On April 6, 1977, Gianna Jessen was bathed in a saline solution meant to end her life. Her biological mother was 17 years old, and seven and a half months pregnant when she decided to get the abortion.
It failed.
Initially, Jessen was not expected to survive. She was premature and had suffered a lot as a result of the botched abortion, but survive she did. She would be diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of a lack of oxygen during the abortion, and the injuries she had suffered made it unlikely that she would ever be able to even lift her head.(1)
Eventually, however, Jessen was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. It was doubtful that she would ever crawl or walk, and she couldn’t even sit up independently at the beginning, but with a lot of work, she overcame the odds and learned to crawl and even walk with leg braces and a walker by the time she turned four.(2)
After a total of four surgeries and a lot of physical therapy, she is today able to walk without assistance. She has gone on to be a major disability and pro-life activist, giving countless speeches for the pro-life movement and testifying before Congress on several occasions against abortion.(3)(4)(5)(6)
Despite how efficient we have gotten at providing abortions, Gianna not the only survivor of abortion out there, these failures and complications happen surprisingly often. Some survivors such as Josiah Presley and Melissa Ohden go on to be major pro-life advocates, doctors, or social workers in the fields of substance abuse, child welfare, mental health, domestic violence, and sexual assault. Many others sadly do not live for long after their survival due to complications suffered from the abortion attempt and their subsequent premature birth.(7)(8)(9)
It is unclear just how many babies are born alive following failed abortions in America as most states do not record this information, and what research we have from the CDC is limited and dated.(10)
Among those few states that do have reporting requirements, however, many cases where children survived failed abortions occur every year. In Arizona for example, ten such cases were reported from August to December in 2017, and similar numbers were recorded for Florida. In Minnesota, hospitals have generally reported an average of five children being born alive following abortions every single year, and never less than three. Occasionally, comfort care is provided to these infants, but rarely if ever are any measures taken to preserve the child’s life. Instead, they are simply allowed to die.(11)(12)(13)(14)
Over the past few years, America has seen increasing efforts to provide protections for those infants who have survived abortions and ensure that they are given proper care. Chief among these efforts has been the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, a bill that would amend the federal criminal code to require any health care practitioner who is present when a child is born alive following an abortion or attempted abortion to exercise the same degree of care as reasonably provided to any other child born alive at the same gestational age, and ensure that such child is immediately admitted to a hospital instead of remaining in the care of the abortionist.(15)
These efforts, however, have been met with staunch resistance from pro-choice advocates. The Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act has been voted down or filibustered time and time again through near-unanimous opposition by Democrat senators and congress members.(16)
Pro-choice politicians have called these laws unnecessary infringements upon women’s rights, pointless political maneuvering, and a solution in search of a nonexistent problem. Many believe that abortionists have become so efficient at what they do that survival is impossible, and that survival stories like Gianna Jessen’s are relics that are never seen in the modern world.
But such beliefs are not in any way backed by evidence. The data that we have suggests that there may well be hundreds of children surviving abortions every single year, and that when born they are regularly neglected and left to slowly die.
People survive abortions in the United States almost every day, but are not being cared for or properly protected even after birth. Laws like the abortion survivor protection act are an unfortunate modern-day necessity given the state that our country is in, and the fact that we cannot work together to solve this issue is a sad illustration of how divided our nation has become.
The debate over abortion has now become not only a debate over the lives of the unborn but the lives of those who have already been born as well, and we all have a duty to protect them as we would the life of any other child.
Sources
- Gianna Jessen testimony YouTube, September 9, 2015 House Judiciary Committee hearing. Uploaded by prolifeinformation, September 9, 2015.
- Gianna Jessen AbortionFacts.com, survivor story.
- Prepared Testimony of Gianna Jessen: Examining the Hyde Amendment and the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice, September 23, 2016.
- Planned Parenthood Exposed: Examining the Horrific Abortion Practices at the Nation’s Largest Abortion Provider — Testimony U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, September 9, 2015.
- Gianna Jessen: Abortion Survivor, Pro-Life Advocate, Speaker GiannaJessen.com, official website.
- Gianna Jessen Testimony on the Right to Life YouTube, House Judiciary GOP, September 23, 2016.
- About Me MelissaOhden.com, official biography.
- Criswell College “Stories” — Episode 4: Josiah Presley YouTube, Coffee with Creamer, February 2, 2016.
- Listen To The Beat — Proliferation YouTube, January 22, 2014.
- Mortality Records Mentioning Termination of Pregnancy National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
- Induced Abortions in Minnesota, January–December 2016: Report to the Legislature Minnesota Department of Health, Center for Health Statistics, July 2017.
- Induced Abortions in Minnesota, January–December 2017: Report to the Legislature Minnesota Department of Health, Center for Health Statistics, July 2018.
- Live Births Following Induced Terminations of Pregnancy by County, 2017 Florida Agency for Health Care Administration, 2017 data.
- Abortions in Arizona: 2017 Abortion Report Arizona Department of Health Services, September 21, 2018.
- S. 311 — Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act U.S. Congress, 116th Congress, 2019–2020.
- Roll Call Vote 58: Cloture on the Motion to Proceed to S. 311 U.S. Senate, 116th Congress, 2nd Session, February 25, 2020.
