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CNA Staff, Dec 28, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
The 2024 elections are less than a year away. While all eyes are on the presidential matchup, there are also numerous efforts by abortion activists to craft abortion rights … […]
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CNA Staff, Dec 26, 2023 / 06:00 am (CNA).
New Yorkers will be voting next November on a proposal to enshrine abortion rights into their state constitution.The vote comes as a wave of states attempt to expand abortion… […]
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris in New York City on Nov. 29, 2023. / Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images
CNA Staff, Dec 19, 2023 / 19:05 pm (CNA).
Vice President Kamala Harris announced she will embark on a tour across the nation promoti… […]
Live Action’s new website on the development of a child through pregnancy, windowtothewomb.app. / Credit: windowtothewomb.app
CNA Staff, Dec 17, 2023 / 10:00 am (CNA).
Have you ever wondered what it’d be like to have a window into the womb?
Well, that’s exactly what the pro-life group Live Action has attempted to provide with its new interactive website windowtothewomb.app.
The website launched Dec. 14 walks users through each trimester of pregnancy, day by day, by presenting an animated baby’s development starting from conception.
“The main idea behind the web app was to present something groundbreaking and something that was medically accurate,” Live Action spokeswoman Christina Bennett told CNA Friday.
Users can either watch an animated video that progresses through each day of development or they can click through each week at their own speed. When clicking through the weeks, users will be able to read notes on the screen that describe certain aspects of the child’s development.
At the eight-week stage, one note says: “At eight weeks, (six weeks from fertilization) brain waves can be recorded.”
At the 15-week stage, another note says: “Teeth! At 15 weeks, tooth development begins.”
Bennett said the website was made with the help of medical doctors and other medical professionals. She added that its production was in response, in part, to the misinformation about life in the womb that often circulates, such as the idea that a preborn baby is just a “clump of cells.”
“So we really wanted to combat this misinformation with groundbreaking, medically accurate, beautifully animated images of the baby growing in the womb to educate people, but also to give them an eye-opening, enlightening experience where they get to see what is really going on,” she said.
“That’s why we call it a window to the womb,” she said.
The website also includes a button that says “Pregnant & Need Help?” Clicking that link takes users to Live Action’s website where it offers several options to women who are either considering abortion, have had an abortion, have taken the abortion pill, are employed as an abortion worker, or are interested in adoption.
When entering the website, users can choose a name and the biological sex of the baby they are seeing develop.
Bennett said Live Action’s goal is for “everyone” to use the website, including those who work in pro-life pregnancy centers, which are institutions that help pregnant women in need of support.
Diane Ferraro, CEO of Save The Storks, a large network of pro-life mobile medical clinics, said in an article on Live Action’s website: “Sharing Window to the Womb with women who board our mobile medical clinics will provide another compelling reason to make the decision for life for their babies.”
Another pro-life leader, president of Heartbeat International Jor-El Godsey, said: “It’s well said that ‘people perish for lack of knowledge.’ This is no more true than with the knowledge of fetal development.”
“Live Action’s Window to the Womb is a visually powerful tool in ministering to those who are unexpectedly pregnant and need to know what is actually happening with the life developing within them. From the sidewalk to the center or from the church to the kitchen table, this is a tool for anyone to champion life,” he said.
The website can be accessed here.
The Supreme Court of the United States, Oct. 7. 2022. / Public Domain
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 13, 2023 / 12:24 pm (CNA).
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CNA Staff, Dec 13, 2023 / 08:14 am (CNA).
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Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 12, 2023 / 14:30 pm (CNA).
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A sign welcoming patients from East Texas is displayed in the waiting area of the Women’s Reproductive Clinic, which provides legal medication abortion services, in Santa Teresa, New Mexico, on June 15, 2022. / Credit: ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 11, 2023 / 18:15 pm (CNA).
A woman who sued Texas state officials so she could obtain an abortion has decided to get an abortion in a different state after the state Supreme Court blocked a lower court ruling that could have granted her an abortion.
“Kate [Cox’s] case has shown the world that abortion bans are dangerous for pregnant people and exceptions don’t work,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is representing her in the lawsuit, said in a statement.
