Focus on the Family president on impact of 'We're having a fetus' ad: 'Maturity of the pro-life movement'

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EXCLUSIVE - Focus on the Family's recent pro-life campaign ad challenged perceptions about the terminology often used to describe unborn babies, and it hit a noticeable nerve with viewers. 

The faith-based organization launched its "It's a Baby" ad last week ahead of the one-year anniversary of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade and gave states back the power to decide their abortion laws. The campaign featured parents celebrating pregnancy by declaring, "We're having a fetus!" or "You want to feel the fetus kick?" Its intent, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly said, was to challenge long held perceptions about abortion and the preborn.

‘WE’RE HAVING A FETUS!' PRO-LIFE AD CAMPAIGN CHALLENGES PERCEPTION OF UNBORN BABIES

The campaign has driven millions of people to their corresponding website, Daly said the group's ad agency relayed. 

"It's really important to get the language right because the one thing that oftentimes the pro-life community is accused of not being sensitive or caring for the mom, and that's just absolutely untrue," Daly told Fox News Digital. "So I think the maturity of the pro-life movement has arrived." 

Daly said the ad effectively broke down the right to life debate in the simplest terms.

"They're just normal terms," he said. "When a woman's pregnant, she has that baby bump. That's what we refer to the baby as - it's a baby. And I think that was the beauty of the ad, just to make it stated as simply as we can once again, that it's a baby. And I think most people agree with that."

Focus on the Family's "It's a Baby" ad takes on the word "fetus." (Focus on the Family/YouTube Screenshot)

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Daly detailed some of the work he and his colleagues have done for expectant mothers, which he said undermines the argument that the pro-life movement is insensitive to mothers struggling with unplanned pregnancies.

"There's ample support for women through the pregnancy resource centers who are struggling financially or with job training issues or job placement issues," he said. "There's so much going on right now to support a woman who has an unplanned pregnancy. We're the other option. We think taking the life of the child is not the right option. So the pro-life community is doing everything it can to support a woman with very difficult choices."

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Supreme Court awaiting the Dobbs ruling. (Joshua Comins/Fox News)

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While Dobbs gave pro-lifers a reason to celebrate, Daly said their fight is far from over.

"We needed that step in the pro-life community to further the care of the pre-born child and his or her mother," Daly said. "But now the fight goes to all 50 states."

Dobbs opponents like First Lady Jill Biden argue that the ruling was "devastating" for women.

"The Dobbs decision was devastating," Biden said at a White House event with four women who said they'd been negatively impacted by the decision. "The Dobbs decision took away women's constitutional rights, their ability to make their own healthcare decisions."

Daly said his faith-based organization is trying to convince those Americans in the middle on the abortion debate that the preborn child is a baby. 

"One of the things we're working on is adoption options. I think we're the first group in the country to try to develop a national adoption list, parents waiting for an infant child adoption. So we're looking forward to developing that along with 800 adoption pregnancy centers, etc."

Pro-Life demonstrators walking on the national mall during 2023 March for Life.  (Brooke Curto/Fox News Digital)

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Daly shared his personal reason for having originally joined the pro-life movement. His father, he explained, talked his mother out of having an abortion in California in the 1960s. 

"For me, even before Roe v. Wade, my mom was 42 in California, and you could get an abortion even then," Daly said. "That was in the 60s. And so I'm actually an abortion survivor in that my father talked her out of it. I was the seventh child of a very poor family. And my mother didn't think financially they could do it. And my dad told her, no, we can't do that. We can't have an abortion." 

"So, you know, directly a benefit of a pro-life perspective," Daly continued. "And my life has not been easy. I ended up an orphan child. But for anybody that says that a poor child should not be born because of the status of their financial situation and the direct opposite, I mean, I achieved it. I made it. And I think every child should have that chance."