Thousands gathered in Times Square on Saturday to participate in Focus on the Family’s “Alive From New York” rally, a pro-life event staged as a reaction to New York’s recent abortion controversies.

The rally came as the concluding event to the 12-week “See Life Clearly” campaign that Focus on the Family had launched. Using screens like those Times Square is best known for, a 4D ultrasound was projected live onto a big screen during the rally, and other pictures of unborn children were shown as well.

Jim Daly, president of Focus on the Family, explained the event’s mission to Fox News:

Our hope is that people walking into Times Square on Saturday will look up to the screens and lift-up in prayer every abortion-minded woman…They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Well, the picture of a baby is actually of inestimable worth. It’s a snapshot of the future and a million possibilities yet to come.

Pro-lifers, tourists, and everyday New Yorkers weren’t the only ones drawn to the square that day. Abortion supporters also turned out in order to protest the event.

“New York continues to be a pro-choice city,” New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer stated to PIX11. “While we recognize people will come to disrupt a woman’s right to abortion, we are fighting back every single day.”

The stories of post-abortive mothers turned out to be louder than the voices of the protesters. Christina Bennett of the Family Institute of Connecticut told the story of how her own mother chose life:

She was in the hospital, with her gown on. She had already paid for her abortion…A janitor said ‘Do you want to have this baby?’ And she said yes.

Another post-abortive mother turned pro-life supporter, Cindy Fiore, told PIX11 about how her life changed after aborting three babies:

Planned Parenthood told me when I wake up, my life will be like it was the day before…My life has never been the same. I have been grieving for those babies for the past 40 years.

New York has been a center for the fight over abortion ever since Democrat Governor Andrew Cuomo signed a late-term abortion bill into law earlier this year. While Gov. Cuomo celebrated the “historic” signing, unborn children lost their last protection against abortion in the state.

Photo credit: Screenshot via YouTube