This a report by Luis Fernanda Barriga, from 40 Days for Life Colombia

It´s September 28, 2024, is six in the morning, I just arrived to Teusaquillo neighborhood, where the headquarters of the Foundation Coalición Por la Vida are located. This prolife foundation is dedicated to provide comprehensive support to women facing an unexpected pregnancy. This foundation is located in Carrera 17 with 33 street in Teusaquillo, Bogotá, Colombia.

Foundation Coalición Por la Vida Headquarters are located in front of one of the largest abortion centers in the neighborhood of Teusaquillo. It was the fourth day of the 40 Days for Life Campaign, in its 19th version, prayers and volunteers arrived and started praying slowly Hail Marys, one by one, with their rosaries; they raised prayers to God for the end of abortion. In every campaign men and women pray quietly and peacefully in front of this abortion centers that are places of death.

This fourth day of the campaign was also the international day of “secure abortion”; at 10 a.m. pro-choice people arrived to the abortion center and it caught my attention that even though couples and single women were entering the abortion center, the number of “clients” was less than the usual number for Thursday, Friday and Saturday; normally during these days we see a lot of “clients” entering the abortion center and a lot of movement among the employees of the abortion center.

Father Van, that always accompanies the 40 Days for Life Campaign, daily sitting in his chair at the side of the abortion center, was praying and handing out Prolife flyers to everyone, I said to myself “this can be risky”, so I asked him to move to the other side of the street, where the vigil was taking place in order to protect his integrity. Father Van continued praying with us in the other side.

While morning passes, feminists and prochoice keep arriving to the abortion center in order to celebrate the World Abortion Day, September 28 of 2024, Oh! How ironic is to celebrate death… young and older women keep arriving with their characteristic clothing and green scarves, they called themselves… LAS ENGUARICHADAS (a feminist school and a support network for abortion).

In the other sidewalk, the vigil of 40 Days for Life continued calmed and in a low tone, as every day, with confident prayers.

At noon, we offered our volunteers and prayers a snack, since most of them were fasting and offering their prayers from very early in the morning; there was tense calm … the feminist and the prochoice girls got out from the abortion center, stopped in the entrance of the abortion center and began to prepare their activities, placing large plastic sheets covering the exterior walls in front of the abortion center….

They had spray paints and started doing cardboard they placed on the platform. 

At 12:30 p.m. approximately, people from the Local Authorities in charge of maintaining peace during confrontation of groups, arrived to the vigil. One of them reached me and told me that they were at the vigil to guarantee our safety in the activity that the feminists were planning for their celebration. I thanked and reminded her, that, as she knows, she must not worry about us, since our vigil is a peaceful prayer and that we NEVER respond aggression with violence. I pointed her that she must take care that feminist don’t attack us.

Time passes and the feminists who were doing their activities in front of us, started approaching us aggressively and defiantly as we continued praying, they shouted their slogans and harangues, they blasphemed... and the "batuqueras" arrived with their drums, very modern ones, by the way, now they are wearing an uniform, green of course.

Around 2:30 p.m., while the prayer vigil continues on the sidewalk, more prolife persons arrived, we reached around 30 prayers, men and women of different ages. As it is typical in our vigil, families also came with their children. For safety reasons, we closed the front door of our building and kept inside moms and kids to protect them inside the foundation's facilities. We continued praying and around 3:00 p.m. one of the Local Authorities reaches me and tells me that the march of the other feminists is coming to our place. They scheduled a meeting point right in front us. She said they will pass in front of the vigil.

At the first moment there were about 5 women of this local authorities, but in that moment 10 more arrived, they stood up in front of prayers, while praying continued. There was a tense calm when suddenly a truck appeared on 17th Street, painted with the characteristic colors of these feminist movements; on the truck platform, some women danced, many feminist and some men accompany them. The “batuqueras,” stopped at the entrance of the abortion center and continued playing their drums loudly, much louder now… There was a lot of noise, harangues, shouts, blasphemies; green flares are burned and fill the air with smoke, polluting it. Then then the feminist march appeared in the intersection of 17th Street and 33A Street, I managed to see a woman with her torso naked, all of them had their faces painted with their characteristic colors, most of them  with their faces covered with balaclavas and green scarves;.

