September 20, 2025

The work of '40 Days for Life' has led to 1,750, 000 years of life for those who so nearly lost it

Dorothea Shaw

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On the surface, it has been a hard year for the pro-life movement in the UK. We have seen abortion up to birth achieve success in the House of Commons with hardly any controversy.

We have seen assisted suicide pushed forward towards legalisation. All the while, the voices of the vulnerable, the unborn, the older generation, the disabled – as well as the hardly-disabled-but-still-an-inconvenience-to-society – are ignored and silenced.

In the teeth of opposition, pro-life work becomes more important, not less, and it behoves us to value life even more when it counts with others for so little. We now have the advantage that people are more aware of us, and we must use this.

This was particularly visible recently at this year's March for Life. There were more of us than ever, but there were also more protestors against us, as well as the unrelated Palestinian protests, attempting to keep us out of Parliament Square as much as possible for the symbolism of the thing.

So why have I chosen this moment to do difficult pro-life work? I am running the Oxford campaign for 40 Days for Life, a group which fasts and prays near an abortion facility, and also offers help to those who want it.

This work is one of the most important and the most difficult in the pro-life movement, and this is manifested in the numerous difficulties we have had. Issues with leaflets, the grief of losing a team member because of our speakers, finding places and dates for our events, the difficulties in finding people brave enough to even attend our events, the sheer cold silence one receives from scores of churches compared to the one positive reply.

But the rewards are immense. 40 Days for Life has saved the lives of over 25,000 babies that we know of. In other words, the work of 40 Days has enabled over 1,750, 000 years of life for those who were so nearly denied it altogether.

And considering that the no-show rate goes up to 75 per cent – according to former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson – when we simply stand there and pray, this is a conservative estimate indeed.

That immense number of years of life is longer than some measures of how long humans have existed. Moreover, 40 Days provides a spiritual community all over the world: a campaign has now been run in 65 countries, excluding the US where it was founded.

We all run our campaigns simultaneously, and face difficulties together, whether it be snow, rain, hail, difficult encounters or, in the UK’s case, buffer zones. Over a million volunteers have now prayed somewhere in the world during a 40 Days vigil, whether it be a vigil outside the clinic for 12 hours a day, or for 24 hours, or those strong communities which have a year-round vigil.

The power of these prayers is immense, and it is much better for us to work together than alone. Fear is the only factor which can stop us, especially when we have God on our side, from winning this battle in the end.

What are the risks, really? Fear of going near the clinic: I remember how nervous I was the first time. But in reality, there is a very peaceful and prayerful atmosphere as each of us prays with at least one other person.

Fear of negative interactions: these do happen occasionally, but they are a lot more scarce than you might expect (as the news and media obviously only tells us about these).

Fear of arrest: this seems natural in the UK in particular, but as we all sign a declaration to obey the local laws, and the 40 Days for Life team can protect us if we are indeed treated badly, we are much safer than one imagines.

Again, we tend not to hear about the positive stories, with our attention is focused by the
media on stories of arrests.

Let us not allow fear to discourage us from pro-life work.

‍Photo: Members of the '40 Days For Life' group hold a vigil near to the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital in Glasgow, Scotland, 5 March 2025. (Photo by Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images.)

Dorothea Shaw is a classics student at Oxford. The '40 Days for Life’ vigil will run in Oxford every day this autumn from 24 September to 2 November, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. For more information click here.

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