Pro-Life Works: Abortion Survivor

April 14, 2010

Spotlight on Gianna Jessen - Abortion Survivor

Vanessa Snodgrass

College Intern

“If abortion is merely about women’s rights, what were mine?”

In 1977, Gianna Jessen’s biological mother had a late-term saline abortion at 30 weeks at a Los Angeles County abortion mill.  During the abortion process, Gianna was burned in the womb for 18 hours with a saline injection; the abortion failed and her baby  was born alive, weighing only two pounds. "What’s fantastic about this, about the perfect timing of my arrival, is that the abortionist was not on duty yet,” Gianna said.  “So he wasn’t even given the opportunity to continue on with his plan for my life, which was death.”

Due to the lack of oxygen to her brain during the saline abortion, Gianna was born with what she joyfully calls “the gift of Cerebral Palsy.”  Doctors predicted “she would never be able to hold up her head, sit up, crawl or walk.”  At the age of three, she began to walk with the help of leg braces and a walker.  Today, despite her mild limp, Gianna runs marathons.  All for the glory of God!

In addition to being a vocal Pro-Life activist, Gianna is also a talented Christian recording artist.  On May 8, 2006, Representative Ted Harvey invited her to sing the national anthem before the Colorado State House of Representatives, under the pretense of being a cerebral palsy advocate.  On this last day of the legislative session, the House was hearing a resolution to honor the 90th anniversary of a local branch of Planned Parenthood.

“Gianna sang the most amazing rendition of The Star Spangled Banner that you could possibly imagine.  Every person in the entire chamber was completely still, quiet, and in awe of this frail young lady's voice,” Representative Harvey recalled.  After the applause died down, Harvey stunned the House by introducing Gianna: “Members, today, we are going to recognize the 90th anniversary of Rocky Mountain Planned Parenthood…I just wanted to put a face to what we are celebrating today."

In 2002, President George W. Bush signed the Born Alive Infants Protection Act into law to protect from infanticide babies born during abortion.  According to Gianna, prior to this law, the general practice was to “end the life of an abortion survivor by strangulation, suffocation, leaving the baby to die, or throwing the baby away.”

Gianna’s testimony was read before the 2007 Supreme Court in Carhart v. Gonzales, which upheld the constitutionality of the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban, which was signed into law by President Bush in 2003.

During the 2008 election campaign, Gianna was featured in a BornAliveTruth.org advertisement, attacking Senator Obama’s voting record on the Illinois Born-Alive Infant Defined Act with an eloquent call to action for Pro-Life voters: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anieuWFWe8s

“My mission is this: to infuse humanity into a debate that we have just compartmentalized and set on a shelf and said, ‘it is an issue’.  We have removed our emotions.  We are becoming harder.  Do you really want that?  How much are you willing to take and how much are you willing to risk to speak the truth in love, and graciousness, and stand up and at least be willing to be hated?  Or at the end of the day, is it all about you…or me?”

For more about Gianna’s Pro-Life activities click on the link to her speech at Queen’s Hall, Melbourne, Australia: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ&feature=related