The number of women attempting to reverse the effects of the abortion pill and save their babies’ lives doubled in March and April, according to Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network.

“In 2019, we averaged about 51 reversal starts each month,” said Christa Brown, a director at Heartbeat. “In March, there were 108, and in April there were 104.”

Women who call the Abortion Pill Rescue hotline have taken mifepristone, the first of two pills used in chemically induced abortions. Some regret their decision immediately.

In the last two months, the National Safe Haven Alliance’s hotline has seen an almost 10 percent increase in phone calls, many from moms asking what to do with babies they say they can’t care for. The coronavirus pandemic has added to the personal and financial strain on new parents, while the number of infant abandonments in the United States has increased slightly.

The day SkyView Academy High School called a last-minute school assembly in the gym to discuss the coronavirus, high school senior Brooke Rizuto and her Students for Life group had planned to use the school library for a speaking event featuring local pro-life activists. But the mandatory assembly forced them to cancel. When the campus in Highlands Ranch, Colo., closed for the remainder of the year, Rizuto said, “Every event we had planned was completely canceled.”

Andrew Belanger was still in his car at the Scotsdale Women’s Center in Detroit when the abortion business’s security guard warned him the police would probably show up that day. It was the last day of March, and “the security guard told me that [the facility’s director] was itching to have the police out there,” Belanger said. But he took his normal place outside of the building anyway, holding a pro-life sign as he told passersby about the hope and help they could have in Jesus.

With most abortions in Texas on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak, more patients are turning to pro-life pregnancy centers like the Hope Women’s Resource Clinic in Beaumont.

“Because all of the abortion clinics were closed, people were desperate,” said Jeanette Harvey, the Hope Clinic’s executive director. “The number of abortion calls has increased, I would say double, easily, if not more than double.”

The video shook as missionary Brendan Maynard repositioned his phone and added more tape to hold it in place on a chair. One piece of tape obscured the shot of the table across the room, but he adjusted to clear the view. The Facebook livestream had already started, and Maynard’s voice came from behind the phone: “Hello everybody! We’re just having some COVID crisis here with a lot of electrical tape.” 

Jolene Troyer, a 19-year-old resident of Greensboro, N.C., and her sister met up with two friends on March 28 for a prayer walk to an abortion business. They started in the parking lot of a nearby church and were still across the street from A Woman’s Choice when police officers approached and told them to return to their cars, citing the county’s COVID-19 stay-at-home order. Troyer and her friends complied and returned to the church parking lot, but a few leaders with the pro-life organization Love Life returned later that day.