“I've heard heartbreaking stories from women and families who were preparing to welcome a healthy baby into their family, only to receive devastating news later in their pregnancy. Instead of being able to rely on the doctors they knew and trusted at home, they were forced to travel hundreds of miles and pay out of their pockets while navigating unimaginable grief.”
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey offered these words in a press release as the primary justification for a new state law that ensures Massachusetts parents can abort their unborn children at any stage of their pregnancy. WCVB, a Boston ABC affiliate, dutifully reported Healey’s primary talking point: “[N]ow they'll be able to make their own choices.”
But as National Review’s Kathryn Jean Lopez responded in her newsletter a few days later, Massachusetts law changed nothing for parents facing cases of rare medical need – already legally eligible to pursue termination. Rather, the legislation made it “clear in law that a baby can be killed at any point in a pregnancy, for any reason.”
Dr. Christina Francis, CEO for the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists made it crystal clear: “There is absolutely no medical reason why this law needed to be changed.”
So why would abortion advocates in Massachusetts choose to employ the challenge of serious prenatal diagnosis as the primary reason for liberalizing its abortion law?
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Perhaps as a pretext for obscuring the belief that abortion isn’t merely a choice but is an actual good that must be destigmatized. The smiles and applause at Healy’s bill signing ceremony help make this a plausible explanation.
But even if abortion advocates’ motives were more altruistic, the parents briefly spotlighted in this conversation deserve more authentic support than they are receiving.
Learning that one’s unborn child has a life-altering anomaly can be a source of deep trauma, as one doctor put it in a Heartbeat International podcast, the death of a dream, without the actual death of the child.
And, in these traumatic situations, some parents choose abortion and will justify their decision aggressively and publicly.
Amplify Legal, the litigation arm of Abortion in America (co-founded by former Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards), has taken the stories of 13 women facing dire prenatal diagnoses and issued a letter to pro-life advocacy group Live Action demanding the pro-life organization retract its statements that these mothers chose to “kill” their own children.
Each story has its own difficult details.
One mother carrying twins found that one of her children was developing without a skull. Another learned that her child had encephalocele, a condition where the brain herniates, or sticks out of the skull. Others faced Trisomy 18 diagnoses, and in some cases, were told that the diagnoses were “fatal.”
Live Action has responded by retaining the Thomas More Society and issuing a full-throated defense of its reporting, asserting its First Amendment rights, and clearly making the case that a disabled preborn child should not be terminated because of a difficult diagnosis.
Just how common is abortion in these situations?
One study published in 2025 indicated that the overall termination rate after discovering a fetal anomaly was 61.5%. David Prentice, Ph.D., writes for the Christian Medical and Dental Association that in some cases, the ratios are more dire. He explains why that may be the case:
Poor attitudes are betrayed by the biased terminology often used to describe these diagnoses: “Incompatible with life,” “Lethal condition,” “Fatal fetal anomaly,” “A Life Not Worth Living.” The supposedly sage advice numerous parents hear is that their unborn child will not survive to birth, will suffer, will be a burden.
Anecdotal evidence suggests that moms facing a difficult diagnosis face pressure from their doctors to choose abortion. The Heritage Foundation points to research that backs this up:
The data mirrors the disturbing anecdotes: A study in the medical journal Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights found that a quarter of doctors admitted trying to influence a mother’s decision about whether or not to continue with her pregnancy when faced with a tough diagnosis. Most encouraged mothers to terminate.
Some women, however, refuse to comply with the recommendation – even when it poses complex legal hurdles.
McKenna West is an Alaska nurse and surrogate mother who has fought to give the baby boy she carried the chance at the life he deserves since the commissioning couple had refused to commit to life-saving treatment to address his heart condition. As of press time, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton had intervened to require the hospital systems to intercede and “provide the baby with medically necessary and life-saving care upon birth.”
Regardless of their decision, most parents who face a devastating diagnosis will neither seek the spotlight nor stumble into it. They still deserve support.
Several years ago, Heartbeat partnered with Be Not Afraid (BNA) to launch PrenatalDiagnosis.org. BNA, according to the organization, serves as “a private nonprofit organization dedicated to training organizations and professionals to support parents carrying to term following a life-limiting prenatal diagnosis.”
In an April episode of the Pregnancy Help Podcast, Heartbeat Board Chairman Gary Thome and Dr. Martin McCaffrey, a pediatrician specializing in neonatal-perinatal medicine, discussed the breadth of the resources absolutely committed to helping parents to a live birth and beyond. McCaffrey shared his experiences and explained that it is common for medical providers to describe a low “quality of life” based on their own judgments and biases.
PrenatalDiagnosis.org offers an alternative; trained parent care coordinators, a range of emotional and educational resources, and connection to a community of other parents and families who understand – through lived experiences – the pain and hope of a specific diagnosis.
As McCaffrey noted, parents deserve to be told about the potential – not merely the limitations – of their unborn children. While abortion is certainly catastrophic for mother and child, parents deserve to know the full range of other options – including innovative interventions and not just ethical perinatal hospice and comfort care.
Tweet This: Parents who get a prenatal diagnosis deserve to be told about the potential – not merely the limitations – of their unborn children.
Public debates will continue over whether such “terminations” can and should be characterized as “killing” or whether a surrogate can legally intervene to protect the life of the child she is carrying.
But let’s be very clear: When faced with the heartache and uncertainty of a prenatal diagnosis, parents deserve far more and better than a law incentivizing the demise of their unborn child. They deserve a community that offers the best research possible and a community that will join them on a journey they likely never anticipated.
Editor’s note: Jessica Prol Smith is Director of Government Relations for Heartbeat International. Heartbeat manages the website prenataldiagnosis.org in partnership with Be Not Afraid.
