Carrie Fischer with Nik Hoot – both abortion survivors. Source: Carrie Fischer Facebook page
by Terri LaPoint
Health Impact News
Abortion is not meant to be survived, yet somehow, there are people alive today who lived through their mothers’ abortions. Today, they want their voices to be heard as they share their unique perspective on the videos that have recently been released by the Center for Medical Progress exposing Planned Parenthood.
Survivor Melissa Ohden, founder of the Abortion Survivors Network, reports that she has been in contact with 202 survivors and/or immediate family members of survivors. Out of 57.5 million in America who have been aborted since Roe v Wade opened the floodgates in 1973, and others who were aborted before it became legally accepted, there are just a tiny handful of babies who have lived through the abortion procedure.
Gianna Jessen is one of those survivors:
i think someone who was burned in her mother’s womb for 18 hours ( me ) deserves to be heard, as we face the horror of planned parenthood.
— Gianna Jessen (@giannajessen) July 21, 2015
Gianna and Melissa Ohden both survived saline abortions, a procedure where a salt solution was injected into their mother’s wombs, where they were burned inside and out by the solution. Usually the mothers would give birth to a dead baby hours or days later. Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden were born alive. Most often, when that happens, the babies would be killed immediately or left in a bucket or on a table to die. However, in both of their cases, a compassionate worker had mercy on them and took them for medical care, instead of killing them or “procuring” their tissue or organs. They were later adopted, and today they speak out about their stories. They are perhaps the best known abortion survivors today.
Survivors Feel The Pain Of The Babies Being Aborted
There are other survivors whose mothers had an abortion, but somehow they remained pregnant. In some cases, the abortion caused disfigurement or loss of limbs; in others, the mother was pregnant with twins, but neither the abortionist nor the mother realized that another baby remained in the womb after the abortion. Some survivors have no visible repercussions, but all carry emotional scars. They can identify with the aborted babies in a way that few can.
Carrie Fischer feels the pain of the babies whose broken bodies are shown in the videos. She remained in her mother’s womb after an abortion attempt in a Texas clinic, and she carries the scars in her body. (See her story: here)
When I see the baby body parts, my heart breaks, because I realize that I could have been one of those babies, I feel the pain and horror each baby must have felt, because I experienced that same pain when my mother tried to abort me. I survived, but so many millions of others have lost their lives to the monstrous atrocities of abortion.
Carrie Fischer with her husband Richard Fischer. Source: Carrie Fischer Facebook page
It’s Not “Just a Simple Procedure”
Melody Olson (website) is only recently beginning to speak out about her experience. She herself is a post-abortive mother, and she learned her own story when she found a recording in 2007 that her grandmother made shortly before her death in 1999. In that recording, her grandmother revealed that when her young parents found out her mom was pregnant, they went into Mexico for an abortion. Her mother was given a pill that was supposed to abort her. But, in the words of Melody’s grandmother, “Obviously it didn’t work, because here you are!”
Melody Olson. Source: Speak Life & Live Facebook page
She tells Health Impact News that she is very thankful to be alive. Before she found out her own story and began investigating, like many people, she didn’t realize what actually happens to the babies in abortions.
I had no idea this is what they did. I thought it was just a simple procedure.
I can’t see how anybody, after seeing these videos, could walk into an abortion clinic and take the life of another human. I honestly can’t even imagine how anybody could do it. How much more do we need to see that this is not a “fetus”? It’s a BABY!
The Nonchalant Attitudes In the Videos – Disturbing
A common theme that most of the survivors we talked with addressed is the coldness with which Planned Parenthood staff and others spoke with when talking about buying and selling the organs of aborted babies. Gianna Jesson tweeted:
watching the video of that abortionist from planned parenthood arrogantly talk about selling baby parts, while eating a salad. is shocking.
Melody Olson talks about the “part that floors” her when watching the videos:
The disgusting part of this disassembling of bodies – that’s hard enough. But, what’s worse is the nonchalant attitude of these people, that it’s just business-as-usual. It’s like washing their cars … or like how to cut up a chicken. The deadness in their souls.
