LIMA—A pro-life advocate is spearheading a widespread letter campaign hoping to inform a new abortion facility it is not welcome in her town.

Through an e-mail sent to area churches, youth groups, Right to Life organizations and some Lima city officials, Sheri Ketner asks for letters to be sent to Capital Care Network/Women’s Health Center, 222 S. Elizabeth Street in Lima.

A demonstrator holds a tiny figure depicting an unborn baby during an anti-abortion march in Madrid, Spain, March 7.

“I believe that abortion is not a choice for anyone because it does kill a baby, it kills a person,” she says. “I just felt led by the Lord to really do something.”

She asks for letters to be sent in red envelopes and to be timed to arrive Dec. 21. Letters may be mailed after that date, but she hopes for a large number to be received the first day.

“We wanted it to impact their first business day of the week, which is Tuesday,” Mrs. Ketner says.
The e-mail includes a form letter, available on the Chronicle website.

The letter states, “We come requesting that your center leave as quickly and covertly as you came in as your arrival here has not gone unnoticed … The very essence of what we stand for is what you omit on your website … We believe you have intentionally omitted a most critical body and life — that of the unborn child and what’s right for their life by offering the option/service of abortion … We are who we are because someone chose life.   We are willing to stand for life in a loving, honest, straight-forward manner because the truth will prevail.”

For those who choose to write their own letter, Mrs. Ketner asks them not to include derogatory statements.

“That is not going to be effective and will hurt the letter campaign … rogue letters that might be sent out of the wrong motive might hurt this campaign,” she says.

She hopes the influx of red envelopes received by the clinic on the same day will catch the staff’s attention. It creates a visual impact even if they don’t open every letter, she says. She chose red because it represents  “the blood of Jesus or the blood of babies,” she says.

Before mailing the letters, she asks for participants to pray over the letters and for the facility’s staff.
“Everything has to be bathed in prayer,” she says.

Jan Kahle, director of the Respect Life Ministry of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Toledo, is working with area parishes to encourage participation in the letter campaign. She also encourages anyone in the diocese to participate.

"I think it would be a good thing to support, whether a church took it on to
do it in January," she says. "Then, these offices have a chance to see that this is not just this one location; there are more folks who are saying the same thing."

She is considering organizing a prayer witness outside the clinic but further details are not yet available.
She notes the abortion facility is located near the combined offices for St. John the Evangelist and St. Rose of Lima.

Although the letter campaign is a personal effort, Mrs. Ketner says she heard of the new facility through her job as a producer at Christian television station WTLW Lima 44.

She was particularly upset in learning the facility is located close to two programs geared toward youth, with the YMCA and Young Life ministry each within a block of the abortion facility, she says.

Capital Care Network’s website states their facilities perform medical or non-surgical abortions up to nine-and-a-half weeks and emergency contraception. The network also operates a facility in Toledo on 1160 W. Sylvania Avenue where first and second trimester abortions are performed.

The Lima facility is open one to two days each week.

At this time Mrs. Ketner does not have plans for further action after the letters are sent, but says she is open to meeting with the facility’s staff. She discourages picketing in front of the clinic because she believes that would build walls, making it more difficult to minister to the women going to the clinic and to the staff, she says.

“I just want them moved out, and I really think we can (accomplish that),” Mrs. Ketner says.
Angela Kessler contributed to this report.