PALM BEACH GARDENS | Ramona Treviño knows the difference that sidewalk counselors and 40 Days for Life can make in separating women and men from organizations such as Planned Parenthood. She spoke Feb. 13, 2024, about the impact that one praying woman had on her life.
Treviño, former manager of a Planned Parenthood center in Sherman, Texas, was the featured speaker at a 40 Days for Life kickoff event at the Cathedral of St. Ignatius Loyola in Palm Beach Gardens. Her appearance was arranged by organizers of the pro-life campaign outside the Presidential Women’s Center off 45th Street in West Palm Beach.
40 Days for Life is a pro-life campaign of prayer and fasting to maintain a peaceful, public vigil outside abortion centers. Held twice a year — during Lent and in the fall — the 40 Days for Life campaign that began Feb. 14 will end March 23.
Although raised in a nominally Catholic household, Treviño worked three days a week at the Planned Parenthood office, which dispensed birth control and referred women to other locations to receive abortions. She cried after her first abortion referral but became hardened toward the issue of abortion.
Treviño said her attitude began to change when she, seemingly by chance, listened to a program on a Catholic radio station. “I didn’t know Catholic radio even existed. Never heard of it in all of my life,” she said.
The radio program was centered on contraception and abortion, Treviño said. She added that it was her first time hearing the term “abortifacient,” which described a contraceptive that has the potential to cause an early abortion when it thins the uterine lining and doesn’t allow a fertilized egg to attach and grow. And those contraceptives were being dispensed at her office.
The encounter with Catholic radio was a catalyst for Treviño as she began to ask question. “Everything began to unravel in my life,” she said. Continuing to listen to the radio programs, she learned about the sanctity of human life and other topics that opened her eyes to her faith and the work of Planned Parenthood. She heard a commercial for 40 Days for Life, saying that the Lenten campaign of pro-life presence was coming to her office.
As Lent approached, Treviño said she went to confession, began a 40-day commitment to pray the rosary, stopped using birth control and started going regularly to Mass. On the third day of the 40 Days for Life vigil, she noticed a lone woman who was praying outside her Planned Parenthood office. Hesitantly, Treviño went to her, introduced herself as the clinic manager and asked if the woman would pray for her.
Treviño said she found out later that the woman was not a 40 Days for Life volunteer. The woman had never prayed outside an abortion facility. If she had not been there, Treviño would possibly never have the courage to ask anyone for prayers. That encounter in 2011 gave Treviño the push she needed to leave Planned Parenthood.
“Here I am today to share with you the power of prayer, fasting and pro-life witness,” she told the 40 Days for Life volunteers gathered to hear her speak.
The abortion workers, people going into abortion centers and those who drive by, Treviño said, “their hearts are going to be changed whether they choose abortion or not, whether they choose to stay there or not. People cannot ignore the fact that you’re there. They will try to pretend that they don’t see you. They will try to pretend that they’re not impacted by your witness. They will try to pretend they don’t hear you when you say, ‘Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this today. I’m here for help.’
“But I can promise you 100 percent, everyone who goes in, whether they work there, whether they pass by there, whether they’re going in for services, they see you,” she said. “They know you’re there. And when we are there praying, fasting, combatting this evil that is abortion … there will be a shift. And that shift may not happen there in that moment, but it will come.” To watch Treviño’s entire presentation at the cathedral, visit www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvV59ia3iV4.
