Baptists Bag Pennies for Aborted Babies
Correction appended
Baptists in Mississippi are remembering “missing babies” from abortions in a special way – collecting 50 million pennies.
The project started by the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission began last May. Currently, it has reached half of its goal with more than 26 million pennies collected, according to the Baptist Press on Friday.
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Contributed pennies by members of churches affiliated with the Mississippi Baptist Convention are housed in the “Memorial to the Missing,” a bullet-proof greenhouse-like glass container at the Baptist Building in Jackson, Miss., across from the state capitol.
“It’s not the 50 million pennies that are important,” said Jimmy Porter, executive director of the Mississippi Baptist Christian Action Commission, to the Baptist Press. “It’s the 50 million children.”
Each penny in the memorial represents an aborted child.
It is estimated that nearly 50 million babies have been aborted since the Supreme Court’s ruling to legalize abortion on Jan. 22, 1973 in the Roe v. Wade case.
According to Porter, there is an abortion in the United States every 20 to 22 seconds.
The Commission plans to invest the 50 million pennies, worth $500,000, with the Mississippi Baptist Foundation and create an endowment fund for pro-life causes, according to the Baptist Record.
A special state-wide offering will be collected on Jan. 21 on Sanctity of Human Life Sunday. The observance falls on the closest Sunday to the anniversary of the Jan. 22 court decision.
Correction: Monday, Jan 22, 2007:
An article on Sunday, Jan 21, 2007 about Mississippi Baptists donating pennies to an abortion baby memorial incorrectly reported the year the Supreme Court decided to legalize abortion as 1974. The ruling for the Roe v. Wade case was made Jan 22, 1973.
