnancy tests, and that their baby is a human being who is precious and valuable. And this place will dismember and decapitate their baby. And that this is not the right choice,

Mark Harrington (15:27):

Right? So it’s important. We talk about abortion. I mean, that’s why we have the photos up. A lot of people think, oh, we shouldn’t use abortion victim photography at Planned Parenthood. I think, no, this is the very place to do it because 99% of the women that go inside are never going to stop and talk to us. You got to give them something to see. Let about you. Gavin, what would you say to a woman that you had 10, let’s put it this way. A guy. See what I do when I’m out here? I speak mostly to the men. I let the women talk to the women. What would you say to a guy who is going inside and he’s taken his girlfriend and to kill their baby?

Gavin (15:59):

I would just say that if his girlfriend’s pregnant, that he’s already a father and that fathers are called to protect their children and not to kill them. Exactly. Right. And that what he’s doing is selfish. Amen, brother.

Mark Harrington (16:11):

Yeah, I mean, you got to appeal to their manhood. I’ve done that many a times. Sometimes they get really upset at you because you’re calling into question their manhood and they don’t like to hear that. So friends, we’ve been here this morning with our interns, our summer interns for the summer bootcamp. We’re at the Planned Parenthood here in Columbus, full parking lot. I’m going to release these young people to go do what they are here to do, and that is to counsel and to hold the signs. So be in prayer for our interns this summer as we begin. This is only day four. It’s a long summer. Two months of this. We’ll be taking some road trips and also coming out to the abortion facilities. Public square, downtown, other places, Ohio State University, Columbus State Community College, places like that, be in prayer for them and friends, if you want to support our internship, these young people raise their own financial support just like a missionary for the summer, but they don’t always raise all of it and it doesn’t cover all the costs involved. So if you want to help us out, go to created equal.org/donate, created equal.org/donate and you can help support the internship. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America to bless God.

Outro (17:38):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the culture war.