A Peruvian lawmaker recently honored a pro-life organization from the U.S. with a prestigious award for its work to limit abortions in Peru.
Peru was the first country visited by South Carolina-based Pro-Life Global in its summer tour of Latin America, and it trained over a hundred young, pro-life activists there.
At the end of the trip to Peru, the Pro-Life Global team met with Alejandro Muñante Barrios, a member of the Congress of the Republic of Peru, who presented the organization with a “congressional recognition” award for its work opposing abortion.
“The award says, ‘For your untiring labor in the defense of human life from conception, protecting those most vulnerable,’” said Rachel Schroder, Latin America coordinator of Pro-Life Global, translating from Spanish.
Muñante, a 37-year-old Catholic, has worked closely with the pro-life movement in Peru, Pro-Life Global President Bethany Janzen said.
“Particularly, he’s been hosting gatherings with pro-life leaders and bringing them to [the Peruvian] Congress,” she said. “He’s given awards to pro-life leaders who he thinks are doing excellent work in Peru.”
When she and Schroder showed Muñante a model of a 12-week-old fetus that may be clasped in one hand, the Peruvian congressman began to tear up, Janzen said.
“This is a middle-aged, grown man,” she emphasized.
Alejandro Muñante Barrios, left, a Peruvian congressman, gets out and about. (Photo: Alejandro Muñante Barrios Facebook)
The Pro-Life Global team also met with Milagros Jáuregui, a Peruvian congresswoman who is president of the legislature’s Women and Family Commission. Janzen and Schroder also met with a councilor from the municipality of Lima.
“In Latin America in general, people are so receptive to us,” Schroder said. “We talk with pro-life leaders there, and they’re just so willing to do anything they can do to help further this fight for life.”
Nearly all abortions happen outside the U.S., Schroder said.
“There’s this great need internationally to have a voice for life outside of our own borders,” she said. “In Latin America specifically, the need is incredible considering that Planned Parenthood Global is specifically targeting Latin America.”
Even though Latin American countries historically are pro-life, that is shifting, Janzen said. But the highest courts in those nations increasingly are ruling in favor of abortion, she said.
“We really are in a very perilous situation in Latin America, where if we don’t act now and the pro-life movement doesn’t reach the young people, then 20 years from now the world is going to not have any countries that are for life,” Janzen warned.
Janzen said the pro-life movement has to think differently about its approach to saving lives from abortion and sharing its message.
“So often the pro-life movement is very shortsighted,” Janzen said. “It’s like, ‘OK, let’s organize a march,’ or ‘Let’s try to get this politician in office.’ And we can see in the U.S. that’s not working.”
The other side has proactively sought to change the minds of young people, and that’s why polling numbers in Latin American countries are shifting to support abortion, she said.
As the only such Christian pro-life student organization, Pro-Life Global is combating this trend by starting teams around the world.
“I’ve had multiple heads of organizations tell me, ‘This is what we’ve been praying for—this type of model where there’s not just a single group of students but an organized country of young people,” Schroder said.
Pro-Life Global has fielded teams in 14 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, she said. Leaders in those nations who work with Pro-Life Global have saved nearly 350 lives from abortion since the organization started in 2021, she said.
“We’ve really been seeing young people rise up,” Janzen said. “It takes a lot of courage. And that’s why we say they are the modern-day heroes, because true heroes do what’s not popular and that’s difficult.”