With all the talk of women’s reproductive rights this Mother’s Day, my perspective is that without first surviving an abortion, I would have never had the opportunity to become a mother – whether it was through pregnancy, adoption, or kinship care.

It’s no secret that abortion is a defining political issue in 2024. As these conversations, campaigns, and debates ensue, there are realities, voices, and relationships that are often overlooked. While I acknowledge everyone has a complex relationship with someone else in their life, here is my story.

I grew up in a loving home in Iowa, knowing I was adopted, (along with my older sister) to parents who loved me. I would say I had a great childhood. But, at the age of fourteen, I accidentally found out that I survived an abortion, which crumbled the world I thought I knew. I wrestled with not only the typical angst of figuring out who I was, independent from my family, but with the layers of being adopted and as an abortion survivor, it was confusing. Subconsciously, I felt unloved and unwanted because of the culture surrounding me – the culture that often communicates that abortion is not only a choice, but a right. It created a narrative for me that a child who is aborted is unlovable and unwanted. I began to struggle with self-worth and identity, even with a caring and supportive adoptive family I wondered, “Am I loved?”

When my birth mom was 31 weeks pregnant, her mother, a prominent nurse at a local hospital, forced her to have a saline-induced abortion to end my life. For days they injected a toxic solution into the amniotic fluid, a solution designed to poison and scald me until I was delivered dead. On the fifth day, I was born, leading my birth mom to think the abortion was successful. I was rushed to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) — and unbeknownst to her for decades, lived, and was placed for adoption.

I was devastated when I learned the truth about my past. I didn’t want to be a survivor. I felt a range of emotions from guilt for surviving when thousands of other babies had not, to resentment towards my birth family, to ultimately feeling alone. I didn’t know of any other abortion survivors who shared the same experience. 

As a young adult in my twenties, I embarked on a journey to not only learn more about my past but to heal. I went to counseling and began processing forgiveness towards my birth family, still unaware of the circumstances surrounding my birth. While studying for my social work degree, I began seeing common threads to apply to my own story and healing. Self-awareness about the residual anxiety and fears of being a survivor through my studies became an important part of my healing, while unknowingly also laying the foundation for the future services of The Abortion Survivors Network.

I knew I was adopted and had survived a saline abortion attempt, but the details became clearer after ten years of searching. I tried countless times to find my birth family and one day, I found some identifying information. Yet, the biggest breakthrough was found through my medical records, which had been unattainable for me over my ten years of searching. When I finally received those papers, I discovered more details of my “birth”, along with my birth parents’ names.

I had more answers to my abortion survival story and could finally begin attempts at making contact with my birth family and learning more about my origins in life. In 2016, I reunited with my birth mother. For over thirty years, she was led to believe the abortion had been a success. This revelation brought a new level of understanding about women who have walked through abortion, including those whose abortions fail. I will never forget the pain in her eyes when we first met — a pain that my survival helped dull, but the pain from an attempted abortion I could never erase.

Reconciliation brought not only peace within my story but a new compassion and a fight for women like my birth mother. Women who often feel like they have no other choice.

Healing Helps Us Find Our Voice 

After going public with my story over the years, I started hearing “me too” in return. I found solace in knowing that I wasn’t alone as an ‘abortion survivor’. Connecting with other survivors helps to make sense of our own story and answer many questions that we may not have known existed.

The cultural conversations surrounding abortion are at a new high. It seems each state is fighting for abortion, not to mention it is the year to vote for the next president of the United States. But what about my right to live? What about my fellow survivor friends? What about the pre-born babies still fighting for their lives?

This Mother’s Day, I feel the increased importance to share my experience — for the sake of not just survivors like me, but our mothers — biological and adoptive. There is a glaring gap of care and understanding for survivors and their families, including women like my birth mother, Ruth, and my adoptive mom, Linda. For all women, those who have experienced an abortion know that you aren’t alone, or who raise an abortion survivor and have questions and concerns they’re grappling with, we need to acknowledge that these circumstances happen.

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Melissa Ohden, is the founder and CEO of The Abortion Survivors Network and is a pro-life speaker, leader, and advocate who often appears on television and radio shows. She has spoken on Fox News, The 700 Club, Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN), One America News (OAN), Hannity, Focus on the Family, and more. Having earned her Master’s in Social Work, Melissa is also the author of You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir.

If you or someone you know is an abortion survivor, please reach out to Melissa Ohden at [email protected]

The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.