What would the victims of abortion say if they could speak?
As it turns out, some of them can speak. Yesterday, two survivors of abortion—Gianna Jessen and Melissa Ohden—testified before Congress. Both women were born after “failed” late-term saline abortions in the 1970s. These women are truly voices for the voiceless.
The abortion regime in this nation is founded upon privacy, that is, on the idea that the state ought not intrude into the most intimate and private choices—such as those made by a woman facing an unwanted pregnancy. Everyone who attacks the abortion license, abortion supporters say, is attacking privacy from the outside; intruding into a realm beyond their ken.
But Jessen and Ohden? These women—and the hundreds and thousands of survivors just like them—are reminders that there is always someone for whom abortion is even more personal than the mother. With every breath they take, they contradict the lie that, at its deepest core, abortion is about personal choice and privacy. They are a concrete reminder that the lives of innocents are unmistakably, irrefutably, at stake. To tout “privacy” in the face of the testimony of these women is to say that these women should have died—ought to have died—and that every breath they draw is an affront to justice.
In her testimony, Jessen asked: “If abortion is about women’s rights, then what were mine?”
Indeed. The silence of abortion supporters in the face of such testimony is deafening.
You can watch Jessen and Ohden’s testimonies, below.
(Gianna Jessen’s testimony.)
(Melissa Ohden’s testimony)