This Thanksgiving, I’m thankful for abortion bans.

Maybe this is the weirder Thanksgiving post you read today. And that’s okay with me. But I was looking through all of the Thanksgiving greetings landing in my inbox today and it got me thinking about what I was thankful for this year that I could share with you. And so now you get this unusual email on your jolly day full of food and family.

Let me explain.

We were at the Georgia Baptist Mission Board’s annual conference a few weeks ago, and two delightful Georgia Baptist pastors came up to one of our education booths to look at our fetal development display.

As usually happens when folks look over our displays, one of them pulled out his phone to show us pictures of his grandson and he started telling us about how he was born just after 30 weeks. But then the story took an unusual and unexpected turn.

He said his daughter-in-law attempted to abort his grandson without telling anyone, but she was turned away because it was too late under Georgia’s abortion laws.

He (and I) began to tear up as he continued to flip through pictures of his perfectly healthy, wonderfully precious grandson.

In a moment of immense doubt and fear, his daughter-in-law had sought to abort her baby at 23 weeks gestation. Georgia’s current abortion ban places the limit at 20 weeks (though our pending Heartbeat Bill would move it all the way back to 6 weeks). And, as such, they denied the late term abortion based on our laws.

She regrets ever trying. But, if not for our abortion ban, she would have gone through with it. That precious baby boy wouldn’t be in his high chair for his first Thanksgiving today, digging into mashed potatoes and messing up his nicest turkey-themed onesie.

Maybe it’s improper to write a post like this today, but I kind of don’t care.

As I pondered what I was thankful for today, I couldn’t stop seeing that precious baby in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking of his story. And I couldn’t stop thinking about sitting in the Senate Health & Human Services Committee hearing back in 2012 as a staffer for the Committee’s Chairman, watching the intense debate as we passed the Fetal Pain Bill that banned his abortion.

I couldn’t stop thinking about God’s immensely extravagant love for us, and how He would use anything possible to save just one life. That, like a shepherd who left the 99 and chased after the 1, He would have had us pass that bill if even only this one baby were saved by it. Because every life - even just the 1 - is worth the fight to save.

The mission of building a culture of life is vast and complex. It requires the hard work of our sidewalk counselors, our pregnancy resource centers, our adoption and foster agencies, our human trafficking rescuers, and it requires our lawmakers and judges who have the courage to pass and uphold abortion bans.

Because the fact of the matter is, that sweet boy is here with us today. He is alive because her abortion was illegal. And that is something I am immensely thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving, from the GLA Family to yours.

Together for Life,

Joshua Edmonds
Executive Director