On Aug. 22, thousands of activists protested at Planned Parenthoods around the county, calling for an end to funding for clinics.
The protests came on the heels of last month's viral videos, released from little-known group Center for Medical Progress, which claimed to show Planned Parenthood employees discussing illegally harvesting and selling aborted fetal organs. Planned Parenthood has argued the videos are misleadling, deceptively edited from a conversation about legal fetal tissue use for research.
The release of the videos touched off a firestorm, with Republican members of Congress attempting to pass a bill that would immediately end funding for Planned Parenthood clinics nationwide.
On Aug. 22, hundreds of protests popped up around the country calling for an end to funding. Supporters of Planned Parenthood also took to Twitter to voice their support for the clinics.
"These rallies are meant to intimidate and harass our patients, who rely on our nonprofit health centers for basic, preventive health care," Eric Ferrero, vice president of Planned Parenthood, said in a statement. "The people behind these protests have a clear political agenda: They want to ban abortion, and block women and men from accessing basic reproductive health care."
Though no Planned Parenthood clinic exists in Washington, D.C., protesters gathered a "public witness prayer event" at a construction site of what organizers said was a Planned Parenthood building in process.
"We will be praying that these clinics are replaced with clinics that respect the dignity of ALL human life and do not traffic in aborted baby parts," read the Facebook event description.
Sojourners went to the rally to ask attendees, many self-described people of faith, what they were praying for. Below are their responses.
As an award-winning media producer, JP Keenan has worked on a variety of projects, most recently as the Multimedia Director at Sojourners.
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