They made their first attempt to come against us while we continued praying calmly and peacefully… Their intention was to attack us and paint the walls of the prolife foundation… They shot us with the green spray they had, painting our faces while we prayed against the wall of the prolife Foundation. We were between the feminists and the local authorities in charge of our safety, who formed a kind of human cordon to prevent them from approaching us. But the problem was that feminists and prochoice were more than us, so they attacked us, they pushed us, they vandalized all the signs of our campaign, they painted them, they burned a flag of the movement “united for life” that was placed at the prayer vigil. They yelled rude things to us, they shout with threatening expressions of hate. In their eyes, the only thing we saw through the balaclavas, their faces covered with green scarves and the costumes of witches some of them had, we saw a lot of confusion. Feminists continued shouting their slogans, noise increases, it´s an infernal noise… they attacked us again, they directed their spray paints to our faces, we tried to protect ourselves with our hands and by crouching, they pushed us against the walls, they say rude things, they make obscene gestures with their hands, we tried to protect the walls of the Prolife Foundation so Feminist can’t paint it.
 
At some point during this attack, one of the marchers, a man who is completely covered from head to toe, with only his navel visible, armed with some stones, throws one of these rocks, quite big, to the glass door of the prolife Foundation, thanks God this rock didn´t hit a prayer who moved quickly to avoid the rock by bending down… Thank God she was able to avoid this attack, if she had not done that, she would be irremediably injured… The noise continued, the rudeness and blasphemies mixed with peaceful prayers of the brave people praying from their hearts, as an act of charity and mercy towards our aggressors.

Feminist painted in the platform in front of the Prolife Foundation; men in our vigil were attacked by all the hatred from feminists, they painted their clothes with green
spray, they insulted them… There was a lot of noise, the aggressions continued, a lot of rudeness, green smoke, the smell of paint, it was really diabolic what we experienced that day. 

It is 3:58 in the afternoon, since the aggressions were getting stronger, I bend down and almost in the floor I called the police that was two blocks from the vigil. I heard a recording saying that the call will be recorded, and then a female police officer answered, I identify myself, I told her my location and I asked her for help in an act of desperation: “Please help us, we are being attacked by feminists, they outnumber us and the security authorities’ can´t protect us”… I begged her to send Police, “please help us…” 

The voice in the phone assured me that police will come, but two hours passed by and no one came, the police never appeared.

Everything was confusing, shouts, harangues, drums, green flares explode making us hard to breath and since they painted our faces, our eyes felt burned, our throats closed… it was really a disproportionate attack, and there we were, left alone… in the middle of so much hate and facing the silence of an apathetic society that lowers its gaze so they don´t get involved.

March continued, they moved away along 17th Street, after causing so much damage in front the Prolife Coalition and to faithful prayers. We trust in God’s Mercy, but clearly affected with all this terrifying experience, we enter the building and attended the people we kept inside to protect them, we gave them something to drink and we asked them to go home as soon as possible, to take off their Pro-Life scarves and shirts identifying them as 40 Days’ Prayer, because we fear that feminists will return at any moment.

At 5:30 pm, we thanked all prayers and volunteers for being with us in this terrifying moment and for giving witness in this spiritual fight. We made spiritual hygiene prayers, since we experienced a strong war, what we lived was really heavy. We said goodbye to all this people with their hearts inflamed with love and Christian charity, and we all humbly left towards our homes.

We thank God for protecting us. In the cameras we have in the prolife foundation we saw that feminists returned to paint the walls of the headquarters and vandalize them with their horrible signs “take your rosaries out of our ovaries”, “Legal abortion”, etc.

Of all this, I´m impressed of the attitude of people working in the abortion center in front our foundation, while we were picking up the pieces of our completely vandalized signs and the stones left there, they laughed and laughed…

Then I thought “what makes them laugh so much?” …Is hard to see women who supposedly defend women attacking other women.

…Women who hated men, but a man in their march attacked women that were peacefully praying in the vigil, what makes them laugh so much?

Clearly we felt the presence of evil very strongly in that spiritual battle we had and by the grace of God and his protection, apart from the red eyes and affected throats, and some bruised caused by the pressure of our bodies against the wall, we were safe... and with a strong commitment to defend the lives of the little ones who have no voice, to defend those little ones, whom today's society renders invisible, according to its personal conveniences and protected under a supposed right that does not exist.