As a pro-life Democrat, Louisiana State Sen. Katrina Jackson isn’t an anomaly in her home state, but she is in Washington, D.C. And she wants to change that.

Jackson [was] in the nation’s capital…when the Supreme Court [heard] oral arguments on why her abortion clinic regulations – requiring that doctors who perform the procedure have admitting privileges at local hospitals – should pass constitutional muster. Her bill, she argued, should unify Democrats and Republicans behind a common interest in protecting women.

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“It’s really a pro-women’s health bill because I’m not going to ignore those women,” she told Fox News during an exclusive interview in January. “I’m not going to ignore their health care needs.”

Regardless of labels, legislation like Jackson’s has played a pivotal role in chipping away at abortion access across the country. Requirements like admitting privileges and mandatory waiting periods have created what progressives say are detrimental hurdles to providing and accessing abortion.

And now, Jackson’s bill could be the key to gutting the landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade, which prevents states like hers from outright banning the procedure at certain stages in pregnancy. Her bill is especially controversial because she’s defending a type of abortion restriction that the court rejected in Whole Women’s Health v. Hellerstedt. . . .

CLICK TO DOWNLOAD A PRAYER GUIDE TO PRAY FOR THE SUPREME COURT JUSTICES AS THEY HEAR THE LOUISIANA ABORTION CASE TODAY.

But the criticism that most bothers Jackson isn’t arguments about choice. It’s the suggestion that she can’t be black, a Democrat, and oppose abortion. “For me, it was a Christian issue,” she said of her early foray into pro-life politics. . . .

“Being pro-life should not be about party or gender or anything. It should just be about being pro-life,” she told a group of pro-life activists, including many Democrats, before the March for Life in January.  [IFA staff prayed with Lousiana State Sen. Jackson when she was in town for the 2019 March for Life (shown in the picture). She was part of the Democrats for Life group who attended the March.

How did Jackson get to a place of staunch pro-life support?]

One day in her 20s, she was studying the Bible and focused on Proverbs 6, which outlines six things that God “hates.” Her bishop connected one of those – “the shedding of innocent blood” – to abortion. “And for the first time, it clicked,” she told Fox News. “And I said, you know what, if I’m truly going to follow God, I’m going to hate what he hates.”

Although she prioritizes her faith in her decision making, Jackson doesn’t necessarily see it as a conflict with her party’s ideas. Jackson understands “pro-life” policies as including those that affect children who are already born. Domestic violence bills and early childhood education are part of her pro-life agenda — not just clinic regulations. Opposition to abortion and Democratic ideas seem to follow one another in her eyes — and she’s apparently not alone in thinking that either.