Josiah Presley – “The Human Fetus Is A Person”
Josiah Presley is a young man who was adopted, after he was born missing an arm from his mother’s curettage (D & C) abortion. He suspects that he may have had a twin who was successfully aborted. He spoke at the National Convention for Life in Ireland in 2014 and shared his incredible story. (See: YouTube video) Josiah sent this statement to Health Impact News:
When I first saw the Planned Parenthood (PP) videos, I was definitely appalled, but in no way surprised. In a time where the killing of innocent and defenseless human life is thought of as no big deal, why not find a way to profit from it even more?
What surprises me, however, is the fact that PP is trying to either cover it up, or apologize for the laxity in which the videos showed the employees talking so nonchalantly about the issue. After all, if the human fetus is nothing but a clump of tissues, then why shouldn’t they be harvested for the sake of research? We butcher animals all the time for food. Why should there be any shame in butchering and harvesting the organs of a clump of cells to potentially save human lives?
The answer is simple, and the same one that prolife movement has been asserting for years. From the moment of conception, the human fetus is a person.
Source: YouTube
The reason PP is having to try to cover up their actions and apologize for them is because the revealing of these videos does nothing but to reinforce the fact that abortion is the taking of human life.
They can try to dance around the issue all they want. But at the end of the day, it is completely contradictory to say that a fetus is just a clump of tissue, but in the same breath harvest aborted fetuses for their human organs in the name of research. These videos have reinforced that the fetus is a person, and these videos have brought to the public’s eye once again the heinous face of abortion.
My heart mourns for the lives of those lost because of abortion. It hurts knowing that, because of abortion, my own life was almost ended 19 years ago. But it hurts even more knowing that I live in a day and age where abortion is but a normal daily occurrence. A procedure that brings great profit to one party while destroying the life of the other.
Appalled But Not Surprised
In her statement to Health Impact News, survivor Melissa Ohden writes:
In all honesty, although I am appalled by what we’ve seen in these PP videos, I am not surprised. The very act of abortion is an utter disregard for human life and so along with that comes all of these other circumstances like harvesting of organs, even possibly without consent or when children were born alive.
Abortion Survivors ask: “Where was MY choice?”
One question that abortion survivors universally ask about the “choice” of abortion is: “Where was MY choice?”
They are appalled at the attempts to say that they were not actually human or that they did not deserve to live. They are the “inconvenient truth” that fly in the face of the abortion rhetoric. Gianna writes that she had the “audacity not to die while being aborted on 4.6.77.” Further, she poses questions to Planned Parenthood:
i think dr. ( i eat a huge salad and drink wine while discussing the sale of baby parts) nucatola, and all the rest of these planned parenthood people, should try to tell me to my face that i am not human. i think they should have to answer my two questions for them: if abortion is about women’s rights, what were mine? and, do you wish i would have died?
oh, and a third, do you resent that you couldn’t sell me piece by piece to help fund that Lamborghini?
Would The Clinic Have Sold Their Body Parts?
That question haunts many survivors. Had their mother’s abortion taken place in a different time or a different clinic, it could have been THEIR bodies being rinsed off in a strainer and their organs shipped off to the highest bidder. Claire Culwell was adopted after surviving the abortion that killed her twin brother. When she found her birth mother, she thanked her for choosing life. Her mother broke down in tears and told her the truth about what happened so long ago. Now their relationship has been restored.
Claire Culwell (right) and her birth mom. Source: Claire’s Story; Abortion Survivor Facebook page
This beautiful woman is my birth mother. When she was 13 she had an abortion that took the life of my twin but somehow I miraculously survived. Lately I’ve wondered – were my brother’s body parts sold? Would mine have been sold if her abortion had been successful? We will never know….But there is one thing we DO know — this beautiful woman, who I have completely forgiven, deserved much better than abortion and much better than Planned Parenthood.
