From New York’s law that legalized abortion until birth to Georgia’s heartbeat bill, abortion has dominated national discussion in 2019. Earlier this week, Alabama’s Senate became the latest legislature to take on the abortion industry by approving a bill that would outlaw abortion entirely. The only exception would be if the mother’s life is in physical danger if she continues the pregnancy, and the only person prosecuted would be the abortionist. 

The reaction from abortion activists on Twitter was swift.

Lauran Dern (actress) – “The attack on women’s rights in Alabama isn’t a coincidence—it’s part of an attempt to ban abortion outright. And it isn’t just an attack on Alabama or Georgia women, this an attack on ALL women. This is an attack on everyone who might or can get pregnant.” 

Hillary Clinton – “The abortion bans in Alabama, Georgia, Ohio, Kentucky, and Mississippi are appalling attacks on women’s lives and fundamental freedoms. Women’s rights are human rights. We will not go back.”

Ilyse Hogue (President of radical pro-abortion organization NARAL) – “It’s not at all surprising that only 3 women had a say in the Alabama abortion ban vote and 25 men passed it. Patriarchy is the purpose. Punishment is the point.” And, “Think about this. They want women to be inflicted with pain. They have no commensurate punishment for men, because it’s all about keeping women in line. Women don’t get pregnant on our own you know.”

Most of these statements are full of misinformation or falsehoods. The Alabama law isn’t a punishment for women, nor does it violate women’s rights—but it is about recognizing that the life in the womb has equal value to the mother’s life. But for pro-abortion activists, that is often an impossible reality to accept.

If those activists recognize the life of a preborn has meaning, at any stage of development, then that “fetus” suddenly becomes a baby. It is no longer an anomalous being that can be aborted and discarded, the preborn baby instead could be seen as an individual human life killed in the womb for the sake of convenience. That could be problematic for many women.

While some fully acknowledge that their preborn baby is a life, many others do not. These women believe the lie that they’ve been told by the abortion industry for years, that their preborn baby is just a lump of cells and not an individual life. To learn otherwise could be devastating.

Nearly all highly vocal pro-abortion activists have had an abortion themselves. Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood, aborted her fourth child. Ilyse Hogue of NARAL also had an abortion. As did actresses Busy Philipps, Milla Jovovich, Minka Kelly and Jameela Jamil, who all recently spoke out about their abortions, and many others. They fight so that other women can have abortions and continue to live under the delusion that death for the preborn baby is better than life. That’s why Alabama’s law elicited such a fierce reaction.  

The legislation, just signed on Wednesday by Governor Kay Ivey, will likely be tied up in litigation for years, so it likely won’t have much impact on abortion access at this point. But the law signals that the future of abortion is in doubt. The point of the Alabama legislation isn’t really to change the abortion law in the state, the bill as signed can’t really be enforced as abortion remains legal at the federal level, but the legislation was designed to eventually go before the Supreme Court and hopefully overrule Roe v. Wade.

If you’ve had an abortion, you can find more resources on hope and healing after an abortion here.

Photo from Governor Kay Ivey’s Twitter