WASHINGTON — Cathy Harris thought to name her unborn child while praying for the government recently in the hallway of a Senate office building on Capitol Hill.

It was nearly a decade ago when Harris, 26, aborted Hannah Elizabeth — as she calls the fetus she believes was a girl.

“Looking back, I can’t say 100 percent that I wouldn’t have gotten an abortion had someone talked to me, but it certainly would have influenced my decision making,” said Harris, the daughter of a United Methodist pastor.

Now a newlywed and pregnant again, Harris has dedicated her life to talking to young people about abortion — and helping them pray to stop it. She directs a Washington-based internship program at the Justice House of Prayer (JHOP), a non-profit begun in 2004 to focus on praying for the government to end abortion.

Six days a week, for at least an hour, Harris and her group pray in front of the Supreme Court with their mouths shut — literally — by red tape inscribed with the word “life.”

“One great thing about it, I am a talker and for me to sit there with a piece of tape over my mouth for an hour and a half is good thing,” said Luke Christian, 23, a JHOP summer intern from Zimmerman, Minn. “It gives me a moment to slow down and meditate.”

This “silent siege,” as organizers call it, is a strategy of Bound4LIFE, a grassroots affiliate of JHOP that in two years has grown from seven chapters to more than 220 in seven countries. Bound4LIFE sells rolls of red “life tape” on its Web site for $7, so sympathizers can conduct local protests at abortion clinics and courthouses from Syracuse to Seattle.

“It’s really a very humbling place to stand there and believe your prayers are effective,” Harris said. “It’s very difficult for people to walk by and make weird looks, thinking what you’re doing is crazy.”

For another $2, individuals can also purchase “life bands” — almost identical to the once-ubiquitous Lance Armstrong “live strong” bracelets — except these are red and read “life.”

Matt Lockett, who leads both JHOP-DC and Bound4Life, left a career in advertising to follow the movement.

“I’ve always kind of laughed and said, given my background, it’s funny because God gave us the Coca-Cola of the pro-life movement,” Lockett, 38, said, speaking of the “life” brand of products and protests.

Lockett said about 350,000 people have bought “life bands” in the last four years and thus pledged to vote for anti-abortion candidates.

Without an imminent election, the prayer warriors are staying busy with health care reform at their Capitol Hill headquarters, watching to see whether Congress will allow a government health plan to cover abortion.

They’ve been talking with politicians, studying church-state issues at the Library of Congress, and praying for government officials.

While they are not the only protesters to ever tape their mouths shut, they have nonetheless become a youthful symbol of a regrouping Christian right, with a growing charismatic wing that speaks in dreams, visions and tongues.

A sleeping Brian Kim, 26, dreamed “life tape” into being one night, just as he began his senior year of college.

“Pro-life advocates are typically characterized by the media as older, angry, and aggressive people,” Kim, a former JHOP-DC intern, said. “The life tape has helped move the rhetoric beyond that polarized image.”

Kim now works at the International House of Prayer in Kansas City, Mo., the base of JHOP founder Lou Engle, a pastor both revered and reviled for his ability to attract young people to pray continually to end abortion and same-sex marriage.

The Rev. Carlton Veazey, head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, called Engle a “dangerous theocrat who organizes young people ostensibly for spiritual purposes but actually for political ends.”

But conservative Christian youth flock to TheCall, Engle’s massive prayer gatherings that draw upwards of 30,000 attendees. JHOP recruits have branched out of the Washington flagship with franchises in seven cities, each with their own prayer focus.

“They want to change history and we tell them that prayer is the most powerful force to bring justice,” Engle, 56, said. “Then we give them a reason to die, a purpose big enough to die for.”

This language of martyrdom often raises eyebrows; JHOP members speak of abortion in biblical terms of armies, allies, and enemies.

“We are in a spiritual war and it is a spiritually violent war but our weapons are not guns. They are fasting and prayer,” Engle said. “This is the greatest challenge of my life, how to walk the fine line of that.”

Sustaining momentum in non-election years has also been challenging, and with overhead increasing and participation waning, JHOP-DC is refocusing its efforts on overturning Roe v. Wade after a disappointing 2008.

“We have an administration that is contrary to what we believe and we have a supermajority in the Senate that would appear unstoppable,” Lockett said. “This is where it really tests your resolve and whether we really believe this is going to work.”

Until then, their lips are sealed and their prayers are fervent.