JACKSON, March 25, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — When Mississippi’s Gov. Phil Bryant signed the state’s ban on aborting babies with beating hearts last week, he put the debate in perspective by declaring that all participants will eventually have to explain their stances to their Creator.
“We will all answer to the good Lord one day,” Bryant tweeted in response to the pro-abortion Center for Reproductive Rights’ threat to sue Mississippi over the new law. “I will say in this instance, ‘I fought for the lives of innocent babies, even under the threat of legal action.”
We will all answer to the good Lord one day. I will say in this instance, “I fought for the lives of innocent babies, even under threat of legal action.” https://t.co/4bHEmCqN74
— Phil Bryant (@PhilBryantMS) March 20, 2019
Bryant signed the bill last week, which makes exceptions only to save a woman’s life or prevent harm to a “major bodily function.” Violators could have their medical licenses suspended or revoked.
“I am very pro-life, always have been,” the governor declared. “I think obviously we’ll have some legal challenges on it. We have legal challenges with every pro-life bill that we have ever passed. We anticipate that. We hope that it will get to the Supreme Court and they will uphold it.”
Bryant has made multiple strong pro-life statements throughout the bill’s journey through the legislature, starting with his late January declaration that it was time to “stop this madness about when life begins.” In February, he declared that he “want[s] Mississippi to be the safest place for an unborn child in America.”
“The heartbeat is the beginning of life…You can’t take that life,” Bryant told Fox & Friends later that month. “This is a human being. They have rights.” Earlier this month, he urged lawmakers to “get this bill to my desk so I can sign it.”
“The pro-life community has waited years for the courts to recognize the obvious … that a baby with a beating heart is deserving of its life being legally protected,” Republican state senator Angela Hill, one of the bill’s lead sponsors, previously told LifeSiteNews. “I remember how thrilled I was to first hear the heartbeats of my own children. I knew that they were unique individuals growing inside my body. I was just their shelter and their food for (nine) months.”
Numerous states have introduced or enacted heartbeat bills over the past several months. They ban abortion much earlier than the “viability” standard set by Roe v. Wade, which some cite to claim that the bills would waste time and money on a doomed legal battle. Their proponents, however, argue that their purpose is to force a Supreme Court review that could finally overturn the 1973 ruling, hope fueled by the speculation that President Donald Trump’s nominees to the high court are on their side.