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'I just love to be alive... I was aborted, but I did not die'
Sheena Hastings meets Gianna Jessen, a woman who survived the abortion intended to end her life.
TWENTY-NINE years ago this month, Gianna Jessen's
17-year-old, seven-and-a-half months pregnant mother went
into a California abortion clinic.
She underwent a procedure involving saline solution. Like others lying there in the same situation, she then waited to deliver a dead child.
In this young woman's case, something else happened. A live baby was born, a girl. The doctor had gone home, so the nurse on duty called an ambulance to take the infant to a local hospital. Abortion clinics don't have facilities to look after live babies.
Against all the odds, the baby, who weighed 2lb, survived. She was diagnosed with cerebral palsy and doctors predicted she would never raise her head, let alone sit up, crawl or walk. They said she would almost certainly "be a vegetable".
Gianna Jessen not only lived but she confounded these dire prognostications.
Today, she is a fit and healthy singer, writer and pro-life campaigner.
She walks with a pronounced limp, but she's running the London Marathon in aid of a cerebral palsy charity later this month. Injuries have set back her training recently, but she says she'll complete the race "if I have to crawl".
She is not just enthusiastic but passionate about life. She wakes up each day glad to be here in a way the rest of will never quite feel.
"I just love to be alive," she says. "I was aborted, but I did not die. I spent 18 hours being burned inside my mother's uterus, but still survived. I see cerebral palsy as a gift I was given, something I learn from.
"The trauma of abortion meant my brain was starved of oxygen during labour and birth, so I live with the mark of my mother's decision. But I am glad to be
here.
"Thinking about my story, you have to question the basis of abortion being about a woman's right to choose. What about my rights as a baby? If the abortionist had still been in the building, he would have made sure I did not survive after delivery, and my rights would have been ignored. It is not our right to murder children."
The US only recently instituted federal laws protecting the life of an aborted but live baby; the UK already had such legislation. It's estimated that 3,000 post-20-week abortions happen a year in England, Wales and Scotland
for reasons to do with the mother's health or the child's disability.
No-one in either country is
sure how many babies survive
late abortion. The upper limit
for abortion is 24 weeks. Babies born naturally below that gestation do regularly survive. Disabled babies can be aborted up to birth.
Gianna's mother took her home, but the baby was later put into emergency foster care. At 17 months old, the little girl met Penny, a veteran foster mother. The two "fell in love", says Gianna. She was later adopted by Penny's daughter, Diana.
"Penny became my grandmother, and taught me to fight, not retreat," says Gianna, who now lives in Nashville, Tennessee. She says her mission in life is to fight for the weak – the child, the disabled and the elderly.
"It can't be that the weak are always at the mercy of the strong. It just cannot be. I will never accept that." She and Diana travel the length and breadth of America, speaking at pro-life events.
She does not condone acts of violence against abortion clinics and doctors in the US. "I would never go along with that kind of thing, but to be honest it is not common. The same incidents are recycled over and over in the media, for propaganda purposes."
She says she has forgiven her biological mother, whom she has never wished to meet. Nor has she made moves to find her father. Her mother, Tina, heard about Gianna through the media, met Diana and confirmed the circumstances of the abortion, then turned up at an event where Gianna was a guest two months ago.
"She knew I did not want to meet, but obviously felt her wishes overrode mine," says Gianna. "She is a stranger to me, and when I came face to face with her, forcing herself on me, I couldn't do it. She was very
angry, I told her I forgave her, but she did not accept it. She said, 'Forgive me for what?' It was very upsetting."
Gianna Jessen is a devout Christian, but says she understands the discomfort of non-believers when people with faith talk about God in connection with abortion. "I respect their choice about religion, but you don't have to be Christian to understand that abortion is murder.
"There is no negotiation. I don't believe in abortion in any circumstances, for any reason. Medical science is proving every day that human activity is there from the beginning, and even without that, who are we to decide to end a child's life?"
sheena.hastings@ypn.co.uk
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Saturday 11 February 2012
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