ABUSE has always confronted Dayboro woman Anne Rampa during her decades of prayer and fasting vigils at Christmas outside a Brisbane abortion clinic.
But the abuse this Christmas was more aggressive, the mother of seven said.
The vigil at Greenslopes started at midnight Christmas night, and continued day and night until 5pm on December 28 – the feast of the Holy Innocents.
The vigil-keepers carried signs including Support Mothers Not Abortion, Jesus was an Unborn Child and You Were Once an Unborn Baby.
Ms Rampa said the vigil began as usual “with a prayer we would be instruments of God’s presence in the world”.
“Three different people stopped to abuse us in a couple of hours,” she said.
“The first man grabbed our signs and drove off with them, screaming that we were ‘judgemental’ and ‘unchristian’, as well as uttering a string of obscenities.
“A woman in a car stopped to yell insults, saying we were not real Christians.
“I wondered about her view of what it meant to be a good Christian.
“Did it mean saying nothing about injustice, or just not any injustice she was supporting?”
Ms Rampa said a third protester came back five times, in a car and on a motorbike.
Other tormentors were to appear as that first vigil night wore on.
“A man walked across the road with his finger up in front of his phone, photographing us, then in obvious fury asked us if we felt good about ourselves,” Ms Rampa said.
“He was to return several more times in his car, throwing eggs at us over a couple of days.
“Then a couple walked over and the woman started tearing down the signs, saying she’d have aborted Jesus in a second if she’d known the horror that Christianity was to unleash upon the earth.”
The second night came and 10 fellow pro-lifers turned up to join the vigil – Cherish Life Queensland president Teresa Martin and some young people from the local Annerley Catholic church, Mary Immaculate, and the Frassati community houses and their friends.
Ms Rampa said in some ways the level of abuse experienced was not a surprise.
“The unborn in our society, about a third of the time, are treated with utter contempt and extreme violence,” the pro-life supporter said.
“So it should not surprise us when we are treated to a share of this when we stick up for them.
“Please join us in praying for those for whom the vigil brought up hard and painful memories, and for all involved in this killing industry, that they may see the light and be healed.”
