Testimony about Live Birth Abortion

Accounts of Live Birth Abortions

What do all these girls have in common? they survived abortions.

Gianna Jessen

On April 6, 1977, Gianna’s 17 year old birthmother (named Tina) sought a saline abortion at seven months pregnant. Saline abortions involve injecting a caustic saline solution into the amniotic fluid, which (normally) causes the fetus to be scalded to death and then delivered dead. In this case, however, things didn’t go according to plan. In the early hours of April 7th, Tina went into labor and gave birth to a living baby girl, Gianna. Fortunately for Gianna, she was born before the abortionist had arrived at the clinic for the day. As a result, instead of being killed at birth by the abortionist, she was transported to a hospital. She was severely injured by the abortion attempt, requiring a three month stay in the hospital, but she survived to be placed in a foster family specializing in high risk babies.

As a result of injuries from the abortion, Gianna was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Doctors believed she would never be able to sit up, let alone walk. She surpassed all expectations. Today she is able to run, dance, and walk…and has even taken up rock climbing. She has also become a tireless advocate for the pro-life cause.

Many would expect Gianna to be bitter or angry about the fact her birthmother tried to abort her, especially at such a late point in the pregnancy. However, Gianna does not have any hatred towards her birthmother. She has forgiven her mother for the traumatic circumstances of her birth and treats the post-abortion women who hear her speak with compassion.

On April 22, 1996, Gianna testified before the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on the issue of abortion. Sadly, out of 13 members of the subcommittee, only 2 were willing to listen to her testimony; abortion supporters boycotted the meeting.

Ana Rosa Rodriguez

Look at the picture of Ana Rosa Rodriguez on the left. At first glance, she might look like an average little girl to you. However, if you look closely, you’ll notice that this child is missing her right arm. That’s because her arm was ripped off in the process of an abortion on New York’s Lower East Side in October of 1991. Ana Rosa was 32 weeks old at the time of the abortion. It was performed by legal abortionist Abu Hayat. Rosa, Ana Rosa’s mother (who was only 20 years old at the time), had told Hayat that she had changed her mind and didn’t want to go through with the abortion. [Ed. note: Ana’s arm was ripped off in the attempt to dismember and remove her from the womb in a late term abortion.]

“He said that it was impossible to stop, that I had to continue,” Rosa told New York Newsday. According to Rosa, Hayat’s assistants held her down while he sedated her. When she awoke, she was told that the abortion was incomplete and that she should come back the following day. That evening, however, she experienced increasing pain and bleeding. Her mother took her to Jamaica Hospital by taxi, where, five hours later, baby Ana Rosa was born. Aside from the loss of her right arm, Ana Rosa is a perfectly healthy little girl.

Heidi Huffman

In 1978, Tina Huffman was a pregnant, unwed 17-year-old from a broken, dysfunctional home. Her mom and dad, as well as her boyfriend’s parents, adamantly insisted she had only one option: abortion. Tina yielded to their demands and had a suction abortion. But the abortionist “missed” Baby Heidi, even though he took most of the placenta and amniotic fluid. Heidi was delivered by C-section several months later. From her earliest years, Heidi attended pro-life rallies, programs and conferences with her mom, and then graduated to picketing and sidewalk counseling at abortion clinics.

Heidi herself says, “I believe that all young people are survivors of abortion, just like I am, because they too could have been killed under the current policy of our government, which declared us “non-persons” when we were in the womb.”

Ximena Renaerts

Ximena’s odessy with Vancouver General Hospital began on Dec. 16, 1985, the day she was born. After attempting an abortion at a free-standing mill in Bellingham, Wash. Ximena’s birth mother entered VGH, where she gave birth. According to court documents, staff delivered the child into a “hat”–a plastic pot–and then senior nurse Vera Wood whisked her away. Ximena was placed in a room “where dead fetuses were stored,” even though she was “moving, gasping, (and) crying weakly.”

Court documents say Wood checked back some 26 minutes later, to find the child still alive. A nursing supervisor was called and arrived almost an hour after Ximena’s birth. She found the child still in the “hat,” uncovered, on a stainless-steel counter. By the time the Infant Transport Team arrived, Ximena had suffered a severe loss of heat, which in turn caused extensive and permanent brain damage. 

