Mom-of-Three Starts White House Petition to Fight New York Abortion Law, Collects Over 250,000 Signatures in 5 Days

Mom-of-Three Starts White House Petition to Fight New York Abortion Law, Collects Over 250,000 Signatures in 5 Days
Anna Spiller, 28, started a petition on the White House website, "We The People," in order to ask the federal government for help to overturn a new abortion law in New York. The petition collected over 250,000 signatures in just five days. (Courtesy Anna Spiller)
Janita Kan
1/29/2019
Updated:
1/29/2019

A petition urging the federal government to ask New York State to overturn a new law that allows for abortions up until birth collected over 250,000 signatures after just five days. Now, the creator of the petition has vowed to not stop until she has collected one signature for every baby aborted last year.

New York State resident Anna Spiller, 28, started the petition a day after the Reproductive Health Act (RHA), which was pushed heavily by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, was passed by the Democrat-dominated House and Senate.

The mother-of-three said that although she is passionate about standing up against abortion, she had never done anything significant to fight for the cause. But the night after her husband told her the abortion law had passed in New York, she was determined to do something about it.

“Morally, we have a responsibility to take care of our children. I think that killing them is wrong. I don’t see how anybody can think that’s okay,” Spiller said. 
“For a mother to look at her child and to deny that is just so crazy to me.”
Spiller started the petition on a section of the White House website: “We the People,” which allows people to submit petitions and possibly receive a response from the federal government. After a petition meets a certain threshold—100,000 signatures in 30 days—it will then be reviewed by relevant policy experts who can issue an official response, according to its website.
The new law allows a mother to have an abortion if there is an absence of fetal vitality or the pregnancy is within 24 weeks from the start. It also allows abortion after the 24-week mark if a doctor acting on “good faith” determines that the abortion is necessary to protect the life or health of the mother. The term “health” was not defined in the new law.

The RHA also permits midwives and nurse practitioners to carry out medical abortions and allows physician assistants to perform some surgical abortions.

The 28-year-old mother, whose children are age four, six, and seven, said she managed to collect 100,000 signatures in just over 48 hours. As of Jan. 29, the petition had collected over 263,000 signatures.

“When it went over 150 signatures my mind was blown,” Spiller said. Petitions that have collected 150 or more signatures become publicly searchable, according to the website. 

Passionate From a Young Age

Spiller had taken the pro-life stance since she was age 9. She first learned about abortion through her friend at school and went home to ask her father about it. She recalled her father was gentle with his explanation. At one point of the conversation, she asked her father, “is this bad?”
His response was simple—"Is killing babies bad?”
“And I was kind of like ... this is crazy. It kind of just baffled me but at the time I was so young,” Spiller recalled, adding that it left a lasting impression on her for the rest of her childhood and into adulthood.

She said she began to fully comprehend the importance of life when she became pregnant with her first child.

“I started to understand that this is a life from the very first ultrasound I had,” she said. “He was real and he was alive.”

She added that she understands the arguments coming from the pro-choice advocates but believes that there is no reason to abort a baby in the third trimester—something the new law has legalized.

“It seems like that this law is like a smokescreen—an excuse to further abortion rights without any good valid reason,” she said.
Dr. Omar L. Hamada, an OB/GYN and former army surgeon, told Fox and Friends that there is absolutely no reason to kill a baby before delivery in the third trimester.

“Not a fetal or maternal indication—what we say in medicine. If there’s a problem, and there are problems in the third trimester, both with the babies and with the mom that require delivery, just deliver the baby. We don’t have to kill it,” Hamada said.

Hamada said that the liberal progressive agenda doesn’t define the baby as a human being until birth, as they removed the criminal protections for an unborn baby, reported the news website.

“Their agenda is to have unlimited abortions nationwide,” he said. “I think New York’s move here has really opened the door for that, but I know that, down in Tennessee, for example, we’re resisting that. We’re wanting to pass a heartbeat bill here in the next little while, hopefully.”

In addition, Spiller said she’s had conversations with her pro-choice friends and many of them are also against the New York law.

I have pro-choice friends that think abortion is okay but crossing into the third trimester is not,” she said.

Meanwhile, the 28-year-old said after the petition she is going to continue to fight for the cause until abortion becomes illegal in America.

I just think that it’s just like chipping away at an iceberg at this point,” she said.
For now, her next goal is to get 332,757 signatures for every abortion procedure reported in Planned Parenthood’s 2017-18 annual reportShe also plans to join the March for life in Albany in June.