Texas Governor Greg Abbott spoke over the weekend at a pro-life rally with hundreds of people in the state capital. The governor said pro-life people don’t just oppose abortion — they celebrate and support mothers and babies.
Npow that abortions are banned in Texas, Abbott said the next step for the pro-life movement is to provide more help for pregnant moms both before and after birth.
“Our work, as people who support life, is not even close to being done,” said Gov. Greg Abbott. “We must now live up to the fullness of being pro-life. We must protect babies after they are born. We must protect the lives of the mothers who give birth.”
After Texas banned abortions, Republicans in the state legislature allocated over $100 million to support programs and groups that provide support and assistance for pregnant women and their unborn children. Abbott wants to increase those funds to even more women get the help they need.
“We must double those efforts to protect both the mother and the child,” Abbott said. he lauded how the program “provides for the needs of women before birth and for up to three years after birth.”
The governor also celebrated pro-life Texans who are standing up for life.
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“All of you are life savers, and thousands of newborn babies are the result of your heroic efforts,” Abbott told the crow. “We promised we would protect the life of every child with a heartbeat, and we did. I signed a law doing exactly that.”
The Texas abortion ban has been saving babies. We know a few of their names: Kendall, Olivia and Cason – children who are alive today because of the Texas abortion bans.
And new state health data indicates there are many, many more babies like them.
Since June when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and began allowing states to protect unborn babies again, abortions have dropped 99 percent in Texas, according to Fox News.
For the month of August 2022, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission reported zero elective abortions and three medically necessary abortions. In that same month a year earlier, 5,706 unborn babies were aborted; and two months earlier, in June of 2022 prior to the overturning of Roe, 2,596 abortions were reported, according to the department.
Texas Right to Life estimates as many as 50,000 unborn babies have been saved from abortion since the state heartbeat law went into effect in September of 2021 and then the abortion ban in July of 2022.
“Official report shows there were only 3 abortions reported in TX in August 2022, all due to medical emergencies,” the organization responded on Twitter. “We still have work to do to stop illegal abortions, especially pills trafficked over the border [and] online, but this shows life-saving progress.”
Although some women are traveling to states like New Mexico to abort their unborn babies and some are obtaining illegal abortion drugs from abortion activists, many others are choosing life for their unborn babies.
These include the mothers of Kendall, Olivia and Cason whose stories have been featured in national news reports.
Cason’s mother Tamara Nelson recently told the New York Times that she is happy that she did not go through with aborting her son, despite her financial struggles.
“… reality is reality — there’s still that extra mouth to feed,” Nelson said. “I’m so happy he’s here. But it’s a lifelong decision that I have to maintain.”
She and her children found support through one of the many pro-life charities in Texas: Blue Haven Ranch, a maternity home that provides temporary shelter, financial and emotional support for moms like Nelson who choose life for their babies.
“I’m grateful for their help and their support,” Nelson said. “I’m not used to people saying: ‘Hey, how are your kids? How is your mental state?’ Small things like that matter to me.”
Other mothers, like Kendall and Olivia’s, also have found support from pregnancy resource centers and pro-life individuals. In a powerful example of the pro-life movement’s dedication to helping mothers in need, last summer, actress Patricia Heaton, pro-life leader Lila Rose and others helped to raise $50,000 in 24 hours for the young Texas mother and her twin girls.
As more data becomes available, pro-life advocates expect state abortion and birth statistics will confirm that pro-life laws are stopping abortions and saving tens of thousands of babies’ lives.
