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Last Thursday night, my 14-year-old son sat with me as a thousand Australians prayed.

It was an hour of intercession for the babies almost nobody talks about – born alive after attempted abortions and left to die alone without medical care – some surviving for hours, gasping for breath. And behind them, the estimated 89,000 unborn children lost to abortion in Australia every year.

I’d only invited him to have a look, wondering how he’d cope. It’s a confronting subject, and not one a 14-year-old naturally gravitates to – especially against today’s dopamine-drenched alternatives. But he stayed to the end, and that hour reached him in a way I wasn’t expecting.

Almost no one in this country gives these babies a moment’s thought – some deny they even exist. But not one of them is unseen by God, who knows each one intimately. Scripture tells us so:

‘For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.’ (Psalm 139:13–14)

And so, for one evening, pastors and church leaders from ten denominations stood in the gap for the most vulnerable lives in the nation. Like Tyndale, who prayed at the stake that the King of England’s eyes would be opened, they wrestled in prayer for God to open the eyes of Australia and its leaders – and jolt our numbed conscience awake.

Four days later, more than 10,000 baby booties, many knitted by women my son’s grandmother’s age, were laid in the shape of a cross on the lawns of Parliament House in Canberra, all pointing towards the chamber where that same morning, Nationals MP Llew O’Brien introduced the Human Rights (Children Born Alive Protection) Bill 2026 into the House of Representatives.

I’ve worked in communications for more than twenty years – the last five in Christian ministry – and I’m careful with the word ‘momentum’. This past fortnight has earned it.

First, the Church Prayed

That Thursday-night gathering had a name: ‘For Such a Time as This’ – the first national, cross-denominational prayer webinar of its kind, with Australians logged on across 882 screens.

ACL CEO Michelle Pearse framed the night around Esther’s call to courage, and pointed to the booties themselves as a sermon in wool – Psalm 139 honoured stitch by stitch at kitchen tables and prayer groups across the country. Raw, personal testimonies were shared that night – offered in prayer, they’re not mine to tell. I’ll only say the room felt it.

Readers of The Daily Declaration were part of this: the Canberra Declaration community, in the midst of its 10 Days of Prayer and Fasting for Babies Born Alive and Left to Die, promoted the webinar and joined the gathering – a partnership for which ACL is deeply grateful.

Then, the People Came

The Bill’s date was never guaranteed – parliamentary schedules shift constantly. Yet, providentially, it landed on the very Monday set for the booties to be laid upon the lawns.

Under a winter Canberra sky, supporters gathered around the cross of booties – the most the campaign has ever received, more arriving every year, some supporters contributing by the hundred. A small team of volunteers spent four days pinning every pair in place by hand.

A statistic numbs; a tiny pair of hand-knitted booties does not. Ten thousand of them, laid together in a cross, turned a number nobody knew into a sight nobody could ignore.

They were joined by ten MPs and Senators from multiple parties, led by Llew O’Brien MP, fresh from introducing the Bill in the House. Not one of them spoke from notes. And when journalists tried to pull the conversation toward party politics, everyone kept bringing it back to the babies.

Around 150 babies are born alive after an abortion in Australia each year – a figure official records almost certainly understate, because no national reporting exists. As Michelle put it: ‘This is about post-birth protections and babies having the same entitlement to medical care, pain relief or palliative care as a baby born prematurely.’

And the Nation Noticed

Sydney’s Sunday Telegraph carried the story the day before the event. Television cameras lined the lawns on Monday, and within two days it had appeared in 169 media reports reaching an estimated two million Australians.

And the booties themselves? Many are now being packed up and sent to pregnancy and crisis support centres around the country – from the lawns of Parliament to the feet of babies whose mothers chose life.

Where There Is Hope, There Is Life

The Bill has been introduced, not passed, and private members’ bills face a long road. But step back and look at the span of it. Grandmothers knitted. Their children organised and stood on the lawns. And teenagers – including one in my own lounge room – watched the church pray and took it to heart. On Tuesday 25 August, Young Conservatives for Christ will host a free online screening of ACL’s Born Alive Left to Die documentary – young Australians now running pro-life events of their own.

A cause is in trouble when it greys. This one is being handed forward.

The work now moves from the lawns to the chamber – which means the praying is not finished.

Please pray:

• For the Born Alive Bill as it moves through Parliament
• For Llew O’Brien MP and every parliamentarian who stood with the booties on Monday
• For hearts across the Parliament to be open to the simple truth that every baby born alive deserves care
• With thanksgiving – for the thousand who prayed, the ten thousand booties, and every hand that knitted, pinned and posted them

‘Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves…’ – Proverbs 31:8

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Images: supplied with thanks to the ACL.