Top 10 Stories of 2019

10. Are Human Embryos Human From the Beginning?—Spoiler alert: Yes. 

9. I Used to be Religiously Pro-Life—Guest author Laura Vilaro describes her shift from opposing abortion purely because of her Catholic upbringing, to reaching a fuller understanding of abortion as a human rights violation. 

8. The people whose lives you suggest aren’t worth living? They can hear you.—The Good Place actress and walking social media disaster Jameela Jamil attempted to exploit children in foster care to justify killing her child in an abortion. People who grew up in foster care weren’t having it. Their responses are amazing.

7. It’s not about bodily autonomy. Here’s how we know.—SPL president Kelsey Hazzard refutes the bodily autonomy argument for abortion, noting that it doesn’t explain pro-choice lawmakers’ opposition to protecting infants who survive attempted abortions. 

6. My visit to Planned Parenthood—Guest author Annaliese Corace shares the story of going to Planned Parenthood for an abortion. They misdiagnosed her with an ectopic pregnancy and did not go through with the abortion, which fortunately gave her the chance to see another doctor and reconsider her decision. It turned out that her pregnancy was perfectly healthy, and she chose life for her daughter.

5. Legal Abortion Does Not Save Women’s Lives. Here’s Proof.—Sarah Terzo debunks the myth, peddled by Planned Parenthood’s then-president Leana Wen, that “thousands of women” died each year before Roe v. Wade and will again after it is overturned. (The Washington Post recently named Wen’s statement one of its biggest lies of 2019.)

4. How #ShoutYourAbortion Changed My Mind—Guest author Laura Elkins believed that the pro-choice movement was on the right side of history. Then the callousness of #ShoutYourAbortion prompted her to take a closer look.

3. Master post: 21+ week abortions usually aren’t medically necessary—Late-term abortion was a major topic this year, with unsubstantiated claims that they are only done for medical reasons dominating the pro-abortion narrative. SPL co-leader Monica Snyder summarizes the available data (including pro-abortion sources) and concludes that most late-term abortions are in fact elective. 

2. When we say “heartbeat” we don’t mean “fetal pole cardiac activity.” We mean “heartbeat.”—The weirdest pro-choice talking point to debut in 2019 has to be this new insistence that embryonic and fetal heartbeats aren’t “real” heartbeats. Monica breaks down the nonsense. 

And the most-read blog post of 2019… congratulations, Monica, for writing all three top articles… is:

1. Responding to 8 common pro-choice claims about late-term abortion.—Bookmark this is as a reference, because I guarantee you will see all eight claims resurface in the context of the 2020 elections.