Lila Rose, founder and president of Live Action, released the following statement on the heels of reports in the New York Times suggesting former President Donald Trump made a private commitment to support federal protection for preborn life starting at 16 weeks gestational age.
Lila Rose had this to say:
“At fertilization, a baby’s gender, ethnicity, hair color, eye color, and countless other traits are determined. Just twenty-two days after fertilization, a child’s heartbeat can be detected. Brain activity can be recorded at six weeks from fertilization, and bone formation has begun. Nine weeks after fertilization, a child will suck her thumb and swallow, grasp an object, touch her face, sigh, and stretch. At fifteen weeks, children can feel pain. It is unconscionable that today in America, these are children who have absolutely no legal protection at the federal level from the barbaric homicide of induced abortion. Abortion procedures starve or rip living, preborn children limb from limb. All children deserve legal protection from lethal violence.
“Protecting preborn children 16 weeks and older from abortion violence would save an estimated 50,000 or more children from death per year, using the most recent estimated numbers. The Guttmacher Institute estimates that between 6.3% and 7.4% of all U.S. abortions are obtained at or after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Stopping those abortions would save thousands of innocent children. But we must not stop federal protections there, as hundreds of thousands of lives will remain at risk.
“A human being at the moment of fertilization is just as human as a 16-week-old baby or a 16-year-old teenager. Protection for children at 16 weeks gestation does not come close to solving our nation’s defining human rights crisis of over 1 million children being killed through abortion. In fact, if federal protection for children 16 weeks and older were signed into law, 95% of elective abortions would still be allowed to continue, killing over a million children each year.
“The most important role of our federal government is to safeguard our fundamental rights as guaranteed to us by the United States Constitution. The 14th Amendment to the Constitution guarantees every person equal protection under the law and prevents states from denying that equal protection. A new person is created at the moment of fertilization; at that moment, they are granted the right to equal protection, the right not to be brutally and discriminately killed. Anything less than a complete application of our constitution to preserve the fundamental human rights of all persons under its jurisdiction is a violation of justice.”
