“God often uses our deepest pain as the launching pad for our greatest calling,” says one post uploaded on the Instagram page for the Abortion Survivors Network. This network is a nonprofit pro-life organization devoted to raising awareness of those who have survived abortion procedures. This quote is a fitting description of their work, as well as of their newest initiative: Babies Survive Abortion Awareness Month.
This September, the organization is celebrating their first month of raising awareness of abortion survivors. Their intention is to share facts, statistics, and testimonies from those who have survived abortions in order to humanize abortion victims and cultivate hope in our culture of death.
Sharing these testimonies is vital for helping hurting abortion survivors and motivating them to share their stories. It also helps mothers who have experienced or are experiencing failed or reversed abortions. The pro-life community can help ASN lift up abortion survivors and their mothers, equipping them with healing, love, and truth, this September.
The Issue
Pro-choice lawmakers, activists, and those in the abortion industry have been known for minimizing the existence of abortion survivors. They resist and criticize pro-life laws, referendums, and bills focusing on protecting abortion survivors, and instead have referred to them as “myths.” However, statistics have shown that the reality of these survivors is in no way unfactual pro-life propaganda.
The Abortion Survivors Network conducted a groundbreaking study using Canadian data and found that approximately 1,734 infants survive abortions in the United States every year. Furthermore, while abortion was legal under Roe v. Wade, about 85,817 babies survived abortion in the nation.
The Charlotte Lozier Institute has stated in response to a CDC study that “…nationwide, between 2003 and 2014 at least 143 babies died after being born alive during botched abortions, though the CDC also states this could be an underestimation.”
Babies being born alive after the abortion procedure has been called “the dreaded complication.” Unfortunately, enacting policies that would require life-saving medical care for the abortion survivor to be given is controversial. The nation’s leading medical lobbying group, the American Medical Association, rejected a resolution that would require this care for these babies just this year.
Furthermore, abortionists have been caught confessing that they would let a baby who was born alive after an abortion attempt die without providing any medical care. For example, abortionist Dr. Cesare Santangelo, owner of the Washington Surgi-Clinic, said that he would not save a baby if he/she was born alive under his care. He also regularly performs late-term abortions without killing the baby first (using feticide), so he has to be doing partial-birth abortions. It’s so, so sad.
Similar to how pro-choice activists deny the existence of abortion survivors, they also spread misinformation about the dangers of abortion pill reversal. Many mothers experience guilt and misgivings after abortion; this drug gives women the chance to reverse their decision before it is too late.The drug involved in abortion pill reversal, progesterone, can reverse the chemical abortion drug mifepristone. This reversal has been given a 68% success rate. These preborn babies are numbered among the many who have survived abortion attempts.
It is important to remember that these babies that are being born alive are not just statistics to be debated over. They have real faces and real souls. ASN founder Melissa Ohden is one of those very souls. At seven months old, Ohden was subjected to a saline abortion, which the organization Students for Life of America has described in the following terms:
“Now uncommon, but was committed in previous years between months four through seven. A 20% salt solution (the normal salt solution is .9%) is injected through the mother’s abdomen into the baby’s amniotic fluid. The baby ingests the solution and dies of salt poisoning, dehydration, and hemorrhaging of the brain. The baby’s skin is burned off. A dead or dying baby is delivered. A baby born alive is usually left unattended to die, though some have survived.”
Ohden was one of those born-alive babies. In an interview with Fox News, she said “I soaked in a toxic salt solution for five days being poisoned and scalded to what was intended to be my death. And on the fifth day of the abortion procedure, I was accidentally born alive.” She described resistance to the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act as “traumatizing” and “disgusting.”
According to the ASN, two out of 1,000 abortions end in a live birth. Yet the pro-choice side doesn’t want us to listen to their stories, inflicting trauma and hurt on those who have survived abortions.
The Mission
“The Abortion Survivors Network is the only support and advocacy organization worldwide for the babies who have survived abortion and their families,” their website details. “The Abortion Survivor Network is like an oasis. A safe place for survivors to finally share their story, be themselves, be vulnerable, to finally heal.”
ASN has connected with approximately 650 abortion survivors since 2019, connecting them to healing groups and empowering them to use their voice for good. “The Abortion Survivors Network hosts events to spread the word about survivors to a world that doesn’t even know people like me are a thing,” explained abortion survivor Amy Miles.
This year, the network is launching a new Ambassadors program. Abortion survivors can connect with the organization and become ambassadors for the truth, sharing their testimonies with the world. The network is also launching a collaborative training program, which will help users learn how to respond and help women who have experienced failed chemical abortions.
How can we help? Here are just a few ways the pro-life movement can take a stand for abortion survivors:
- Spread awareness on social media and in the community. Share posts, facts, and testimonies online from ASN’s Instagram and Facebook page.
- Learn about abortion survivors and statistics. Sites such as Live Action and the Abortion Survivors Network are great sources of information. Start by picking up You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir by Melissa Ohden or by listening to Lila Rose’s interview with abortion survivor Josiah Presley.
- Volunteer at the Abortion Survivors Network. Click here to learn about different opportunities you can help.
- Pray for the efforts of ASN, abortion survivors, and confused mothers. Learn what ASN wants supporters to specifically pray for and join their prayer team here.
Pro-life movement, let’s rise up to support these abortion survivors in any way we can. They are more than just choices or survivors. They are beacons of hope, of the humanity of preborn children. We must stand with them this September.
Photo by Bonnie Kittle on Unsplash
I love history, Middle Earth, writing, cinema, and Jesus. I hope to use the gifts He has given me to spread the Truth about His love and protect those in the womb.
