When Brooke Alexander looks at her twin daughters, she realizes that Kendall and Olivia might not be alive without the heartbeat law in Texas.
The 18-year-old from Corpus Christi, Texas, wanted an abortion, but the pro-life law prevented her from getting one, according to the Washington Post.
Now, despite her struggles with finances, relationships, and plans, Alexander is grateful for her baby girls.
“It’s really scary to think I wouldn’t have them,” she told the newspaper as baby Olivia grabbed her finger.
According to the report, Alexander found out she was pregnant on August 29, 2021, two days before the heartbeat law took effect in Texas. The law bans abortion as soon as an unborn baby’s heartbeat is detectable, about six weeks gestation, and was the first early abortion ban in nearly 50 years in the United States.
Click Like if you’re pro-life to like the LifeNews Facebook page!
Texas pro-life leaders estimate that the law has saved more than 17,000 unborn babies from abortion since September, and they have expanded support services to help mothers and babies like Alexander and her twins.
Alexander said she initially wanted an abortion; she and her boyfriend, Billy High, had only been together for three months, and her relationship with her parents was difficult. High told her he’d rather she had an abortion, too, because he didn’t want to give up “the freedom of being a teenager,” according to the report.
When Alexander called to schedule an abortion, she said the receptionist told her they were out of appointments and gave her several addresses of abortion facilities in New Mexico.
Meanwhile, a friend of her mother’s told her about a local pro-life pregnancy center, Pregnancy Center of the Coastal Bend, where she could get a free ultrasound and counseling about her options, according to the report.
Here’s more:
As the sonographer pressed the probe into her stomach, slathered with gel, Brooke wanted the screen to show a fetus with no heartbeat.
The technician gasped.
It was twins. And they were with us for 12 weeks.
“Are you sure?” said Brooke.
“Oh, my God, oh, my God,” [her mother Terri] Thomas remembered saying as she jumped up and down. “This is a miracle from the Lord. We have these babies.”
After seeing her unborn daughters and seeing their hearts beating, Alexander chose life.
Her life has not been easy since then. She said she had to quit her waitressing job and real estate school because she was so exhausted and sick during her pregnancy. Her relationship with her mother is also tense, and according to the report, she often feels that people judge her for being a young mother.
But she has also experienced joy: revealing the gender of their babies to family and friends, who share a special mother-child bond with her girls and get married.
“I’m so glad I met you, Billy,” she wrote on Instagram when she announced her pregnancy. “Having a family with you is going to be one of the hardest things I’ll ever face, but I’m glad I got to do it with you.”
Alexander and High had a small wedding ceremony shortly after their daughters were born, and he enlisted in the United States Air Force, the newspaper reports.
Her views on abortion have also become more complex and contradictory. She told the newspaper:
While watching her daughters, Brooke struggled to articulate her feelings about abortion. On the one hand, she said, she believed that women should have the right to choose what’s best for their own lives. On the other hand, she knew her babies might not be around without Texas law.
“Who’s to say what I would have done if the law hadn’t been in force?” she said. “I don’t want to think about it.”
While she feels she has lost her freedom in some ways, she said she loves her daughters too and that being a mother feels natural. Knowing that she is the one who can best calm them down and understand their needs makes the sleepless nights and financial struggles more bearable.
“I think they can smell me,” she said. “And that makes me feel so special.”