March 9, 2022
“A heartbeat is the universally recognized sign of life,” said Students for Life Action and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. “There should be no debate whatsoever in a humane society about whether or not we will protect defenseless children with beating hearts from predators seeking to kill them for money. That’s what abortion is, and this generation – the Pro-Life Generation – rejects it entirely. We applaud Missouri for working to restore protections to the most vulnerable.”
JEFFERSON CITY, M.O., and WASHINGTON, D.C. (03-09-22) – Today the Missouri Senate’s Seniors, Families, Veterans & Military Affairs Committee will hear testimony on SB 778, a bill designed to ban aborting children with detectable heartbeats in the state. SFLAction supported similar legislation in Texas las year – a law that is daily preventing the deaths of Texas children who may otherwise be targeted for abortion.
In preparation for a Post-Roe America, Students for Life Action is working to help protect children from abortion violence from the moment of conception in states across the country. Missouri is taking a step closer to that goal with SB 778.
“A heartbeat is the universally recognized sign of life,” said Students for Life Action and Students for Life of America President Kristan Hawkins. “There should be no debate whatsoever in a humane society about whether or not we will protect defenseless children with beating hearts from predators seeking to kill them for money. That’s what abortion is, and this generation – the Pro-Life Generation – rejects it entirely. We applaud Missouri for working to restore protections to the most vulnerable.”
Lucy Gonzalez, Missouri Regional Coordinator for Students for Life Action and Students for Life of America, will deliver the following testimony:
My name is Lucy Gonzalez and I am here on behalf of Students for Life Action, representing the 53 pro-life campus groups I serve in Missouri as a Regional Coordinator. I strongly support the requirement of testing for the presence of a fetal heartbeat and prohibiting abortionists from aborting children whose heartbeats are detectable. This bill emphasizes the humanity of the preborn in a society where they are oftentimes referred to as a “clump of cells.” During critical medical emergencies, the main priority for a medical professional is to check the patient for a heartbeat. Whether you are in a combat battlefield or an ER, this is true—and yet, with such a strong marker of life, babies in the womb face death.
SB778 includes similarities to the Texas Heartbeat Act. During the first week of February of this year, the Texas Health and Human Services Commission released data on abortions in the state which includes data taken from September 2021. That month marked the first complete month in which the Texas Heartbeat Act was in effect. The data tells us that 2,197 abortions were performed in the state during September 2021, demonstrating a 51 percent decrease compared to September 2020. The Texas Heartbeat Act is actively saving lives and preventing trauma done to women every day. Therefore, Missouri would do well to follow Texas’ lead to help ensure that all people in the state who have detectable heartbeats are allowed to be alive.
Abortion is not a solution; rather, it causes a new set of problems—and the people of Missouri deserve better. The systemic oppression of the preborn by profit-hungry abortion providers must be stopped.
Learn more about the grassroots work of Students for Life Action HERE
Learn more about why protecting children with heartbeats matters HERE
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Students for Life Action (SFLAction), a 501c4, along with its 501c3 sister organization, Students for Life of America (SFLA), make up the nation’s largest pro-life youth organization and a political and policy operation engaging people of all ages. Together they work to end abortion — the human rights issue of our day — and provide political, legal, and community support for women and their children, born and preborn. Headquartered in Fredericksburg, VA, SFLA has more than 1,250 groups on middle, high school, college, university, medical, and law school campuses in all 50 states. SFLA creates strategy, policy, and programming to connect those most targeted for abortion with people ready to help and builds a framework for political engagement on their behalf. SFLA and SFLAction have more conversations with those most targeted by the abortion industry than any other pro-life outreach in the world, reaching more than 2 million people across social media platforms each week and engaging in approximately 100,000 digital conversations per month. Over the last 16 years, President Kristan Hawkins has grown SFLAction/SFLA into an $18 million organization preparing for a post-Roe America.