Since January, children in Washington state ages 13 and up can obtain confidential treatment for mental health conditions and gender dysphoria using their parent’s insurance plan—without their parents’ consent.

Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators flooded cities across Poland for at least 10 consecutive days after the nation’s Constitutional Tribunal ruled on Oct. 22 that the law protects babies with abnormalities from abortion. Karolina Pawłowska, director of the pro-life Ordo Iuris International Law Center, watched as 3,000-4,000 pro-abortion protesters gathered outside her office building in historic Warsaw. The group of mostly women wearing dark clothing, masks, and the protest’s red lightning bolt symbol yelled vulgar words, and some said the pro-life office should be burned.

In 1977, when Wanda Kohn was 17, she had an abortion. Later she became a Christian, repented of what she had done, went through training, and began counseling women in an abortion recovery group at the Pregnancy Care Center in Leesburg, Fla. She was WORLD’s 2007 Daniel of the Year honoree, representing the tens of thousands of pro-life counselors, and has directed the Leesburg center for 17 years. Here are edited excerpts of our conversation.

Editor’s note: Joel Belz recently broke his hip and is recovering. In place of his usual column, we’re publishing this column, originally published on Feb. 1, 1988, written as a letter to a family friend born on Jan. 22 that year.

Since you had such a busy and traumatic day last week, you may not have a chance to read this for some time. I’ll understand but still hope you get around to it later.

Jan. 22 was a notable day for you, since it was at 10:16 p.m. that you gasped your lungs full of the first air they’d ever felt.

Voters in Colorado and Louisiana weighed in on two pro-life ballot initiatives with mixed results on Tuesday. In Colorado, a measure that would have protected unborn children after 22 weeks of gestation failed, earning only 41 percent of votes. But in Louisiana, 62 percent of voters approved an amendment that clarifies abortion is not a right under the state constitution.

Colorado residents voted against protecting babies from abortion after 22 weeks of gestation. But in Louisiana, voters added language to the state constitution’s Declaration of Rights denying any fundamental right to abortion and saying the state is not required to fund it.

In Colorado, voters weigh in Tuesday on whether to protect babies from abortion after 22 weeks of gestation. It’s one of the 124 ballot initiatives facing voters in the United States on Election Day.