I am not a myth
[Today’s guest post is by the wonderful Melissa Ohden.]
“This idea of an infant being born alive in the process of a botched abortion and people not making efforts to resuscitate — I think that’s a myth they like to propagate. It’s just not something that really happens.” So said Jessica Arons, an abortion advocate at the Center for American Progress, in Sunday’s CNN piece on Kermit Gosnell.
The next day, Gosnell was convicted of three counts of murder in the deaths of born-alive infants at his “clinic.”
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| Abortion survivor Melissa Ohden |
“The type of abortion where an infant would be delivered,
those only happen in hospital settings and they’re incredibly rare,” Arons said. I’ve heard
statements like those of Ms. Arons from the abortion industry and their
supporters more often than I can count. I’ve also received her statement in the form of a question, by people around
the world, more times than I can count. “Late term abortions only happen in
hospitals and they’re rare, right?”
abortion survivors is not clear, the truth is that late term abortions happen
more often than most people want to think. We know that Gosnell’s abortion facility is not the only “house of horrors” in this country. Live Action’s recent Inhuman investigation has shed further light on the normalcy of the abortion industry’s
practices, including late term abortions and infanticide. Try as abortion supporters might to deny the hard truth, I am not a myth.
abortion was done but was unsuccessful” when I was approximately 31 weeks
gestation. My birthfamily has shared
firsthand the horrific details of what happened when my birthmother was forced
to abort me 35 years ago. My birthmother
has stated that it’s a miracle that I’m alive.
had contact with 131 other abortion survivors.
Just this past week, I met survivor #130 of these 131, a beautiful
16-year-old girl, whose twin lost their life through the abortion. The abortionist didn’t realize that Courtney
was there in the womb, too, which is why she’s alive to share her story
today. Just yesterday morning, I heard from
survivor #131—a 45-year-old mother who just recently learned about her
survival.
a myth, either. We are living testament
to the truth about life in the womb and the horror of abortion. Just because the media and the pro-abortion
industry doesn’t want to acknowledge the truth about our lives and about
late term abortion, that doesn’t make us and what we’ve experienced less real.
I think it is very important that we discuss these cases, but it is nevertheless true that proportionally, late-term abortions in general and botched ones in particular are extremely rare. Proportionally. Even one, of course, is a terrible thing, and shouldn't be tolerated as an acceptable medical practice. But I think it is relevant to the overall discussion of abortion that the vast majority are done in the first trimester. If Americans accepted, say, French laws on abortion (which *generally* prohibit abortion after 12 weeks), would that spell victory for the pro-life movement?
Just thinking out loud, I guess.
Mr. Graber, did you even read this article?
It's absolutely relevant, because the same criteria 'justifying' earlier abortions justifies late-term abortions — you can't logically condone one without the other. And Big Abortion knows this, which is why they fight any and all limitations on abortion, including clinic regulation and protections for the born-alive. Besides, by the numbers, late-term abortions happen 100s of times a times a day in the U.S. alone.
Actually I need to double check those numbers. I was working with 8% of 4000 late-term abortions/day to get "hundreds", but I need to look that up again b/c that might be confusing that with a different abortion-related stat (what percentage of pregnant women who enter PP get abortions?)
I cant understand why anyone would wait 31 weeks for an abortion. And by the way, I'm glad you're here 🙂
Yes. This is true. But even if Melissa's mom took the morning after pill or RU-46, the fact remains that Melissa's life would have been ended. And no one would have known just how much poorer they were because she wasn't here.
When we depart this life and when we are face-to-face with all the lives that would have been our friends (and family), what will we say to them? What will be the measure of our grief?
Yes, here are the basic facts: http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_induced_abortion.html
Over 60% of abortions are performed within the first nine weeks of pregnancy. Almost 90% occur within the first twelve weeks. Less than 2% happen after 21 weeks, which, proportionally, is rare. I imagine it's all the more rare than abortion should happen after 30 weeks.
Keep in mind that the Guttmacher Institute was started as the research arm of Planned Parenthood. It is now said to be independent of PP, but its origin suggests that its reports may not be impartial.
No, the proportions absolutely do matter. This is my concern: after this big affair with Gosnell, the pro-life movement is going to be energized and indignant, saying "I told you so" about the abortion industry and all that kind of stuff. So the question is, who's going to go on TV and talk about this, and what are they going to say? If pro-lifers go on TV and tell the American public that this just shows what we've been saying all along, that we need to take *all* abortion away, is that going to work? Or will that simply drive the American public away from our position once again, because it's too "extreme"?
On the other hand, if we go on TV and say, "See, all we're asking as that this kind of thing never happens again," we might come across as reasonable. Who knows, things might even change, laws might get passed, the public might be on our side for once. It might *work.* But…will we have sacrificed our principles? Will we have sacrificed the long run? Or is something better than nothing?
So I think these are facts we need to take seriously, as they present us with questions that are not easily answered.