On March 18, 2015, my daughter Savannah and I testified before a subcommittee of the South Carolina State Senate on a bill being prepared for a vote in session. The bill is called H 3114, the Pain Capable Infant Protection Act, and can be read here: http://www.scstatehouse.gov/sess121_2015-2016/bills/3114.htm.

In a nutshell, the Pain Capable bill would ban abortions past 20 weeks gestation based upon medical findings that unborn “fetuses” are capable of feeling pain by 20 weeks development. Although debated and called “junk science” by abortion supporters, the medical evidence of fetal pain capability is growing based on new prenatal image technology and research findings.

[ Related: “I’m glad my parents chose to save my life” ]

[ Related: Finishing the Race: God’s Got My Back ]

Savannah and I were not looking for this fight. We were contacted by a colleague of a friend, who directs a crisis pregnancy center in our city and who does good work to ensure that women who make the choice to keep their babies have the resources to raise them. She asked if we would be willing to tell our story to the senators on the subcommittee.

So we talked about it. My husband and I sat down with our then 14-year-old and discussed the pros and cons. She would have to miss a day of school to make the trip to Columbia for the hearing. And I knew that we’d take some heat for this. I might be accused of using my daughter as a publicity stunt. We’d probably hear criticism from pro-choice supporters and women’s rights advocates.

And I don’t like controversy. Even though I feel strongly about this issue, I’m a peacekeeper, a diplomat. I love people, people who agree with me and people who don’t, so the battle just wrecks me. I want everybody to get along.

So we decided we’d pray about it overnight.

But Savannah came into the living room later that night, and she plopped my laptop on the couch beside me. She put her hand on her hip, pointed to a website she’d found that keeps an up-to-date count of the number of abortions worldwide, and said, “Whatever we have to do to stop this, I’m in.”

In my gut I knew Savannah and I had to speak up for those who couldn’t speak for themselves.

So we drove to Columbia and sat through heated debate for and against the ban, most of which centered on the right of a mother to choose to abort a child diagnosed with a “fetal abnormality” after the 20-week cut-off. Medical professionals gave conflicting opinions, and a lawyer explained court rulings and federal laws. I was called last, so we had plenty of time to work our nerves up into a frenzy.

But for me, the most gut-wrenching moment was the testimony of a mother whose son had been diagnosed with a brain abnormality. The law gave her the right to terminate, and she couldn’t imagine her life with a severely disabled child, so she chose to end his life — an end she was told would be inevitable. I just wanted to hug her, to cry for her. I knew how hard it must have been to tell that story. As a mother, I understood her dilemma. But mine had a different ending, and I wished she’d had someone who could have told her there was hope.

So my heart was in my throat when they called my name next.

I’m pretty comfortable speaking in front of crowds, but I practically had to read my entire testimony word for word because my brain went dark when I sat down in front of the microphone. The emotions were big. I won’t win any awards for the delivery, but I told our story: how at our 20-week ultrasound we discovered that our baby’s left leg had not developed and she had an abnormality on her brain; how the doctor warned us that the birth defects were probably an indication of severe chromosomal or genetic disorders; how he “strongly urged” us to abort and “start over.” He never gave us hope that she could have a healthy life, but only told us the worst-case scenarios and how easy and common abortions were. I told the senators how those doctor’s words terrified me, how I considered that abortion might be the most humane choice.

I told how my husband stood up for the two women in his life, how he protected us, both of us in very vulnerable states.

Then I told them how, during an amniocentesis a week later, we watched on a monitor as our 21-week-old “fetus” recoiled from the needle inserted into her space, then slowly reached out and grabbed the shaft of the needle, holding on until the doctor shook it loose from her grip.

Then I introduced my 14-year-old Former Fetal Abnormality, and she had a few words to say. (See related article.)

A few senators asked me questions afterward. One said he appreciated my story, but I had the right to choose whether or not to ignore the advice of my doctor … didn’t I think every woman had the right to a choice? Another said no one made that choice for me … didn’t I think it would be wrong to keep a mother from making her own choice?

I disagreed, and said that killing a child was not a choice any person should be given, and that in all of this talk about choice, no one had considered what choice my daughter had. Honestly, I was pretty unprepared to field questions about others. I just came there to tell my story, to tell the truth as best I could.

