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.
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, 1974 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.
Mississippi Baptist Convention Board employee volunteers work to add pennies given for the Memorial to the Missing in Jackson, which is designed to draw attention to the 50 million babies who are missing since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion in all fifty states in the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
(Photo: Baptist Record/William H. Perkins Jr.)
Mississippi Baptist Convention Board employee volunteers work to add pennies given for the Memorial to the Missing in Jackson. (Photo: Baptist Record/William H. Perkins Jr.)