“She desperately wanted to be able to get care where she lives and recover at home surrounded by family,” Northup said. “While Kate had the ability to leave the state, most people do not, and a situation like this could be a death sentence.”
The Texas Supreme Court intervened in the litigation on Dec. 8 after Travis County District Judge Maya Guerra Gamble issued a temporary order that would have restricted state officials from enforcing Texas abortion laws against hospitals and doctors who would have performed the abortion for the woman.
Gamble’s Dec. 7 order came amid the preborn child’s diagnosis of trisomy 18. Only about 5%-10% of babies born with this condition will live past their first birthday. Her order also claims the woman’s doctor determined that she could suffer long-term health complications, such as future fertility problems, if she continued the pregnancy.
The Supreme Court’s intervention restored the state’s ability to enforce its laws but did not put an end to the litigation, noting that the ruling is “without regard to the merits” of the case and it allows the case to proceed. The pro-abortion group will continue the litigation “because the issues in this case are capable of repetition,” they said in a Dec. 11 court filing.
The litigation is scheduled for a hearing on Dec. 20 in the Travis County District Court.
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has accused Gamble of being an “activist judge” and has argued that the ruling failed to show any “reasonable medical judgment and a life-threatening physical condition” and did not meet “the legal standard” for a permissible abortion under Texas law.
State law prohibits abortions in most circumstances, with an exception when the life of the mother is at risk or she could face serious problems with her physical health.
The Texas Supreme Court (building pictured) paused a lower court ruling that could have allowed a woman to receive an abortion following a request from Attorney General Ken Paxton. / Credit: Public Domain
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 11, 2023… […]
A pro-life woman kneels in prayer in front of the EMW Women’s Surgical Center, an abortion clinic, in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 8, 2021. / Credit: Jon Cherry/Getty Images
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 9, 2023 / 09:00 am (CNA).
More people are traveling outside of their state to receive an abortion after more than 20 states enacted pro-life legislation amid the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade, new data from the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute found.
The percentage of women traveling interstate to receive an abortion nearly doubled in the first six months of 2023 compared with 2020, according to estimates in the report. It estimates that the number of out-of-state abortions jumped from about 9% of all abortions to about 17% of all abortions. The total number of women receiving out-of-state abortions more than doubled from fewer than 41,000 to more than 90,000.
According to the report, the states with the highest uptick in out-of-state abortion seekers are bordering states that enacted new restrictions on abortion. This includes Florida, which has fewer restrictions than its neighbors Georgia and Alabama; New Mexico, which has fewer restrictions than neighbors Arizona, Texas, and Oklahoma; and Kansas, which has fewer restrictions than all of its neighbors, apart from Colorado.
“We knew that more people have been traveling across state lines for abortion since the end of Roe, but these findings are stunning nonetheless and powerfully illustrate just how disruptive the overturning of Roe has been for tens of thousands of abortion patients,” Guttmacher Institute Data Scientist Isaac Maddow-Zimet said in a statement.
“Where people are traveling to get care is an important piece of the puzzle in untangling the post-Dobbs abortion landscape,” Maddow-Zimet, who led the project to produce the report, added. “We hope that this data can prove useful to providers, advocates, and policymakers who have been working tirelessly to improve access to abortion in the face of unprecedented challenges.”
Tessa Longbons, a senior research associate at the pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute, told CNA that the report’s findings are “tragic, but unsurprising.”
“After the Dobbs decision, we’ve seen pro-abortion states become even more extreme in their marketing of abortion to women in pro-life states,” Longbons said. “Women deserve to know that there is a network of nearly 3,000 pregnancy centers across the country providing millions of dollars’ worth of services and resources for pregnant women in need. Rather than pushing abortion on demand, states should offer women and their babies real support and comprehensive care.”
The Guttmacher Institute produced these estimates from data samples they received from organizations that perform abortions.
In spite of the increase in out-of-state abortions, pro-life activists have noted that a recent increase in live births nationally shows that pro-life laws are having a positive effect in saving preborn children from abortions.
“Despite the efforts of pro-abortion states, the Institute of Labor Economics recently estimated that states with pro-life laws will welcome approximately 32,000 more babies annually,” Longbons said.
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