Protecting Life, and Caring for It

Where I start

I’m pro-life. I believe every human life has worth, before birth and after it. Abortion is a serious moral question, and I don’t take it lightly.

I also believe most Utahns are tired of a fight where each side treats the other as evil. Utah families hold deep convictions about life, and they also know real women facing frightening situations: a dangerous pregnancy, a crime they didn’t ask for, a diagnosis no parent wants to hear. Good law has to make room for both.

The best measure of a pro-life state isn’t how many people it prosecutes. It’s how few women feel they have no other choice. Every person has agency, but agency means little to a frightened young mother who sees no way forward. Our job is to make sure she has real options, and real help to choose life.

Pro-life means the whole life

Being pro-life can’t stop at the embryo or the delivery room. If we believe every child has worth, that belief has to follow the child home: to the hospital bill, the empty fridge, the foster home, and the 18-year-old who ages out of the system with nowhere to go.

Too often, politics treats “pro-life” as a position on pregnancy and nothing else. I don’t. I’m pro-life for the child who’s born into hard circumstances, for the child nobody planned for, and for the child the state is raising because no one else can.

2,752Utah children served in foster care in 2025

820Licensed foster families in Utah in 2024, the fewest in 25+ years

1 in 3Foster youth nationally who experience homelessness by age 21

Find every child a family. Utah has fewer licensed foster families than at any time in a quarter century. I’d make it easier to become one, with faster licensing, better pay for the real costs of care, and respite help so good families don’t burn out.
Get older kids adopted. Teenagers wait the longest. Adoption from foster care should be free, fast, and backed by ongoing support for the families who say yes.
Don’t abandon kids at 18. Young people who age out of foster care need someone in their corner. I’d guarantee housing help, health coverage, and a mentor through age 21, and help with college or a trade, so they can use their agency to build a life instead of just surviving.
Make sure every child has health care. Utah’s children’s health programs should reach every eligible child. No child should go without a doctor because their parents can’t afford one.
Keep kids out of poverty. Utah’s child poverty rate is among the lowest in the country, and it stays low partly because of tax credits that reward working parents. I’d protect them.

Where Utah’s law stands today

18 weeksUtah's current limit, passed by the legislature in 2019

4+ yearsUtah's near-total ban has been blocked in court since 2022

93%Of U.S. abortions happen in the first 13 weeks

6.9 vs 15.5Abortions per 1,000 women: Utah vs. the U.S., 2024

In 2019, Utah’s Republican legislature passed, and a Republican governor signed, a law limiting abortion to the first 18 weeks of pregnancy. After that point, abortion is allowed only to save the mother’s life or prevent serious, permanent harm to her health, or when the baby has a fatal condition or a severe brain abnormality.

In 2020, the legislature passed a much stricter “trigger” law that would ban nearly all abortions. It took effect briefly in 2022, then was blocked in court. The Utah Supreme Court upheld that block in 2024, and the case is still working its way through the courts. Until it’s resolved, the 18-week law is the law in Utah.

My position: keep Utah’s 18-week law

I’d keep the law Utah already has.

It reflects a real Utah consensus. It was written and passed by Utah’s own pro-life legislature. It protects unborn children in the second half of pregnancy and makes room for the hardest cases.
Late abortions are already rare. Nationally, about 93% of abortions happen in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy. Only about 1% happen at 21 weeks or later.
It works, and it’s settled. The stricter law has spent four years in court. Every year spent in litigation is a year we could have spent doing the things that actually reduce abortion.

Source: CDC, Abortion Surveillance, United States, 2022.

Protect women in the hardest cases

Victims of rape and incest shouldn’t have to go to the police first. Many victims, especially children abused by a family member, never report the crime. Wherever Utah law makes an exception for rape or incest, a doctor’s confirmation should be enough.
Doctors should never have to wait for a woman to get sicker. The law should be clear enough that a physician treating a dangerous pregnancy can act on medical judgment without fear of prosecution.
Never prosecute women. Laws on abortion should apply to providers, not to the woman. A mother in crisis needs help, not handcuffs.

Who decides

Utah should decide for Utah. I oppose a national abortion ban. The hardest moral questions are best handled close to home, by people who know their own communities, not dictated from Washington.

Science should decide drug safety. The abortion pill is now used in most abortions in the United States, and its rules are being fought over in court. Whether a drug is safe, and how it can be prescribed, should be decided by FDA scientists based on evidence, not by judges or politicians.

Protect families who want children

Being pro-life means being pro-family, and that includes the families who struggle to have children at all. Decisions about when and how to build a family belong to families themselves, using their own agency and conscience, not to the government.

Protect IVF. Being pro-life is about children and families, not about treating every embryo in a fertility clinic as if it were a child. Laws that do that would shut down IVF. In vitro fertilization has helped thousands of Utah families welcome children they prayed for. This year, an anti-abortion group sued seven Utah fertility clinics. When a court decision in Alabama threatened IVF there, that state’s Republican legislature quickly passed a law protecting patients and clinics. Utah should make the same protection clear in law before a court ruling forces the question.
Protect access to birth control. The surest way to prevent abortions is to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Families and individuals deserve full access to contraception, and Utah should keep supporting family planning.

Make abortion rare by caring for mothers

If we ask a woman to carry a pregnancy, we owe her real help. That’s where a pro-life agenda does the most good.

Utah already has one of the lowest abortion rates in the country, less than half the national rate. That didn’t happen because of a law. It happened because of strong families, strong communities, and people who show up for each other. Policy should build on that.

Source: Guttmacher Institute estimates, as compiled by Abort73.

Care for every mother. Utah now covers new mothers on Medicaid for a full year after birth. I’d protect that, and make sure every pregnant woman can get prenatal care early, whatever her income.
Make adoption affordable. Adoption is expensive and complicated for too many families. A tax credit that working families can actually use, and less red tape, would help more children find loving homes.
Help parents afford to say yes. Child care, paid family leave, and homes young families can afford make it possible to welcome a child. I’ll lay out plans for each in their own papers, starting with my housing plan.
Support mothers in crisis. Diaper banks, pregnancy resource centers, counseling, and help finishing school or keeping a job all make a difference. Government should partner with the churches and charities already doing this work.

What I won’t do

Support a national abortion ban. This is Utah’s decision.
Punish women. Not in any law, ever.
Restrict IVF or birth control. Helping families have children and plan their families is pro-family.
Use this issue to divide Utahns. People of good faith disagree about abortion. They can still work together to support mothers, children, and families.

The bottom line

I believe in protecting life. I also believe that protecting life means caring for the mother, the child, and the family, not just passing a law and walking away. Utah’s 18-week law, real exceptions for the hardest cases, and a serious effort to support every mother is a position most Utahns can stand behind. It saves more lives than another round of shouting.