Not always, not in Pennsylvania.
You see, in Pennsylvania, a woman can legally have an abortion for any reason until almost six months of your pregnancy (23 weeks and six days, to be exact). Even before I became pregnant, I knew that this was wrong and extreme.
In fact, the United States is only one of seven countries in the world, including North Korea (not a shining beacon for human rights), that allow abortions that far along.
But this fact has struck me differently and in an even more disturbing way as I experience my own pregnancy. I just recently hit the six-month mark. For at least a month beforehand, I could feel my baby moving around - so much so that even my husband could feel our baby moving. I learned that my baby is a sweet boy. His little heart has already beat well over 20 million times and circulates about 55 quarts of blood per day. My baby had been listening to my voice for weeks before he reached six months.
All of these things were true, and I still could have gone out and gotten an abortion if I wanted one. It makes me sick to even type that out. "Abortion" feels like too sanitized of a word for such a barbaric action. Abortion either starves a baby to death, poisons them, or violently rips them apart. Live Action has some very hard-to-watch but important videos from former abortionists on what exactly happens in an abortion. Abortion is horrific.
Possibly even more horrific and so shocking that many simply do not believe that (or choose not to), is the fact that the abortion industry and their loyal legislators are continually pushing for the removal of the few protections for life that we do have. In this legislative session alone, there have been at least 30 bills introduced to expand abortion far beyond our current laws, to remove health and safety regulations on abortion facilities, and to force taxpayers to pay for abortions.
And as I feel both the horror that in Pennsylvania it is legal to have had an abortion for the first six months of my pregnancy, and the relief that my baby is finally safe now under our barbaric laws, please don't think that my baby's life was any less valuable early on.
From the moment of conception, our baby had all of his DNA there, all of the information he needed for his precious body to form. From the moment of conception, he was a perfect testimony to God's miraculous design for life.
From the moment of conception, God was already knitting him together in my womb, sustaining and protecting both of us. What a gift.
My baby is finally considered safe under Pennsylvania law, even though I always wanted him to be safe with me. I pray that God would protect every unborn baby here in Pennsylvania and across our country. That hearts would break over abortion and be softened to protect life.
We won't stop working towards that until it is true.
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