Category: Pro-Life Victories

The Baptist Press reported a story where some pro-life activists using a mobile ultrasound unit helped a woman in the 3rd trimester of her pregnancy acquire medical care.

“One young woman came by our mobile center who was 33 weeks along in her pregnancy and had not had any prenatal care,” Hendry recounted. “She wasn’t able to qualify for Medicaid and didn’t have health insurance.

“We provided her with her first ultrasound where she could see her fully developed baby, which will be born in the next several weeks,” Hendry said, adding, “It’s always an amazing moment when you are able to show mothers the new life that is living and growing inside their womb.”

The Florida Baptist team connected the woman with a nurse midwife to help with her needs through the remainder of her pregnancy and afterward.”

“Mobile ultrasound unit rescues ‘2 babies & 2 souls’ in 1 day” Baptist press Jul 26, 2011

Even though abortion was not a concern for this woman, the pro-lifers were still there to help her and her baby. The picture many people have of pro-lifers who go to abortion clinics is that of self-righteous men and women harassing abortion patients, but many of the sidewalk counselors and ministries offer real help to women.

 

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Abortions in America have been declining for years. Could one of the reasons be that pictures of unborn babies in different stages of development are now readily available online, and more people know what an unborn baby looks like?

In an article in the UD Flyer, college student Linda Lanphere describes what led her to have her son instead of having an abortion:

“[Linda] Lanphere, a senior psychology major, is a UD success story. She said she was shocked last March after finding out she was pregnant.  After a month of wrestling over whether to keep her baby, give it up for adoption, or abort, she said pictures of the developing fetus presented in her Christian Marriage class finally convinced her to keep her baby. 

“I had an appointment made for an abortion,” Lanphere said. “At the time that he was in my womb, he would have been sucking his thumb, so I couldn’t go through with it.”

Sara Moore “Unexpected Responsibilities Change College Life” Flyer News April 7, 1992

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Aid to Women is a crisis pregnancy center in Canada which is located next to an abortion clinic. The government has been trying to shut them down, and police have repeatedly arrested the workers who sometimes try to talk to the women going into the clinic. At one point in the legal battle, the center gathered affidavits of women they helped. Here are the stories of two of them.

“In December 1992 I was four months pregnant. At the time I had a boyfriend Chris who was not the child’s father.

We decided I would have an abortion. An appointment was made [at] The Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic on Gerrard Street [for an ultrasound] The people at the clinic did not tell me how big my baby was. 

On the way out of the clinic [the abortion was scheduled for the following day] Chris and I met two men and a woman carrying signs. When we walked by them one of them asked if they could talk to us. We said it was OK….Chris and I accepted the invitation to go to Aid to Women next to the abortion clinic…After a while I decided not to have an abortion. Chris then went back to the clinic to get the money back. Since that day we got some more help from Aid to Women. They supplied us with baby clothes and a crib. Chris and I got married on Feb 13, 1993. My daughter Elizabeth was born on May 26, 1993…Aid to Women helped me find a doctor who delivered my baby for nothing.”

Another woman wrote:

“When I arrived, there was a long line of other women waiting for abortions. I could not see the doctor until I waited a long time. Eventually he saw me. He did an ultrasound examination of my abdomen to see the baby. When I asked to see it he refused. I asked him how big the baby was. He would not tell me. He said the abortion was going to be easy…However, by that time of the day I did not have time to wait for the abortion…I explained I had to leave. An appointment for the abortion was arranged for the next day, Nov 2, 1992. By that time in pregnancy, I could already feel the baby move inside me. I cried a lot on Nov 3 before I went to the clinic…Upon arrival at the clinic, I saw ladies outside carrying picture of unborn babies. I looked at the pictures and thought about my own baby. As I was going towards the door a lady asked “Can we help you?” I started crying …They asked if I knew how the baby looks like and they showed me a book about how the baby looks like as it grows inside the mother. 

They also asked me about why I wanted an abortion. I told them about my financial probems…[They] helped me by paying my rent and helping to pay for the groceries [and] with maternity clothes and things for the baby. My daughter Emily wsw born on April 8, 1993.”

Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen May 2000

 

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A former clinic worker describes a pro-life woman who reached out to her while she was working in the clinic:

The woman’s name was Debra.

“I firmly believed, I thought she was a little misled, probably by the male religious leaders of the pro-life movement. I thought she was a little misled, but I really believed she cared about women. And so when my questions did get too strong, I couldn’t go to the Molly Yard and say, Molly, you got a minute? I went to Debra, and I started asking questions.”

Debra ended up helping the clinic worker leave the abortion business.

