BROOKLYN HEIGHTS — Clutching her rosary beads, Rosa Cerrato spent the morning of Sept. 13 standing on a sidewalk with her head bowed in prayer.
Cerrato, a volunteer at the Life Center of New York in Bay Ridge, a pro-life facility, stood outside a Planned Parenthood clinic on Court Street with other pro-life supporters praying the rosary in memory of aborted babies.
She was one of a group taking part in a sidewalk prayer vigil organized by Bernadette Patel, a pro-life supporter and sidewalk counselor who regularly stands outside abortion clinics to distribute literature to persuade women to choose life for their babies over abortion.
“Millions of babies, precious babies, are killed every year. They deserve to be remembered,” said Cerrato, a parishioner of St. Finbar Church in Bath Beach.
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The prayer vigil was timed to coincide with the 13th Annual National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children, an observance launched in 2013 as a joint project of three groups — Citizens for a Pro-Life Society, the Pro-Life Action League, and Priests for Life.
According to the National Day of Remembrance of Aborted Children website, the national group encourages grassroots organizers to put together observances in their communities on the second Saturday in September each year.
The Planned Parenthood clinic was chosen as the site for the Brooklyn observance of National Day of Remembrance for Aborted Children because it is a primary abortion provider, Patel said.
“They kill so many children here,” she said as she stood near the entrance of the building, holding pamphlets that she would be attempting to give out to people entering the building. “Those children are worthy of remembrance. They deserve to be honored. They deserve to be loved.
And if their mothers didn’t love them, we will.”
Patel and other pro-life supporters were met outside of Planned Parenthood by a counter demonstration of pro-abortion advocates who held a banner with the slogan “Abortion is a Human Right” and displayed signs with messages like “Abortion is Health Care” and “Abortion Forever.”
One pro-abortion protester held a sign reading “Losers” with an arrow pointing toward pro-life supporters.
The two groups were standing on the same side of the sidewalk opposite the building entrance, and while the atmosphere was tense, the two opposing groups peacefully coexisted for most of the morning.
However, at one point, the pro-abortion crowd attempted to shout down the pro-lifers while the pro-life supporters were praying the rosary. The pro-life supporters ignored them and kept on praying the “Hail Mary.”
The prayer observance outside Planned Parenthood took place two days after a federal appeals court ruled on Sept. 11 that the Trump Administration can move ahead with its plan to defund the organization by preventing it from receiving Medicaid reimbursements, which could lead to the closures of as many as 200 facilities nationwide.
Despite the ruling, Planned Parenthood leaders vowed to continue providing services.
“This is a blow, but the fight isn’t over,” Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, said in a statement.
While pro-life supporters point to the latest court ruling as a victory for life, more than 3,100 abortions are still taking place on average every day in America. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization, there were 1.14 million abortions in the U.S. in 2024.
And according to the Society for Family Planning, New York City — which has been nicknamed the “abortion capital of America” — saw an 18% increase in abortions during the first quarter of 2024 as compared to the previous year — 9,660 in 2024 compared to 8,160 in 2023.
Participants in the prayer observance said they remain undeterred by opposition to their cause.
“We are here for the babies,” said Father Morty O’Shea of Immaculate Conception Church in Astoria. “All lives are important. And all babies should get that chance to live.”
