In 1991, 2001, and various other times over the past two decades, our family traveled to Wichita to pray for an end to the heinous atrocities committed by late-term abortionist George Tiller.

In January 2007, as pictured at left, I led a prayer for justice in the Tiller case outside the Sedgwick County Courthouse in Wichita after traveling through a blizzard with Lamar Hagan and our son Jacob.  We didn’t make long trips like this in hopes that Tiller’s killings would end through a lone gunman, but our hope was that his killings would end through prayer, peaceful direct action, and the proper functioning of our justice system.

Although our nation’s abortion advocates suggest that prayer vigils like this promote violence, the opposite is true: they actually prevent violence.  For example, our friend Patte Smith from Orlando, Florida, offers this eyewitness account of violence averted:

We once met a very disturbed man who drove up on the lawn of an abortuary when we were prayerfully ministering. He was breathing heavily & muttering under his breath. The man paced back & forth on the property. My friend Ed was concerned & spoke gently to him. The fellow told us that his wife had just died & that the abortionist had murdered the only child they had ever had. He was full of anger that he had nothing left of his wife & longed for the child who had been dismembered there. Ed put his arm around him & said: “Listen, I’m so sorry to hear about the death of your wife & little baby. You don’t want to get yourself into trouble. Let’s go somewhere & have a talk.” Ed took him out for coffee & comforted him. I feel pretty certain that man wanted to harm the killer that day.

Abortion supporters say that it’s our rhetoric that drives people to kill abortionists. The fact is, however, that the nature of what abortion is innately drives people to want to respond violently, and that our peaceful presence has the opposite impact, tending to counteract the violence.

As we pray for Tiller’s family and those who loved him during this time of mourning, we also pray that their hearts and the hearts of everyone in our nation will be convicted to do away with the violence of abortion once and for all, so that former abortionists and the children they would have aborted may live together in peace.