But I’ve had time to think about those questions. I lay in bed thinking about them. And if I could turn back time, this is what I would have liked to say:

Our laws in this country have always been based on taking away rights that harm or infringe upon the rights of others. A man does not have the right to rape a woman, though it gives him power and pleasure. I’m not given the right to steal from you even though it might make my financial problems disappear. A parent doesn’t have the right to abuse his child, even in the privacy of his own home and though the child is under his authority. I don’t have the right to shoot someone dead, though that person causes me great distress or torment. All of our laws are based on the principle that our rights cannot interfere with others’ rights. We are not talking about a choice that has no repercussions for others. We are talking about dismembering with sharp instruments or burning with saline solution a tiny human. The fetus is not put to sleep like we would require for our pets. The body is torn limb from limb or burned alive inside the womb. Why on God’s great earth should anyone be given the right to do that? At 21 weeks, I watched my unborn child respond to a foreign object with both fear and then what I can only describe as curiosity. The specific moments when an unborn human can feel pain is still being debated and researched, but if there’s even a chance that child can feel what’s being done to it during an abortion … God help us if we, as a civilized people, give our citizens the right to inflict that kind of suffering without justice. God help us.

The “choice” to kill another living being is not a privilege. It is a burden, a noose placed around the necks of mothers. For the ideal of freedom, we have caused great damage to our gender. I know a dozen women personally who still suffer the emotional and psychological effects of their “right” to abort: depression, regret, shame, even suicide. Why don’t we give children the “choice” to watch pornography or experiment with drugs? Because it causes them harm. There is no good that is created by an abortion, only the destruction of a life already in progress and the elimination of a perceived threat to a woman’s livelihood. We women are life-givers, natural protectors, and this assertion of our own rights over the rights of the most vulnerable of all people is an assault to our integrity.

A fetal abnormality ( i.e., disability/health problem/disease) is not just cause to kill a living human. We don’t do this here in America. This is the stuff that happened in Nazi Germany, the tactics of oppressive governments and cultures that have little regard for human life. America has made beautiful strides toward giving dignity to people with disabilities and illnesses. We cannot turn around and say that we have the right to kill them based solely on their medical condition. This is not who we are. And I know full well that parenting a child with a disability, with a severe illness is not easy. It’s hard. We don’t have a choice about everything, especially when it comes to our kids. That is the dice we roll when we start families. Our children can cause us great distress, with or without disabilities. But what if I’d heeded our doctor’s advice, exercised my right to terminate my daughter without giving her a chance? Sometimes we just have to go with what we’re given. Otherwise, we’re playing God, and that is a scary line to cross.

I have great compassion for women who abort. Some are dear friends whom I love, in situations that felt desperate. No one wants to be there. But they would tell you that they had the option so they took the out. Our laws put a loaded gun in their hands. They solved the problem as quickly as possible. But babies aren’t the problem. Grown people are the problem: bad choices, abuse, carelessness. We create them. Yet this solution destroys the most innocent, those who had no choice in any of our decisions. We should have compassion.

But we cannot say that this is okay.

Abortion is a sugar-coated procedure. Few doctors or abortion supporters explain the process. Abortion procedures at 20 weeks are performed either by dilation and evacuation (with sharp-edged instruments used to grasp, twist and tear the baby’s body); with saline, which is injected in the mother’s abdomen and poisons the baby in a process that sometimes takes 24 hours; or by an injection of digoxin directly into the baby’s heart to cause a fatal heart attack.

We don’t even treat animals this way. We cannot say that this is okay.

I’m asking like-minded people of South Carolina to join us.

Please help us protect these children. Please contact your state representatives and make sure they know we care about this and that we do not support an amendment that would leave a child like mine unprotected. Ask them where they stand on the Pain Capable bill, and tell them you support the Pain Capable bill and oppose any amendment that does not protect children — healthy or disabled — past 20 weeks development.

I know I’ll get some criticism for this. I’m okay with that. But I can’t sit this one out. And I hope you won’t either.

Editor’s note: The Pain Capable bill currently is sitting in a conference committee composed of Senate and House members. “It is our hope that the Senate conferees will go along with the stronger House version,” said Mark Hendrick, associate director of the Office of Public Policy for the South Carolina Baptist Convention. “The Senate has tried to make exceptions at the 20-week mark for fetal anomalies and pregnancies due to rape or incest.” 

— Adapted from a blog post at WendyDuke.net. Duke is a writer and speaker who desires to inspire people to seek God and to live out their faith with courage and compassion.