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Fairmount Street Report from OSA-Dallas

 
By Melissa Owen

Fairmount Street Report from OSA-Dallas 

"Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. But you, keep your head in all situations, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." 2 Timothy 4:2-5

What a bizarre morning we had this Saturday, out in front of the Fairmount Women's Center! It wasn't just the usual mocking from the customers, or the usual harassment by the police. Please forgive the length of this street report, as there is so much to report it could not be shortened.

It all began with one woman who was being dragged into the clinic by her boyfriend. She literally was digging her heels into the pavement, desperate to hear what the sidewalk counselor had to say. Her loud-mouthed boyfriend did his best to talk over Amy, an OSA-Dallas Sidewalk Counselor, until one of our men engaged in conversation with him. The woman listened intently to Amy's words, with tears streaming down her face. She knew she could not deny the life within her because she already had four precious children. Yet her boyfriend insisted that they could not afford another one. Eventually, she gave in to his insisting that we really were not going to help them, and that there was nothing that we could do. Did it ever cross their minds that we don't stand on the street corner in the freezing cold at 7:00 on a Saturday morning for the fun of it? Obviously, if we are willing to go that far, we will keep our word. She wept all the way up to the door.

Soon after that we had another couple come down the street. Again, the boyfriend was very adamant in boasting his ignorance so that all could hear. After mocking God and dropping off his girlfriend inside, he came back outside... and mooned us! The man dropped his pants right outside, to prove our favorite saying: IRRESPONSIBLE MEN LOVE ABORTION. Siring children, yet fathering none...

Later, both of these men were outside conversing with several of our men. It was a wonderful opportunity for our warriors to sharpen their swords. We must always be ready to give an account of our foundation in Christ, yet also be careful not to throw our pearls before swine.

Surely, we all would have walked away that morning satisfied with the amount of drama we had already experienced, but it didn't stop there. A 13-year old Hispanic girl was being taken inside by her mother. Veronica, another OSA-Dallas sidewalk counselor did an excellent job of speaking Spanish with the mother, who did not speak any English. I had the privilege of getting to talk to the young girl. She was very scared, and didn't want to be there. She had been impregnated by an 18-year old man, her boyfriend. Both of them wanted to keep the baby, and it had been her mother's decision to abort. After speaking with me at length about her situation, she had made up her mind that she wanted to keep the baby. I was extremely dismayed to see her walk into the clinic with her mother after promising me she would not get the abortion. The "counselor" inside took her directly upstairs to begin the process.

There is a regulation on Texas abortion clinics that they are responsible to investigate any under age girls obtaining abortions, to ensure that these girls are not the victims of rape, incest, molestation, or statutory rape. Fairmount has been failing in this area, immensely. Our procedure is to call the police to report that the clinic has obviously not done their duty, if under age women are coming in for abortions. This young girl's boyfriend had not been charged with statutory rape. How many girls are brought in, impregnated by their fathers, brothers or uncles, and the clinic did not investigate this and let an abused child slip through their hands. Not to mention they are subjecting a young girl to the emotional malfunction following an abortion, the likelihood of this happening is almost doubled in women under 20 years of age. The girl emerged from the clinic, with a picture of her baby's sonogram in her hand. She had gone through with her promise! She was still scared, and crying as she spoke with me. We sent her off with a list of Crisis Pregnancy Centers to help her, as well as exchanging phone numbers with her. She cried as I prayed with her, and hugged me before she left. Please remember her in your prayers-she is in 8th grade and her parents are probably going to kick her out of the house. Pray that they change their hearts toward their little grandchild.

As she was walking away a police officer stopped me and called me over to his squad car. I was the one who had talked to the dispatcher, and the officer wanted to know why they had been called. He apparently was unaware of the Texas State law that I mentioned earlier. After I explained the law to him, he basically told me that we were wasting our time and that there was nothing that a police officer could do about it. "I know for a fact that they are doing everything they are supposed to be doing," was what he said. When I asked him how he knew this, his reply was, "Because they are supposed to do it." They murder baby boys and baby girls inside that place, tearing them from limb to limb. I don't intend to "take their word" for anything. It was quite a lengthy conversation with the officer, who was very lackadaisical, and began to expound about his political views on the death penalty and war (this after telling me that the law was above politics and they were expected to be unbiased). He then said that no small victory was going to "win the war." He might be right, but I don't consider saving that little baby's life a small victory. What a huge blessing from God! That little baby is going to live for seventy some years, and have children of his or her own-only God knows the plans that He has for them! It's exciting!!!

We had just prayed and were beginning to transition into post-abortion counseling when another couple approached. The man was smoking a cigarette and reeked of alcohol. The woman, dressed in sweat pants and a sweat shirt, was literally being pulled down the street as she wept. He rushed her to the door, not allowing her to take any of the literature we offered. Right before she entered the door she cast her eyes in our direction. The pain and agony expressed in her eyes was like that of someone being led away to their death.

All in all, we witnessed three couples entering the clinic in this fashion. Never before has it been so prevalent that abortion is a man's issue. It does not liberate women, but rather it shackles them to the awful secret of, "I killed my baby." Most often, it is the man who feels relief and freedom from the experience. The woman, not the man, must bear the physical pain, the emotional grief, and the spiritual death that accompanies the traumatic abortion procedure.

We were just recovering from the shock of watching this when an older woman was sighted approaching the clinic alone. I greeted her and introduced myself and asked if she was coming to the Fairmount Center. She said yes and received the information I offered her. She then told me she was from the Dallas Morning News. The reporter interviewed John Reyes and I for a while and then sat back and observed. She seemed to know quite a bit about the pro-life and anti-life movements to date. She took several quotes and asked that we add her to our press contacts. Keep your eyes out for a report soon, probably a big article on January 22nd.

After the reporter left, women started coming out of the abortuary having completed their abortions. The most striking of these, was a woman who began vomiting as soon as the door closed behind her. She stumbled down the steps and vomited again. Every few steps, she had to stop and vomit some more. She accepted the post abortion literature and sat in the car. As they pulled away she had a sickening look on her face. Her eyes seemed to say, "I wish I would have listened to what they had to say before I went inside. I wish I would not have done this. I know now that there must have been a better way to deal with this. I wish, I wish, I wish..."

Many women say, "If only..." If only someone would have told them, if only someone would have been there for them, if only someone would have stopped them. There is no, "If only," for the women we meet on Saturdays. Someone IS there to help them, someone IS telling them, someone IS trying to stop them. They have no one to blame but themselves. Our encouragement to these women would be this:

"I sought the LORD, and He answered me; He delivered me from all my fears. Those who look to him are radiant; their faces are never covered with shame. Taste and see that the LORD is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. The LORD is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:4-5,8,18

Please remember to pray for these women. They have a long road ahead of them to come to terms with what they have done and seek healing and forgiveness from the Lord.

By the end of the morning all 19 of us saw 24 women entering the clinic, were mooned by a man, visited by the police, interviewed by a reporter, watched three women dragged into the mill against their will, and saw one baby saved by the mercy of God.