A national organization that organizes sidewalk counseling — the practice of giving women information outside abortion facilities about their other options — is celebrating more than 22,000 lives saved this month on its 10th anniversary. Sidewalk Advocates for Life (SAFL) president Lauren Muzyka said that even in a post-Roe America, their work is very much needed.
The latest numbers from Planned Parenthood reported more than 374,000 abortions, its highest-ever number, the year after Roe v. Wade was overturned. Abortion pill access is on the rise, with the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute reporting that this accounts for more than 60% of abortions in 2023. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court is currently hearing arguments about the safety of the abortion drug mifepristone.
But Muzyka is able to offer a perspective from “out on the sidewalk,” where Sidewalk Advocates encounter women seeking abortions every day.
“In some of our states where abortion is limited, like a six-week ban or a heartbeat ban, it’s really interesting because we’re actually still seeing a great amount of traffic,” she said. “I wish the country could see what we’re seeing in some of these more pro-life states.”
“Even in our pro-life states, we still know that there are women in crisis in our communities that, at the very least, are considering driving 300 or 600 miles away to the next nearest abortion facility,” she told CNA in a phone call. “A lot of people don’t realize, even in the pro-life states, that we still have Planned Parenthood Family Planning Centers on the ground that serve as abortion referral facilities.”
Muzyka gave the example of the state of Georgia. “It’s surrounded by pro-life states,” she explained. “A lot of women are going to Columbus, Georgia, or Atlanta to see if they made the six-week cutoff. If they didn’t, then they’re getting referred to the Carolinas or to Virginia or the Panhandle of Florida.”
“Sometimes you have very distraught, angry women [who are] overwhelmed because they drove all through the night to see if they made this cutoff,” Muzyka further explained. “Some of them will turn around because they’re met by a sidewalk advocate there, but this is why our states really need to protect life at conception, because sometimes the six-week ban isn’t doing as much as I think the people of that state would desire to protect life and to protect women from this trauma.”
The sidewalk advocates do what Muzyka calls “crisis management.” They stand in strategic places outside an abortion facility with pamphlets, information, and sometimes small gifts, and talk to women going in for an abortion.
“There’s always a reason or set of reasons that brings a woman to an abortion facility,” Muzyka said. “The idea is, if we can fill that crisis, then what we see is that that mom … often turns back to herself and reconsiders the life of her child. We let her know how we can help her, and then we give her a vision forward for how it’s possible for her to have her child and to have the life that she wants as well.”’
“A lot of women are there because they ironically feel like they have no choice,” she added.
Issues women struggle with vary from a challenging pregnancy diagnosis or severe morning sickness to fear that their parents will kick them out if they don’t have an abortion.
“All we can do is invite, and it’s up to that other person to respond,” Muzyka said. “We do get a mix of rejection and then people who take us up on that offer of help.”
SAFL is celebrating more than 22,000 lives recorded to be saved from abortion through their sidewalk counseling service. In addition, more than 5,000 “hopeful saves” — women who leave the abortion facility to “think about it.” SAFL also reported 89 abortion workers leaving and 55 abortion facilities closing as a result of their work.
But their success isn’t their own, Muzyka said.
“It’s the grace of God. It’s his hope, it’s his love, it’s his peace that’s really winning someone over,” she said. “… It’s even right there in our mission statement that we are the hands and feet of Jesus. And that’s really the heart of sidewalk advocacy, is Our Lord sent people out in twos to go spread the Gospel. And this is really the epitome of the gospel of life, is meeting someone there in their moment of crisis and speaking hope and peace into their circumstances.”
The ministry sees “miracles out on the sidewalk” because it is a “beautiful little mix of practical and spiritual,” Muzyka said.
SAFL’s top core value is being Christ-centered. Though the organization doesn’t subscribe to a particular denomination, the movement is “Catholic-heavy” but “comfortable” for anyone of another denomination, Muzyka said, and their formation materials incorporate Scripture.
“And it’s beautiful, because we’re actually seeing this new springtime of collaboration throughout the body of Christ,” Muzyka said.
“When you go to a Sidewalk Advocates for Life training, there is Scripture from beginning to end, reinforcing basically every major concept that we’re teaching,” she said. “Even the understanding that in every case, there’s a life-affirming solution — really anchoring ourselves and anchoring her into the hope that we have in Christ and giving her his joy and his peace and his love.”
“We really believe, of course, too, that we’re not the ones actually saving these babies,” she added.
The ministry doesn’t just help mothers and babies in crisis, but it offers community to pro-lifers across the country, Muzyka pointed out.
“It’s almost like Sidewalk Advocates for Life is here to say to the pro-life person serving on the front lines, ‘You are not alone, and we’re going to journey with you until you are called elsewhere or until your abortion facility shuts down,’” she said.