She weighed just over 1 pound when she was born at 23 weeks–but nearly three months later, baby Bella is still alive and well.
At her birth, Bella was the same size as many babies who are legally and electively aborted in the United States every day.
Her mom, Vicky Jackson, wants to make sure everyone knows just how alive and human a baby at that stage in the womb really is.
Had she not been born prematurely, Bella would still be resting safely in her mom’s tummy until Nov. 12.
But her life isn’t worth more now because she’s outside the womb–she’s literally the exact same being inside and outside her original home.
It would have been legal to kill Bella inside her mother in the majority of states in the U.S.
A 2012 Gallup poll shows that over 60 percent of Americans generally think late-term abortions should be illegal during the second trimester of pregnancy (during which Bella was delivered.) Opposition to late-term abortion increases to 80 percent in the third trimester. So why is it still legal in the majority of our country?
Bella was born in the United Kingdom, where the abortion limit is 24 weeks, but Jackson is intent on elevating the discussion of when a fetus is “viable” outside the womb.
Since the birth of her daughter, she’s said that “Bella is living proof that babies can survive at 23 weeks old.”
And Bella isn’t the only baby to survive at this stage.In 2007, Amilia Taylor was born at 21 weeks and 6 days, weighing just 10 oz. She is now in elementary school, according to the Montreal Gazette.
In another case, a woman chose to get an abortion at 22 weeks. Unbeknownst to her, the baby survived the procedure and was discovered alive the next day. He was then taken to intensive care, where they tried to care for him, but he died shortly afterwards. Without the abortion and neglect afterwards, would he have survived?
Life doesn’t begin when a law states it matters enough to save.
Maybe 21 weeks is the earliest a baby will ever survive outside the womb. Is that child’s life worth less seven days prior because he or she can’t? At what point does a life go from worthless to priceless?
It’s not a gamble to take.
There are over 53 million people missing from the United States. They were aborted–first trimester, second trimester, third trimester. They’re gone.
Hopefully, the images of baby Bella will remind a scared, overwhelmed woman out there that her baby really is alive–and that humanity insists this child deserves to stay alive.
