An event for survivors of abortion held on July 22, entitled Empowered by Life, was hosted by the Abortion Survivors Network (ASN) in North Austin.
ASN is a roughly 600-member organization whose mission is “to create a world where the incidence of failed abortions and the lives of survivors is openly discussed and accepted, and survivors and their families are supported and healed.”
Since there is no required national reporting in the U.S. on abortion survivor statistics, data is scarce on the number of abortion survivors. The nonprofit organization Live Action, which describes itself as a “pro-life movement,” reports a “conservative estimate” of 1,200 abortion survivors per year in the United States.
The Bioethics Observatory Institute of Life Sciences reported that “according to data from the British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology […], around 10% of children survive abortions at 23 weeks of pregnancy.”
In Canada, 662 babies were reportedly born alive after a failed abortion between 2000 and 2011.
Shockingly, Live Action claims that in most cases, the babies are left to die in the operating room, or their life is ended by some other means.
Ryan Hogan, an attendee at the ASN event in North Austin, tweeted, “I attended the Abortion Survivors Network event. These 13 women survived an attempted abortion on their lives. If you need a reason to believe abortion is wrong, here’s 13 reasons,” and attached a photograph of the 13 women.
According to reports, the abortion survivors who spoke to the event’s attendees discussed their personal stories, as well as the adverse effects on their health that resulted from the failed abortions, such as respiratory issues, partial paralysis, and deafness.
The survivors also spoke about the emotional trauma of having been injured in their mother’s womb, including being haunted by dreams and nightmares throughout their childhoods.
M.E. Castle, a senior policy advisor for Texas Values, an organization focused on preserving and advancing a culture of family values in the state, also tweeted from the event on this shared phenomenon: “Did you know babies who survive abortion grow up having dreams of the procedure??? Fascinating hearing from the Abortion Survivors Network last night in ATX!”
Melissa Ohden founded ASN in 2012. Ohden is a survivor of a saline abortion — a now rarely-used method of late-term abortion in which the amniotic sac is injected directly with a highly concentrated salt solution to terminate the pregnancy and induce labor.
The Abortion Survivors Network claims it is the “only advocacy and support group for abortion survivors and their families worldwide.”
The Dallas Express reached out to several pro-abortion groups for comment, including AVOW Texas, Texas Equal Access Fund, The Lilith Fund, and Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas.
Specifically, we inquired about their position on what should be done with babies born alive after failed abortions and how they viewed the recent ASN event and advocacy for abortion survivors in general.
None of these groups responded to our request to participate in this story.