Rachel M MacNair, PhD. Achieving Peace in the Abortion War (New York: iUniverse, 2009)

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A woman who came to an abortion clinic bent on aborting her baby tells the following story:

“When I arrived, there was a long line of other women waiting for abortions. I could not see the doctor until I waited a long time. Eventually he saw me. He did an ultrasound examination of my abdomen to see the baby. When I asked to see it he refused. I asked him how big the baby was. He would not tell me. He said the abortion was going to be easy…However, by that time of the day I did not have time to wait for the abortion…I explained I had to leave. An appointment for the abortion was arranged for the next day, Nov 2, 1992. By that time in pregnancy, I could already feel the baby move inside me. I cried a lot on Nov 3 before I went to the clinic…Upon arrival at the clinic, I saw ladies outside carrying picture of unborn babies. I looked at the pictures and thought about my own baby. As I was going towards the door a lady asked “Can we help you?” I started crying …They asked if I knew how the baby looks like and they showed me a book about how the baby looks like as it grows inside the mother.

They also asked me about why I wanted an abortion. I told them about my financial problems…[They] helped me by paying my rent and helping to pay for the groceries [and] with maternity clothes and things for the baby. My daughter Emily was born on April 8, 1993.”

Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000

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“Recently one of our friends gave a pair of Precious Feet to a pregnant, unmarried girl she knew…An abortion was being planned and the girl was receiving pressure to carry out those plans.

After seeing the feet she couldn’t believe them. The usual, ‘This can’t be true,’ and, ‘I don’t believe it,’ led to further research and examination of just what would be happening if the abortion were carried out. In other words – a life was saved!”

The Precious feet pins are little lapel pins of baby’s feet at 10 weeks, life size, similar to those in the picture

Ray in Springfield, Missouri

“In Retrospect: 40 Years of Abortion and What You Can Do” California Right to Life Newsletter, Feb 2013

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Late term abortionist Dr. Leroy Carhart has left Nebraska after a law was passed banning abortions after 20 weeks.

Citing evidence that unborn babies feel pain as early as 20 weeks, legislators in Nebraska have passed a law banning abortions after this point in pregnancy.  Since the law has been enacted, abortions in Nebraska have dropped by 10%. This statistic comes from the Nebraska Health & Human Services Department.

Pro-lifers credit this drop to the fact that one prominent abortionist who practiced in Nebraska for years has left the state. Dr. Leroy Carhart performed late-term abortions at his abortion clinic. After the ban on late-term abortions became official, he packed up and moved to Maryland, where he continues to perform abortions late in pregnancy.

By 20 weeks, an unborn baby is fully developed and many doctors believe he or she can feel pain. If the baby is female, she has a uterus and ovaries of her own. The baby sleeps and wakes, and even dreams – REM eye movements have been recorded in unborn infants of this age. He or she reacts to loud noises and soon will recognize his or her mother’s voice.  The only part of the baby that is not fully developed is the lungs – they are not strong or developed enough to breathe air, which prevents the baby from surviving if he or she is born alive. Babies as early as 21 weeks have survived premature birth, but viability (the official time when babies are considered able to survive being born premature) is generally considered to be 23 to 24 weeks.

Pro-life activists who enacted the law were hoping that the pro-choice movement would challenge it in court. Had this happened, the law may have led to the overturning of Roe V Wade, the Supreme Court case that legalized abortion throughout the United States. Pro-choice groups have not taken this step, perhaps because they feared the overturning of Roe V Wade if the court finds in favor of the new law.

Read more about late term abortions:

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The statistics are in for the number of abortions in Wisconsin, and they reveal that abortions have dropped by 9% throughout the state.  According to the Department of Health and Human Services, there were 8542 abortions in 2009 and only 7825 in 2010.

There are many possible reasons for this decline. Pro-choice activists usually credit reductions in abortions to increases in the use of birth control. This may indeed account for some lower numbers, as fewer unplanned pregnancies obviously leads to fewer abortions. However, the high visibility of pro-life activists as well as the Internet may also be a factor. Because of the Internet, many people have seen pictures of unborn babies at different stages of development and pictures of aborted babies. These pictures as well as other pro-life information may be swaying more people towards the pro-life position – or least encouraging them to choose life when they become pregnant or have a partner who becomes pregnant.

Whatever the reason for the drop in abortions, it is a cause for celebration. Even many of the most extreme pro-choice activists admit that abortion is a necessary evil, an unfortunate event that should be avoided if possible. Therefore, anyone but the most hardened pro-abortion activist should feel that these numbers represent an encouraging trend in the state of Wisconsin.

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