women’s health – Ellen Kolb

“More than a choice” – Melissa Ohden on the growth of Abortion Survivors Network

The first time I wrote about Melissa Ohden, back in 2016, I included a video of her testimony to Congress about surviving the attempted abortion that was meant to kill her. After informing members of Congress about the number of documented abortions occurring annually, she went on to say “I was meant to be one of them. I should have been just another statistic.”

Melissa’s advocacy for abortion survivors had started years before. In 2012, she founded the Abortion Survivors Network. The Network is thriving, having brought together hundreds of people who have survived attempts to abort them. They are “more than a choice,” as ASN’s tagline proclaims.

Melissa was kind enough to reply recently when I asked her for an update on her work. “I couldn’t be more proud of the team at The Abortion Survivors Network, five of whom are also abortion survivors. We are fast approaching being connected with 600 Abortion survivors. We’re offering more supports and programs to not only survivors but family members, including the women who experienced failed abortions.”

What’s ahead for ASN, and how you can help

What’s ahead for ASN? “We’re currently growing so rapidly that in the next five years, I foresee that we’ll be offering multiple retreats a year, including for families. We’re starting right now to research and implement the best practices of healing and community support for survivors who have also had abortions, themselves, and what care is most supportive to children and teenagers. Contributing what we learn to journals and the pro-life healing community is all part of what we’ll continue to do.”

In New Hampshire, efforts have thus far fallen short to pass “born-alive” legislation to protect children surviving attempted abortion. Other states have seen more success. What has worked, where born-alive laws are enacted? “We’ve continued to see that sharing the stories of survivors, coupled with data about the incidence of born alive survivors is impactful. Just because there are Abortion survivors doesn’t mean born alive legislation isn’t needed (policymakers and the abortion industry attempt to paint that picture).”

What can a person do to support ASN and the survivors it represents? “The average person can educate themselves about born alive survivors (our websites are great resources), learn our stories, and educate policymakers and people around them about this. Most people really have no idea this happens and the frequency to which it does.”

I can add one more thing: read and share Melissa’s book, You Carried Me: a Daughter’s Memoir (2018: Plough Publishing House). She tells her story with compassion and grace.

Post header image: pexels.com

Take a Baby Step: Pass Abortion Statistics

Originally published on GraniteGrok.

The New Hampshire House will vote on March 7 on HB 158, an abortion statistics bill. Here’s where we’ll find out just how much the news out of New York and Vermont has influenced New Hampshire legislators. Are they distressed to be in one of the few states that leaves abortion unregulated throughout pregnancy? Then here’s a baby step: let our public health authorities at least find out how many abortions take place in New Hampshire.

This bill won’t recognize a right to life. It doesn’t call for tracking post-abortion maternal injury or death, and it therefore would not detect abortion providers with a pattern of harming patients. It provides protection for the anonymity of women seeking abortion.

It would bring New Hampshire into line with the forty-seven other states that report abortion statistics, in aggregated non-personally-identifying form, to the Centers for Disease Control.

Abortion advocates are fighting this, as they have fought every attempt to find out how many abortions are performed in our state annually.

New Hampshire is arguably the most Gosnell-friendly state in the union, although New York is trying its best to join us. (Former abortionist Kermit Gosnell is serving life in prison for first-degree murder and manslaughter, after carrying on his business for years in Pennsylvania, a state that for a long time turned a blind eye to abortion providers.) Want to step away from that ghastly position?

Take a baby step. Pass HB 158.

Update: the House defeated HB 158, marking the eighth time since 2002 that abortion statistics legislation has failed to advance in New Hampshire.

Building a Shelter: St. Gianna’s Place

Originally published at Leaven for the Loaf.

After a long search, the board of St. Gianna’s Place has made the announcement I’ve been waiting for. From Facebook:

With great joy and gratitude, we announce that St. Gianna’s Place has found a home! We signed a lease on February 11, the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. We will soon be opening our doors to welcome pregnant women in crisis and their babies. We are grateful to God for leading and inspiring us on this journey, and we are grateful to our supporters for making this possible.
We humbly ask for your continued prayers and support as we prepare to open our home to some of God’s most vulnerable. We are hosting a Go Fund Me event to raise money to purchase necessary items for our new home. If you would like to help, please visit https://www.gofundme.com/StGiannasPlace.
Again, thank you for your continued prayers and support.
“The secret of happiness is to live moment by moment and to thank God for what He is sending us every day in His Goodness.” St. Gianna pray for us!

How fitting that the lease was signed on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, given the faith and persistence of the volunteers who have brought the project this far. Housing for pregnant and parenting women in crisis is at a premium in southern New Hampshire, and St. Gianna’s Place will be part of a solution. The home will be in Hudson, and the opening date will be announced later. Right now, the task at hand is to prepare the building for occupancy.

Please view and share the Go Fund Me page set up by St. Gianna’s Place volunteers. Their immediate goal is $1000 for basic things like linens and cleaning supplies. A modest donation can go a long way.

I recall listening to a St. Gianna’s board member a couple of years ago, describing the vision driving the project. “Our Calcutta is right here,” she told me, comparing Mother Teresa’s mission field to ours here in New Hampshire, where so many more shelter beds are needed.

The signed lease goes a long way toward bringing the vision to life.