Ximena’s adoptive family eventually sued VGH for $10 million. Hospital officials petitioned to have the case heard before a judge only, but the B.C. Supreme Court ruled it would be best heard before a jury. In June of this year, facing the prospect of a public trial, the hospital settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money. All family members will say is that Ximena will be well taken care of.

Meanwhile, pro-life activists are calling for criminal charges to be laid. B.C.’s pro-abortion Attorney-General Ujjal Dosanjh initially balked at the idea of investigating, but then instructed his criminal justice branch to contact Vancouver police. As of press time, no announcement had been made on whether further action will be taken. The B.C. College of Physicians and Surgeons have claimed the incident is out of their jurisdiction.

VGH continues to face heat over the case. Pro-lifers are now handing out literature outside the hospital, warning women of the events surrounding Ximena’s birth. Some pro-lifers are suggesting VGH’s recent request for a no-protest “bubble zone” around the facility is an attempt to cover up the case and hide it from patients and possible donors.

But it seems unlikely officials will be able to put a lid on the story, since it may have happened before. A May 30, 1986 Vancouver Sun article quotes nurse Kathryn Larouche, who spent a year working in the VGH ward where abortions were committed. Larouche stated she saw three infants “die after they were delivered live.”

“We were supposed to turn the other way,” Larouche said. “We weren’t supposed to do anything. There were a couple of people … I don’t want to say who. They told us, ‘Don’t do anything. Leave it alone. It will die.'” The events left such emotional scars, Larouche eventually resigned. Five other nurses left with her.

VGH officials insist that, according to their records, there has been no other case where a “viable” infant was born and allowed to die. They have not provided an explanation of what “viable” means.

Sarah Smith

In 1970, three years before Roe vs. Wade knocked down all laws against abortion in the United States, California had already legalized abortion. Sarah’s mother, Betty, had an abortion in Los Angeles. Neither she nor the the abortionist realized she was carrying twins. As a result, one of the twins–Sarah–survived the abortion.

“Somehow, miraculously, I survived!” says Sarah. “My twin brother wasn’t so lucky. Andrew was aborted and we lost him forever. Several weeks later, my mother was shocked to feel me kicking in her womb. She already had five children and she knew what it felt like when a baby kicked in the womb. She instantly knew that somehow she was still pregnant.” Sarah’s mother went back to the doctor and told him she was still pregnant, that she had made a big mistake and that she wanted to keep this baby.

“To this day, my mother deeply regrets that abortion,” says Sarah. “I know the pain is unbearable for her at times when she looks at me and knows she aborted my twin brother. Mom says ‘the protective hand of Almighty God saved my life,’ that God’s hand covered and hid me in her womb, and protected me from the scalpel of death.”

Sarah survived the abortion, but was born with bilateral, congenital dislocated hips and many other physical handicaps. Nine days after her birth she was taken to an orthopedic surgeon who applied a cast to each of her tiny legs. “My mom would remove these casts with pliers every Monday morning and take me to the doctor to have new casts put on,” she recounts. “At six weeks I was put into my first body cast. Many surgeries and body casts followed over the next few years.”

Sarah’s life has been painful in many ways, and her future holds more painful surgeries for her. Yet Sarah says she continually thanks God she survived the abortion. But the pain is not hers alone and not merely physical. The emotional pain continues, she says, for everyone in her family. “In memory of my brother Andrew, we bought a memorial gravestone and placed it in a cemetery in Southern California. It reads: Andrew James Smith, Twin Brother of Sarah – in our hearts you’ll always be alive – November 1970.”

On April 24, 1996, Sarah Smith delivered a powerful address at the international “Congress for Life” in Rome, organized by the Legionaries of Christ to celebrate the first anniversary of Pope John Paul II’s encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae – The Gospel of Life. Sarah told the conference how she came to discover the dreadful secret that she had somehow intuitively felt:

“I did not know of the abortion until I was 12 years old. I grew up feeling that I was the same as my friends, except for having numerous surgeries and physical complications. The only difference I felt was an incredible loneliness and a knowledge that something was missing. I never felt whole.

“I battled with severe depression and found myself dying of anorexia nervosa at age 12, when my mother knew it was time to tell me the truth. She sat next to me and took my hand and looked me in the eyes and said, ‘Sarah, you are a twin. I aborted your twin brother and tried to abort you. Please know I did not know what I was doing and I pray someday you are able to forgive me. I love you and need you to know that you are a welcome part of our family.’

