The Second Chance for Moms Act Could ‘Save Countless Women the Heartbreak’ of Abortion

Katelynn Perry took the abortion pill when she was pregnant with her fifth child. “I found out that I was pregnant with Aubrey on Christmas Day of 2021,” she said. She and her husband told their friends and family how excited they were to have another baby, but it didn’t take long until the cheer of the holiday season ended, and the Perrys were confronted with financial hardship. They began to have doubts about the pregnancy and sought advice from the abortion giant, Planned Parenthood.

Perry thought Planned Parenthood would walk them through all of their options, only to quickly discover that abortion was their top priority. She told The Daily Signal, “When I tried to ask questions, they were kind of shot down. They weren’t really answered in full,” adding “they used a lot of medical terms” she didn’t understand.

Planned Parenthood staff rushed her to the back, separating Perry from her husband. “With no support system back there with me, I just made what I thought was the best decision at the time,” she explained. “They told me that I was already … eight weeks along, and I wouldn’t be able to do the chemical abortion if I waited too much longer.” And so, right there in the abortion mecca, she took the first set of pills.

“I was up all night long pondering what I had done,” she remembered, and it was while Perry was restless in bed that she decided not to go forward with taking any more abortion pills. The next morning, she looked to find a way to reverse what she started.

Perry stumbled on the pro-life organization, Heartbeat International (HI), who outlined ways to stop the procedure. Once she got ahold of a nurse through HI’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network hotline, she was informed she had 72 hours from taking the abortion drug to reverse its effects. As such, the nurse quickly worked to connect Perry to a pregnancy resource center in Lynchburg, Virginia. Unlike the regret she experienced taking the drug, she described her decision to try and reverse it as “a leap of faith in joy.” She added, “It felt like a miracle. It felt like God was leading me. It felt like He was making a way.”

After a series of “miracles,” as Perry described it, her pregnancy was saved. Today, she has a beautiful, healthy, one-year-old girl named Aubry Lynn.

This is a story that the pro-life movement is hoping to replicate with the Second Chance for Moms Act introduced Tuesday by Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) to the House of Representatives on Tuesday. The purpose of the bill is to “amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to require a warning label advising that the effects of mifepristone can be counteracted, to amend the Public Health Service Act to establish a hotline to provide information to women seeking to counteract the effects of mifepristone, and for other purposes.”

In comments to The Washington Stand, Mary Szoch, director of the Center for Human Dignity at Family Research Council, explained why this act matters. “The abortion industry is constantly telling women that it is impossible to be a mom and succeed,” she observed. “Regardless of a woman’s age, position in society, or career, those who are pro-abortion say that having children and having a good life are incompatible. And instead of challenging the status quo, pro-abortion groups reinforce the barriers pregnant moms face.”

Szoch added, “With all this pressure, it’s not shocking that some women take the abortion drug mifepristone without fully processing that that drug will kill their unborn child.” She concluded, “The Second Chance for Moms Act would give moms desperate to save their baby the chance to do that, and it would save countless women the heartbreak of knowing their child was a victim of the abortion industry.”

In a statement to TWS, Rep. Miller reiterated, “As a mom of seven and grandmother to 20, life is nothing short of a miracle from God. At the very least, women should be fully informed of the miracle God has entrusted to them, and my bill ensures exactly that.”