Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
    • Terms and Conditions
      • Opt-out preferences
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Presentations
      • A Secular Case Against Abortion
      • Building Bridges
      • Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths
      • Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
    • Collections
      • Becoming Pro-Life
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Ask An Atheist
      • LGBTQ and Pro-Life
      • Fixed that meme for you
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
    • Print Materials
      • 100 Pro-Life Sign Ideas
      • Overview of SPL
      • 3 Reasons to tell people you’re pro-life
      • How to talk (not fight) about abortion
      • Bridges PRC Curriculum
      • Fetal Remains Disposition Protocol
      • FAQ handout
      • Presentations overview card
    • Store
  • Contact
  • Get Involved
    • Why support SPL?
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Volunteer Survey
    • More Surveys
      • Why do you support SPL?
      • Best and Worst Abortion Arguments
      • “Ask An Atheist” Interview
      • Non-Traditional Pro-Life Survey
      • LGBT Pro-Life Survey
      • Parents experiences with prenatal screening
      • Your experiences with adoption
      • Your experiences with processing abortion
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Abortion Survivor’s Mother Speaks Out

September 14, 2020/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Kelsey Hazzard

Many of our readers are familiar with the name Melissa Ohden. A longtime friend of Secular Pro-Life, Melissa is probably the most outspoken abortion survivor in the United States. She has testified before legislative bodies about her birth following a saline abortion procedure in the late 1970s, and she is the founder of More Than A Choice: Abortion Survivors Network. 

But do you know the name Ruth Lindahl?

Abortion survivor and pro-life 
advocate Melissa Ohden

Ruth is Melissa’s biological mother. They were reunited thirty years after Melissa’s odds-defying birth, and they have fully reconciled.

As it turns out, Ruth never wanted to have an abortion. She was only nineteen years old when she conceived Melissa, and Ruth’s mother (Melissa’s grandmother) demanded the abortion and made the arrangements. When Melissa was born alive, the family conspired to hide that fact from Ruth and secretly placed Melissa for adoption, with the help of a family friend in the clerk of court’s office. 

In an interview reported exclusively by the Christian Post, Ruth explains that her churchgoing, locally prominent parents were appalled that she became pregnant before marriage, and they pursued the coerced abortion to protect their reputations. (Ruth was in fact engaged, but her parents hated her fiance, and the engagement unsurprisingly fell apart in the traumatic aftermath of the “abortion.”) Although Ruth is a woman of faith, she has harsh criticism for her fellow Christians who prioritize appearances over basic decency and compassion.

Melissa asked Ruth: “What would you tell someone right now, if somebody listens to this, if they’re thinking about having an abortion, what would you tell them?” Her answer was simple and powerful: “I would tell them to think five times over… that they will regret it for the rest of their life; they will think forever about that baby.”

You should definitely check out the full interview, which I am told is just the first in a series of videos uniting abortion survivors and their biological parents. Stay tuned.

Related Posts

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png 0 0 Kelsey Hazzard https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Kelsey Hazzard2020-09-14 12:10:002021-11-08 12:14:03Abortion Survivor’s Mother Speaks Out
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption & Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • Dialogue strategy
  • en español
  • Later Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, & court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • Speeches, Discussions, Presentations
  • SPL Emails
  • They Can Hear You
  • Top SPL Articles
  • Top SPL Graphics
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Year In Review
  • Your Stories

Archive

It’s crucial that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Read more details here. Please donate today.

DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
© Copyright 2025 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup

Related Posts

March for Life announces 2021 theme Pro-life advocates outside the Supreme Court We Asked, You Answered: Your Pro-Life Platform
Scroll to top
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

Subscribe for Livestream Updates and More

* indicates required

Interests

Want to receive our email newsletter?

We’d be happy to keep in touch. Subscribe for access to our newsletter and other updates.