“At that moment I knew what I had been missing all my life and that I was called to something much greater than I had knowledge of. Immediately I felt the overwhelming pain of the knowledge that I should be dead.

“As I stand before you today,” Sarah told her Rome audience, “I am painfully aware that this is only possible because my twin brother took a scalpel for me, and I stand in his place and memory, giving him honor and a face. Statistics are coldly impersonal and cannot convey the human tragedy of the abortion slaughter. Thirty-two million babies [have been] killed in the United States alone. Yet every one had a face, a life, a Creator who loved them and created them in His image. As you look at me today, you realize that I am no different than you, yet I stand before you today a representative of the dead – a representative of the innocent lives who today may lose their lives. Who will speak for them?”

 

Abortion pictures in different stages of development.

Testimony about Live Birth Abortion

Here is a picture of a prostaglandin abortion some pro-lifers dubbed ‘Baby Tia.’ She was aborted at the age of 20 weeks.

However, human embryos begin to resemble human babies almost from the very onset of surgery’s ability to destroy them. The vast majority of surgical abortions take place in the seventh week of pregnancy or later (for more information on this, go to the Facts and Stats Page.)  Sometimes pro-choice sources compare fetuses to inanimate objects or lower life forms, like in this passage below. The reader can judge for themselves whether or not such comparisons are apt. “Is the fetus alive? Is it alive? Algae is alive, and earthworms, and your appendix. Mold on the bread in the refrigerator is alive. People are not agreed on what a life is … If you look at pictures of human, chicken, pig, and turtle embryos at the same stage of development, it is difficult to tell them apart.”

— Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood booklet entitled “Let’s Tell the Truth About Abortion.” “Let’s Tell the Truth About Abortion.” Pamphlet distributed by Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood. 1985, 22 pages. Fight Back Press, Post Office Box 61421, Denver, Colorado 80206. Pages 3 and 4.

‘For the most part it [fetal remains] is thrown out like in many doctors’ offices. If you had a wart removed or whatever (chuckle) you could make that analogy.”–Pam Crosby, Clinical Coordinator at Prince George’s Reproductive Health Services, on the clinic dumping second-trimester babies in their trash.

Quoted in Debra Braun. “Bodies of Aborted Babies Thrown in Trash at Maryland Clinic.” National Right to Life News , December 8, 1983, page 5.

“Another set of questions involves the opposition. Has your audience seen anti-abortion propaganda? Are you debating a Right-to-Lifer? Is the opposition bringing slides or pictures? Try to insist that they not be allowed to … Find out if your opposition is bringing audio-visuals. Try to insist that you will only speak if they do not … “

— Looseleaf booklet entitled “Organizing for Action.” Prepared by Vicki Z. Kaplan for the National Abortion Rights Action League. 51 pages, 1974. See especially page 24, “Organizing a Speakers Bureau,” and pages 29 and 32, “Introduction to Debating.”

“When, under one roof, the number of dead fetuses mounts into the thousands, the simple fact of death gradually overshadows the significance of individual histories.”

—Magda Denes. “Performing Abortions.” Commentary , October 1976, pages 33 to 37.

Another quote by an abortion defender:

“…other non-persons (pigs, cows) have toenails, heartbeats, and the capacity to feel pain (some say a fetus can only feel pressure, not pain, but we’re not sure), yet these factors alone do not prevent the destruction of such entities. “It is a fact that the fetus is human life, but when do we accept that developing human life as a fellow human being? That question can only be answered according to our individual beliefs.”

— National Abortion Rights Action League. Looseleaf booklet entitled “Organizing for Action.” Prepared by Vicki Z. Kaplan for the National Abortion Rights Action League, 250 West 57th Street, New York, N.Y. 10019. 51 pages, no date.

U.S. Abortion Deaths Compared to U.S. War Deaths & Abortion Deaths

Each* symbol represents 10,000 people (or fraction) killed. Total number of AIDS deaths since the beginning of the epidemic: 430,441* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Revolutionary War – 4,435 deaths. *

Civil War (both sides) – 498,332 deaths. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

World War I – 116,708 deaths. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

World War II – 407,316 deaths. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Korea – 25,604 deaths. * * *

Vietnam – 58,168 deaths. * * * * * *

Total killed due to abortion since 1973 – 35,000,000 (35 MILLION) deaths. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 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