For over 40 years, our society has promoted the idea that abortion is as simple as a woman’s choice. Abortion affects her. No one else.
Pro-abortion activists never mention the babies, the men, and the families who are impacted forever by an abortion.
They also never talk about situations like Melissa’s. Her 19-year-old mother was in her third trimester when she was given a saline abortion. The procedure injects a toxic salt solution into the amniotic fluid surrounding the womb. The solution poisons and scalds the baby to death. After approximately 72 hours, premature labor is induced. The child is stillborn.
In Melissa’s case, the abortion failed. She was born weighing less than three pounds and barely breathing. Then – in what truly reveals the often-schizophrenic realities that accompany the abortion industry – the clinic nurse swept Melissa out of the abortion area to a rescue team.
Melissa survived. Since then, her life has been a powerful journey of struggle and redemption. As a teenager, Melissa developed an eating disorder, abused alcohol, and made poor choices in dating. In time, through the love and prayers of her adoptive parents and through God’s grace, she worked through to true forgiveness and healing.
Melissa says, “I didn’t stay angry for long because, truly, there’s just not anything for me to be angry about. I’m alive. I’m well. And I’m blessed.”
Melissa Ohden has such a powerful story of restoration we’ve invited her to be on our Focus on the Family Broadcast “Redeeming Life, Finding Forgiveness” to share it. God is using her story to lift up the humanity of the thousands of children aborted every year and to bring to light the stories of babies like her that survive abortion.
Melissa is the founder and director of The Abortion Survivors Network, which seeks to educate people about failed abortions and survivors, while providing emotional, mental, and spiritual support.
To hear about God’s grace at work in Melissa’s life, how she became a voice for the voiceless, and what happened when she located her birth parents, tune in on your local radio station, online, or on our free phone app. You’ll be blessed to read more about her story in her book, You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir, available on our website.
One of the best things you can do to support life is to participate in our Option Ultrasound program. Abortion clinics are interested in abortion. Pregnancy resources centers are interested in the woman, the man, the baby, and the family. They minister to everyone involved.
Focus supports these centers through our Option Ultrasound program, which provides grants for sonogram training and technology. To date, more than 800 ultrasound machines have been placed around the country, and nearly 460,000 babies have been saved.
We’re working hard to raise that number to one million babies saved sometime in the near future. With that in mind, I’d like to extend an invitation for you to become a special partner with us through our monthly “Friends of Focus on the Family” program. What’s amazing is that it only takes $60 to save a baby’s life by providing ultrasound machines and additional resources.
You might also be interested in Wait No More, our foster and adoption effort here at Focus. Over 3,500 families have started that process, usually adopting more than one child.
In closing, I hope you’ll save May 9th on your calendar to attend one of five locations hosting Focus on the Family’s nationwide pro-life event called ALIVE 2020. These live events will feature musicians, special guest speakers, and live ultrasounds of third-trimester babies broadcast on massive digital screens. I hope you’ll join us to show the whole world that a baby is baby, whether inside or outside the womb. Visit our website for information.
Thank you for touching others with the love of Christ.
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