Women who survived abortions are voicing their “horror” at Vice President Kamala Harris’s discussion of late-term abortions and abortion survivors at Tuesday night’s debate.
“As a second-trimester dilation and evacuation abortion survivor, I am the face of one of the babies who is stuck in the middle of the lies, debates, and political rhetoric swirling around the issue of abortion,” 42-year-old Lauren Eden, a member of the Abortion Survivors Network, told The Daily Wire.
“This issue is not political; it is about real people,” she added. “Who is more defenseless in our society than a preborn baby in the womb?”
Eden and others are reacting to Tuesday night’s tension-packed debate, where former President Donald Trump accused Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, of embracing radical abortion extremism and promoting abortion all the way up to birth — and even after. Throughout their exchange, Harris laughed, pursed her lips, shook her head, and frowned at Trump.
Donald Trump puts Kamala on the spot, demands to know if she would support late-term abortions of babies at seven, eight, or nine months.
She won’t address it.
“Come on,” she says, shaking her head. pic.twitter.com/4N47wXVJ1c
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 11, 2024
“That’s not true,” she argued, as Trump said Harris supports abortion in the third trimester. Harris has voted against legislation protecting babies born alive in botched abortions. She also co-sponsored the “Women’s Health Protection Act of 2019” as a senator and promoted the legislation — which would allow unrestricted abortions — as vice president.
ABC moderator Linsey Davis also admonished Trump during the debate: “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it is born.”
Her remarks sparked a firestorm of backlash, as critics pointed to the stories of babies who are born alive in botched abortions — and then allowed to die, such as in Walz’s home state of Minnesota.
“Not only does abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy happen in states with no restrictions on abortion, but born-alive infants happen,” said 47-year-old Melissa Ohden, the president and CEO of The Abortion Survivors Network.
“Babies survive first, second, and third-trimester abortions throughout the pregnancy.”
A number of Abortion Survivors Network members shared similar perspectives with The Daily Wire. Some of these women, like Ohden, say they survived saline infusion abortions, wherein the abortionist infuses a toxic saline solution into the womb that is intended to end the baby’s life. Ohden, who told The Daily Signal that an unborn baby should technically die from this poisoning after about 24 hours, says she somehow survived after soaking in the solution for five days.
Rosemarie Fenchel, 62, told The Daily Wire that she was a victim of a chemical abortion — her mother reportedly attempted to abort her by taking 54 abortion pills and undergoing three saline injections.
“As a chemical abortion survivor, I was appalled by how Kamala Harris quietly stated ‘that’s not true’ when Donald Trump spoke about how she, and the Democratic Party, promote abortion up until birth,” Fenchel said.
US Vice President Kamala Harris, right, and former US President Donald Trump during the second presidential debate at the Pennsylvania Convention Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. Photographer: Doug Mills/The New York Times/Bloomberg via Getty Images
She added: “She misrepresented her position on how she will fight for ‘reproductive rights’ up until the ninth month by stating ‘Oh, come on!’ Not only did she not answer, but once again she hid the truth about her abortion agenda through the ninth month.”
Other women survived dilation and curettage abortions, or dilation and evacuation abortions, in which abortionists use a curette to scrape or suck a baby’s body out of the womb.
Seventy-five-year-old Priscilla Hurley says she survived one such “D&C” abortion.
“Who understands the value of the unborn more than one who survived their mother’s failed D&C abortion as I did?” she asked.
Sarah Zagorski, 34, similarly shared that she survived an induction abortion at 26.5 weeks old in New Orleans. She recalled with horror how Harris laughed during Tuesday night’s debate.
“Abortion survivors like me felt horror permeate our bones as the lies left her lips that women do not obtain abortions in the final three months of pregnancy,” she said.
She survived her mother’s attempted abortion not because of her abortionist, Zagorski said, but because her birth mother, “like a hero,” demanded that she receive “life-sustaining medical intervention” when she was born alive.
Michele Smith, a 61-year-old saline abortion survivor, said that she is “painfully reminded that reproductive rights and the ‘choice’ of a woman take priority over” the lives of babies.
“My mom suffered 60 years of pain, guilt, and shame as a victim of an abortion attempt on me. When does this pain end for countless women and babies in our nation?” she asked. “I have given birth to five beautiful children, and I am alive to celebrate each of their lives and I think about how I miraculously survived that abortion attempt on my life.”
All these women stressed fears that Harris would promote radical abortion extremism in the United States.
“A political platform for abortion until birth as a right hates the unborn and their mothers,” said Hurley. “The first will die and the latter will be traumatized perhaps for years to come. Harris is the most radical proponent of abortion in U.S. election history. The cold, uncaring condition of her heart was exposed during the debate, and it is chilling and very grievous.”
Ohden urged the public to educate themselves on the topic in order to better support abortion survivors.
“People need to read the research, have hard conversations with people, wrestle with their own cognitive dissonance on this, and challenge what is being reported by politicians like Harris and the media like ABC,” she said.
Fenchel stressed the importance of Americans turning out for the upcoming election in defense of life.
“This election is paramount on the issue of protecting both the preborn and women,” she argued. “If elected, [Harris] will make abortion the law of the land.”
“Wake up, America, and stand up for the preborn and stop the atrocities against women!”
