Testimony of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen

Gianna Jessen
Testimony of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen before the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on April 22, 1996.
My name is Gianna Jessen. I am originally from California, but now reside in Franklin, Tennessee. I am adopted. I have cerebral palsy. My biological mother was 17 years old and seven and one-half months pregnant when she made the decision to have a saline abortion. I am the person she aborted. I lived instead of died.
Fortunately for me the abortionist was not in the clinic when I arrived alive, instead of dead, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 6, 1977. I was early, my death was not expected to be seen until about 9 a.m., when he would probably be arriving for his office hours. I am sure I would not be here today if the abortionist would have been in the clinic as his job is to take life, not sustain it. Some have said I am a "botched abortion", a result of a job not well done.
There were many witnesses to my entry into this world. My biological mother and other young girls in the clinic, who also awaited the death of their babies, were the first to greet me. I am told this was a hysterical moment. Next was a staff nurse who apparently called emergency medical services and had me transferred to a hospital.
I remained in the hospital for almost three months. There was not much hope for me in the beginning. I weighed only two pounds. Today, babies smaller than I was have survived.
A doctor once said I had a great will to live and that I fought for my life. I eventually was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion.
My foster mother was told that it was doubtful that I would ever crawl or walk. I could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of my foster mother, and later many other people, I eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. I walked with leg braces and a walker shortly before I turned age four. I was legally adopted by my foster mother's daughter, Diana De Paul, a few months after I began to walk. The Department of Social Services would not release me any earlier for adoption.
I have continued in physical therapy for my disability, and after a total of four surgeries, I can now walk without assistance. It is not always easy. Sometimes I fall, but I have learned how to fall gracefully after falling 19 years.
I am happy to be alive. I almost died. Every day I thank God for life. I do not consider myself a by-product of conception, a clump of tissue, or any other of the titles given to a child in the womb. I do not consider any person conceived to be any of those things.
I have met other survivors of abortion. They are all thankful for life. Only a few months ago I met another saline abortion survivor. Her name is Sarah. She is two years old. Sarah also has cerebral palsy, but her diagnosis is not good. She is blind and has severe seizures. The abortionist, besides injecting the mother with saline, also injects the baby victims. Sarah was injected in the head. I saw the place on her head where this was done. When I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for the other survivors, like Sarah, and also for those who cannot yet speak ...
Today, a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. A baby is called a tissue or clumps of cells when an abortion takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference. What are you seeing? Many close there eyes...
The best thing I can show you to defend life is my life. It has been a great gift. Killing is not the answer to any question or situation. Show me how it is the answer.
There is a quote which is etched into the high ceilings of one of our state's capitol buildings. The quote says, "Whatever is morally wrong, is not politically correct." Abortion is morally wrong. Our country is shedding the blood of the innocent. America is killing its future.
All life is valuable. All life is a gift from our Creator. We must receive and cherish the gifts we are given. We must honor the right to life.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• abortion
• survivor
• gianna
• jessen
• testimony
• pro
• life
• choice

[MrLolsauce69]

@ricadrew I was making fun of stupid people like you, who said that she brings the fear of God to the hearts of progressive liberals. You're right, it made no sense, hence the joke. The very fact that you put a negative connotation to the word progressive should tell you something. Your faith is holding you back and making the world a stagnant environment of hatred and war. But yes, God loves me, I forgot.

[LeGioNoFZioN]

My God, I had heard your story before, but, this brought tears to my eyes at the beginning of my shift. God bless and keep you, little sister. I pray for all other young victims of such a horrible process.

[ivyshoots]

@arnijodi Psalms are songs, the words are lyrics/poetry. Not literal, not fact. Women "knit" and "weave" new lives inside themselves, just as ewes, cows, bitches, and mares do. No "God" needed to execute the biological process which happens millions of times a day in so many species. You're welcome to join the real world at any time. It's fine to appreciate poetry, but it's no justification for denying women their right to self-determination in their own lives. Get out of denial already.

[arnijodi]

@ivyshoots "For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be." Psalm 139:13-16 Wow! God is awesome! He loves the unborn child!

[ivyshoots]

@arnijodi As for your interpretation of Luke 1:41, it says nothing about a soul whatsoever. Elisabeth was six months pregnant, and she felt her fetus move in her uterus, as all pregnant women do everyday in the third trimester. If you've ever been pregnant, you know the fetus has active times, and you might feel it move when you get excited or there's a loud noise, so where does the soul come into it? Dog fetuses "leap in the womb" too; it means nothing supernatural.

[ivyshoots]

@arnijodi Notice that you need to speculate about ensoulment; you don't know. It's fine to believe whatever you want, but it's NOT okay to make laws for others based on those beliefs. If you want to believe a blighted ovum, which occurs in about 20% of ALL conceptions, has a soul, that's your choice. I think it's degrading to humanity to think human tissue with no organs or possibility of ever growing into a fetus is a "person" or has a soul, but whatevs.

[arnijodi]

@ivyshoots That's a great question and I would not want to say that I know the mind of God. One possible answer is that divine intervention at conception causes two souls to exist within one zygote and the very existence of two souls causes embryonic fission... One Biblical case for the soul existing in an unborn child comes from Luke 1:41a, "When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the baby leaped in her womb..."

[ivyshoots]

@arnijodi states, "At conception, a soul is brought into the world." If that's true, where does the second soul come from in cases where twins are formed? Since twinning doesn't occur until about a week after conception, which twin gets the original soul, and which one gets the new soul? Or does the soul split in two also? When will it occur to you that imposing supernatural concepts on biological processes is fantasy, not reality? If you personally believe in magic, don't force it on me.

[arnijodi]

@PutItAway101 Baptism does not save the soul of anyone. It is when a human soul accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Savior... A blob of cells? A human life begins at conception. At conception, a soul is brought into the world. You are truly limiting the infinite mercy and infinite grace and miraculous power of the Lord God Almighty. He knew you before you were born. 2 Peter 3:8–9 With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day...

[arnijodi]

@PutItAway101 God does not kill the baby in the womb. Its our sin that has caused human suffering.

[arnijodi]

@PutItAway101 So, then does that mean that it is okay for us to kill a baby that's in the womb?

[arnijodi]

@philip0460 So what you are saying is that it is okay to kill a baby in the womb?