Claire writes of the reality that she and fellow survivor Melissa Ohden recognize:
We both survived abortions. We could have been sold and profited off of by the abortion industry. There ARE faces that go with these “specimens” and ours are just two of them. Planned Parenthood does not stand up for women or provide necessary life saving services. They are not a non profit! Instead, they are profiting off of PEOPLE just like us.
Forgiveness and Love
Overwhelmingly, abortion survivors speak of forgiving their birth mothers. They all seem to recognize that, on some level, their mothers were lied to or exploited. Though they have wrestled with feeling worthless and rejected, thrown away by their own mothers, none of the survivors who spoke with Health Impact News showed any hatred toward their mothers, but extended forgiveness and compassion to their mothers and to women who have had abortions. Melody Olson has experienced abortion from both the perspective of a survivor and a post-abortive woman. She talks about the power of forgiveness:
These women need to know that they are truly forgiven. That’s why they don’t feel worthy of love. We have to love out of our overflow.
Source: October Baby movie – An Erwin Brothers production that tells the story of a young girl who learns that she survived an abortion. At its heart, it is a story of redemption and forgiveness.
There are many ministries such as Rachel’s Vineyard (website) that minister to post-abortive women.
Gianna Jessen has called for prayer for those who engage in the buying and selling of aborted babies for their organs:
let’s overcome evil with good. i think we should pray for the Redemption of dr. nucatola. (the abortionist in the planned parenthood video.)
Enough Is Enough
Several of these abortion survivors have been speaking out about the horrors of abortion for years, putting a tangible face on the euphemistic concept of the “fetus.” Before the Planned Parenthood videos revealed to the public what goes on behind closed doors, abortion could be discussed in terms of politics and philosophical concepts.
But not any more.
“Enough is enough” – that statement has been spoken by almost all of the survivors in this article. Survivors want people to recognize that neutrality is no longer an option. Either life matters or it doesn’t.
Gianna Jessen asks the question:
how is planned parenthood any different than adolph hitler? they are not. #PPSellsBabyParts
Survivors are united in the hope that America will recognize that the abortion industry has pulled the wool over the nation’s eyes, and will act to end the actions that have been exposed.
Melody Olson:
Enough is enough! It’s time for us to step up and step out, but we NEED to do it in love. More prayer, less yelling.
Carrie Fischer:
Planned Parenthood is not about parenthood, but about the murder of motherhood and families. It’s an evil that must be quenched.
Josiah Presley:
PP can try to sweep the issue under the carpet, as they have tried. The question that remains is – what will the people do with the revelation of these tapes? These recordings but once again expose abortion for what it is. But is this enough? When will the abortion industry go so far as to cause the people to finally say enough is enough?
Claire Culwell:
It’s time to DEFUND Planned Parenthood and do some serious investigations of abortion clinics across America!! Friends, we have got to speak up. Enough is enough!
Gianna Jessen:
i don’t believe planned parenthood will win this time. they’re about to be stunned by a thunderous insistence on the protection of Life that cannot be quenched. the blood of over fifty million children cries to the Lord, day and night, from the ground, like the blood of abel. they will not succeed.
planned parenthood is finally terrified. they should be. they murder people, then sell them. their arrogance will be their undoing.
Melissa Ohden:
I am hopeful that these videos will awake the American conscience to what abortion is and what it should have done to me and all of the other survivors who are blessed to be alive today, but we can’t just leave it at that. Planned Parenthood needs to be investigated. The American public must get involved – whether it be through contacting their legislators, supporting their local pregnancy center, praying for lives to be saved and transformed. We must demand that action be taken to prevent these atrocities again and as a culture, show respect for all lives, regardless of circumstance or situation.
We are at an important crossroads as a society. We can use these tragic events and videos to turn back the tide on what the Roe v. Wade decision has done to us as a nation. It is my sincerest hope that we do just that and that anyone hurting from abortion can now seek and receive the help and healing they need.
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