In recent comments, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate Eric Hovde stated that while he supports the overturning of Roe v. Wade and believes in the “beauty of life,” he also believes allowing abortion to remain legal in the first trimester is the most reasonable thing to do.
“I believe in the beauty of life,” said Hovde. “I have two daughters, three grandchildren, but I also believe in exceptions for rape, incest and the health of the mother. And I think early on in a woman’s pregnancy, she should have a right to choose. If you look at most of Western Europe, they resolved this decades ago. I think Germany said 12 weeks, France at 14 weeks, almost all of Western Europe allows a woman the right to choose in the first trimester.”
Like Hovde, most Americans want abortion restricted significantly, while allowing it in the first trimester. But popular opinion in Europe or the United States “resolving” that it’s acceptable to kill smaller, weaker human beings up to a certain point doesn’t magically make those humans unworthy of life. Preborn children are living, growing human beings at all stages of pregnancy from the moment of fertilization, and all human lives deserve to be protected, including preborn children in the first trimester.
At the moment of fertilization, a preborn child is already an entirely distinct person from his or her mother. His ethnicity, hair color, gender, eye color, and other traits have already been decided. His DNA is unique from his mother’s and father’s. In just three weeks, the baby’s heart is beating — and it isn’t a meaningless electrical throbbing or a manufactured sound created to control women, as abortion advocates like to claim. At three weeks post-fertilization, the heart is pumping blood throughout the preborn child’s body. This is a well-known fact found regularly in scientific literature. Without a child’s beating heart, his body would not continue to grow and thrive through the rest of pregnancy.
An incredible amount of development continues to take place in the first trimester. According to the Endowment for Human Development (EHD), a non-profit organization committed to neutrality on controversial bioethics issues, kidneys are formed by five weeks after fertilization, brain waves can be measured as early as six weeks post-fertilization, and preborn babies respond to touch by seven weeks after fertilization. By eight weeks after fertilization, the baby’s dominant hand (right or left) is determined, and just one week later, preborn babies begin sucking their thumbs. By 10 weeks post-fertilization, they have their unique fingerprints. Newer research has also found that preborn babies likely feel pain in the first trimester or by the end of it.
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During a first-trimester D&C abortion, the preborn child is killed when the abortionist uses powerful suction to tear his or her tiny body apart. The abortion pill, however, has become the most common way to kill a preborn child in the first trimester; 70% of Planned Parenthood abortions are now committed using deadly chemical abortion pills. And the majority of abortions take place in the first trimester, despite the fact that no matter how developed, abortion still kills a human being every time it is done “successfully.”
The abortion pill is a two-drug regimen that includes mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone blocks the naturally occurring pregnancy hormone progesterone, depriving the baby of nutrients, while misoprostol causes the contractions that expel the baby. Live Action’s I Saw My Baby campaign shared the stories of multiple women who were traumatized by the abortion pill experience, including seeing their babies’ bodies. Just because these children are young and vulnerable does not make it acceptable to treat them as expendable and target them for death. In fact, because they are so young, vulnerable, and innocent, they should absolutely be protected.
Being “pro-life with exceptions” — such as allowing abortion in the first trimester — is a fault line running through the pro-life movement. It threatens to demolish the lifesaving work accomplished since the overturning of Roe v. Wade.
