I had a chance to hear her speak a couple years ago. I’m not easily moved by a speaker, but she is a compelling speaker. Her story is incredible and it’s hard to imagine anyone after hearing her speak continue to believe that abortion is only a choice over a “mass of tissue”.
Gianna Jessen was aborted at 7½ months. She survived. Astonishingly, she has forgiven her mother for trying to kill her.
By Elizabeth Day
Gianna Jessen grew up believing that she was born with cerebral palsy because she had been delivered prematurely in a particularly traumatic birth.
That was the story told to her by her adoptive mother and it was not until she was 12 years old that she discovered the truth about what made her different from the other children at school.
“I had an innate wondering,” Miss Jessen says. “I wasn’t satisfied for some reason, so I kept asking why I had this disability.
“She tried to break it to me gently and then, just as she was about to tell me, I said ‘I was aborted, right?’ She said ‘Yeah, you were.’ And my reaction was ‘Well, at least I have cerebral palsy for an interesting reason.’ ”
That was 16 years ago. Miss Jessen is now a pretty, fresh-faced 28-year-old with wavy shoulder-length red hair. She speaks with eloquence and composure, in a soft southern American accent, her forehead crinkling slightly as she talks.
But while her outward appearance might have changed, her inner determination to overcome even the most insurmountable challenges has remained absolutely constant.
From the very beginning, Miss Jessen survived in spite of herself. Her mother, Tina, a 17-year-old single woman, decided to have an abortion by saline injection when she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant (there is no legal time limit for abortion in America).
But in the early morning of April 6, 1977, the abortion failed. Against the odds, the baby had lived. A nurse called the emergency services and the child was taken to hospital. She weighed only 2lb and the abortionist had to sign her birth certificate.
Gianna’s not the only survivor out there. I have a bunch of pictures of survivors at the bottom of my sidebar, and each picture links to that survivor’s story.
When Democrats for Life says they are “pro-family”, is that code words for anti-gay?
RE: No 2: No, the phrase “pro-family”, used is context of the abortion discussion, is not “code” for anti-gay. The two issues are separate and distinct.
Democrats for Life who are “pro-family” are attempting to adhere to the late Cardinal Bernadin’s concept of a “Consistent Ethic of Life”. The Consistent Ethic of Life holds that concern for the unborn and concern for the poor, the sick and needy among us, and the environment, originate in the same belief in the sanctity of human life.
Simply put, if you care about protecting the lives of the unborn (an issue more identified with the political right), you should care equally about the lives of the already born, and visa-versa – if you care about traditionally Democratic issues such as health care, a minimum wage and assistance for the poor, you should care about protecting the lives of the unborn, because they are no less human.
So I was stuck in traffic this morning, surfing the radio stations, when the static was suddenly broken by the voice of Howard Stern asking Donald Trump, “I heard your wife is pregnant. Did you ever consider an abortion? I mean do you really want another child?” To me this comment was more indecent than anything Stern has ever been fined by the FCC for saying. It appalled me that there are still prominent people in our media who regard abortion as merely a “lifestyle choice” and can speak of it in such a cavalier manner.
I’m also disappointed by the cowardly manner in which Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito has tried to run away from his own views on abortion. “Everone knows he’s against abortion” Alito’s mother recently told some news reporters. Why is Roe v Wade considered so sancrosanct that the we as nation are not allowed to use the occasion of Alito’s nomination as an opportunity to debate Roe v.s Wade’s underlying assumptions and reasoning? Why is Alito so afraid to say “This is what I believe, and if I have to give up a seat on the Supreme Court rather than violate my principles, so be it.”
Recent opinion polls indicate that while the majority of the public does not favor criminalization of abortion it does favor greater restrictions. Support for greater restrictions reflects the moral unease over the apparent sanctioning by our laws for abortion on demand, for any reason at all. If regulation of abortion were allowed to devolve back to the States we would have regulations that more closely mirror public attitudes.
Our government at times has made pronouncements on such issues as equality, poverty and health, that reflect underlying moral judgements. These pronouncements drive public policy and help shape social mores. Our government can without being strident and extreme I think begin to set a moral tone that says all life is precious, including the lives of those waiting to be born.