Two young boys whose mom reversed her chemical abortion often travel with her to help her tell her story, because it’s their story too.
Rebekah Hagan’s successful reversal resulted in the birth of her second son Zechariah. As a single mom at the time, she had felt that it would not be fair to her older son Eli, then nine months old, to bring another baby into the mix.
Since Zechariah’s birth she has felt called to share the truth about reversal in hopes of saving other moms in unplanned pregnancy from the devastation of abortion.
This means navigating the abortion issue with them, frankly, but at an age-appropriate level.
Zechariah and Eli, 8 and 9, respectively, joined their mom recently for the 49th annual national March for Life and for the Students for Life for America’s National Pro-Life Summit, where Rebekah appeared.
The boys told Pregnancy Help News it can be fun to travel with their mom, albeit with lots of waiting at events, and Rebekah said they have been pros at it for a while.
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Asked why it was important for his mom to tell her story, Eli said, “because cause babies’ lives matter. It's kind of sad.”
“And because, some people don't know, “Eli said.
“So, they should know - because she didn't know,” he said, referencing his mom. “And then she found out stuff.”
Why is the story important to people?
“Because it's a special story,” said Eli. “It's about being born … our life … a lot of people get to share it.”
Zechariah described his story to Pregnancy Help News as, “cool.”
“I was in my mom's tummy, and the doctor saved me,” Zechariah.
“They didn't want me to die,” he said.
Tweet This: ““I was in my mom's tummy, and the doctor saved me. They didn't want me to die” -Zechariah, APR baby, now 8.
Zechariah, whose mom previously worked for a pregnancy center, said that these centers “help people.”
They help moms, Zechariah said, because “sometimes their boyfriends abandon them,” or “sometimes their parents kick them out.”
It is important that these centers do what they do to help women like his mom, he said, “because they might have a baby in their tummy.”
And when moms get help, “their babies come.”
“I think she's brave when she speaks,” Eli said of his mom. “Because she's not scared.”
Zechariah said his mom is special, “Because she travels around the world to tell people her story.”
Rebekah had been pregnant with Eli at 17. When he was about nine months old, after she had started college, she found out she was pregnant again with Zechariah. Newly single from her boyfriend, back living under her parents’ roof, she chose chemical abortion because it seemed like “hope” in a desperate situation.
Chemical abortion, also known as medical or medication abortion, consists of two drugs. The first, mifepristone, blocks the progesterone in the mother’s body, destabilizing the pregnancy. The second drug, misoprostol, is taken a day or so later, causing the mom to go into labor and deliver her deceased child.
Abortion Pill Reversal is an updated application of a treatment used since the 1950s to combat miscarriage. It involves prescribing extra progesterone to counter the mifepristone, in effect helping the woman’s body do what it naturally would.
If a woman acts quickly enough after taking the first abortion pill it may be possible to save her unborn child with APR. The Abortion Pill Rescue® Network (APRN) is a network of around 1,000 medical providers and pregnancy help organizations that administer APR.
Statistics show that to date, 3,000 lives and counting have been saved by the APRN.
The abortion facility websites were reassuring and made chemical abortion sound natural when she was looking, Rebekah said, and whether on-line or in person, the language was that it simply ends a pregnancy - no talk of a baby.
Rebekah will tell you that the mother who undergoes a chemical abortion is who is left with the grief at the end of it.
Likewise with the second abortion drug, she was told to take the second set of pills 24 hours after the first set, and they would just “expel” her pregnancy, like a heavy menstrual period.
“Then I walked out of that clinic, sat in my car, and that's when pretty much everything hit me, and I had a total change of heart,” Rebekah said.
Rebekah was the first APR patient for her doctor, as the protocol was new.
The abortion facility had told her there was no going back after taking the abortion pill, driving fear that her baby, if he survived, would suffer from a fetal anomaly.
A 2018 peer-reviewed study of APR showed 64%-68% of the pregnancies were saved through Abortion Pill Reversal, there was no increase in birth defects, and there was a lower preterm delivery rate than the general population.
Rebekah was on progesterone for several weeks; she carried Zechariah to term, and he was born healthy on Oct. 20, 2013.
She began bringing him to speaking engagements early on, and she started small in explaining things to both boys with what she calls “age-appropriate truth,” and continued to address things more deeply as they grew.
She felt passionate about being out there and telling her story, confident that’s where the Lord wants her, and so being upfront with them was the way to go.
With Rebekah having worked for a pregnancy center, the boys are not only well acquainted with serving moms in need, but they had also seen their two younger siblings on ultrasound before their birth (Rebekah has since married and had two more children).
The opportunity and need for teaching then came about during the March for Life when the boys happened to see graphic abortion images, which Rebekah promptly addressed. This meant double education duty for her as her remarks for the youth at the SFLA Summit centered on how young people can reach women in unplanned pregnancy who may be at risk for abortion
“I think in order to be effective in reaching girls, unplanned pregnancies, you have to be able to understand how they're thinking,” Rebecca said. “Because some students, especially students who grew up in Christian homes, will tell you, ‘I don't know why anyone which choose an abortion.’”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages the Abortion Pill Rescue Network and Pregnancy Help News.
