Morning Wire - The Wild-West Approach to Abortion | 9.21.24

Episode Date: September 21, 2024

Abortion has become a major campaign issue for democrats and following claims made during the ABC presidential debate, many are wondering what are the facts? In this episode, we speak to a pro life activist about the unintended consequences of the wild-west approach to abortion being pursued by an increasing number of states. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. Birch Gold: Text "WIRE" to 989898 for your no-cost, no-obligation information kit. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Abortion is shaping up to be a major campaign issue for Kamala Harris, who's hoping to replicate her party's 22 electoral success in the wake of the Dobbs decision. By selecting Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate, Harris is signaling a hardline stance on the issue. In this episode, we speak to a pro-life activist about the unintended consequences of the Wild West approach to abortion that's being pursued by an increasing number of states. I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire, editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's Saturday, September 21st, and this is a Saturday edition of Morning Wire.

With the massive tax hikes proposed by Harris, you might be thinking it's time to make more of your savings, tax sheltered, and inflation sheltered. A gold IRA from the Birchgold Group is the ultimate inflation hedge for your savings and uncertain times. And for one final month, it's your last chance, people. Birch Gold is offering the exclusive 24-carat gold-plated truth bomb on qualifying purchases. But you need to text Wire to 9898-98 to claim your eligibility before September 30th. Again, text wire to the number 9-8-9-8-98 to claim your eligibility and make your purchase today. Joining us now is Melissa Odin, founder of the Abortion Survivors Network. Hey, Melissa, thanks for coming on.

My pleasure. Now, abortion has been a hot issue, particularly for female voters, for a few cycles now, particularly after the Dobbs decision in 2022. In recent weeks, it's become clear that Harris is hoping to lean into this as a major campaign plank. And there was one particularly pointed exchange in the recent presidential debate during which President Trump suggested that Harris supports abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy even after birth. He was fact-checked in real time by moderator Lindsay Davis, and Harris was ultimately not

pressed on what her actual position is. Now, I think most Americans, by and large, would be very shocked to think that abortion would be permitted post-birth anywhere. What are the most permissive laws currently on the books and are there cases of babies being terminated after birth? Yes, that debate was an interesting one for lots of reasons. And the most unfortunate thing is the American public is who loses out when behaviors like Lindsay's happened that night. The reality is, you're right, I think people would be very shocked if they lived in the truth about abortion. 21 states offer no protection to the preborn. And we are looking at those 21 states, therefore, allowing abortion unregulated up through the point of birth. I mean, when they try to say, this isn't a thing, well, then tell us about those 21 states that are allowing abortion unrestricted through all nine months of pregnancy. That's the reality. And you're right. There are also states where babies are documented as surviving.

abortions and not being provided medical care. If people would actually lay out the map of the United States, you would see that in states like New York, Illinois, even Governor Walts of Minnesota, his is a really important state. In those states, when we see abortion make that shift to being unregulated, unrestricted, you also see them stripping away the reporting, simply reporting and care of born alive infants such as myself who survived my own abortion procedure. Those two things are not a coincidence. We need to be pressing people like Harrison Walton saying, tell us why this is happening and why you support it. So one of the lines that they will often defer to, and we certainly heard during the debate, is that technically, even though abortion may not be

regulated, they would say abortions in the ninth month just never happen. What are the actual stats or numbers on this? Well, first of all, we know that they don't like to report the numbers. And again, And I think this is where we need to press people to say, don't be telling us that there isn't a problem when you strip away the reporting requirements. You know, even decades ago, Dr. Willard Cates of the Centers for Disease Control, abortion surveillance, made a statement. And I'm going to paraphrase him here, but essentially he said, these go underreported because of fear of public clamor. We don't want the public to know how often babies are surviving abortions. And if people knew there would be this uproar. And that's also where we should be following the statistics to say, okay, you know what, in the states where it has been reported, there were 270 confirmed born alive infants in just 10 states in a brief period of time.

So don't tell us this doesn't happen when you can actually look at the state reports and see that it does happen. And you can look at states like Minnesota before they repealed born alive protection and see that in the case of those infants who survive, they were not provided medical care. So the facts are right there in reports. So they are expecting the American public to just go along with whatever they want to say about it and not ask questions. We need to ask them more questions and hold them accountable. And here's the truth, Georgia. We are underreporting abortion statistics in general.

We have a huge underreport in borderline infants. You know, I'm somebody who survived an abortion performance. at about 31 weeks gestation. My organization, the Abortion Survivors Network, hears from people every week, and women who have walked through this, who have said, you know what, my abortion failed, or I stopped it, which resulted in a live birth, or I reversed my chemical abortion. So these things are happening, and we aren't even capturing born-alive data because a lot of times women aren't telling these stories, and medical providers aren't asking the questions. And certainly we don't have people who are wanting to capture that data for us.

So tell us a little bit about that legislation that Tim Walls championed in Minnesota fairly recently that relates to reporting on these incidents. That's right. So Minnesota was one of the handful of states that did have born a live legislation. So reporting some of the numbers and then, of course, reporting simply that babies should be provided medical care. And what we see is that in the face of Roe being overturned, a state like Minnesota, under Tim Walts' leadership, had a very extreme response to that, repealing born-alive

legislation and pro-life laws. So making abortion extreme, unregulated, unrestricted, which does then result in the reality of somebody like me surviving an abortion procedure, right? The later it's happening, the more likely somebody like me is going to survive. And they say, hey, you know what? If they happen to survive, we certainly aren't going to. going to report it and we aren't going to be making sure that they're provided medical care. That's disgusting.

So I think one of the distinctions that a proponent for this might default to is that when a baby dies post-abortion, it's not that he or she was killed. It was that nature was allowed to take its course. Can you describe what actually happens and if there's a meaningful distinction there? Yeah, that's the semantics game that is played, right? When we hear that statement, there is no state where it. it is legal to kill a baby after they've been born? Well, first of all, there's no federal reporting requirements and no federal requirement for a baby like me to be provided medical care. So that is what it is.

I think the greatest statistics that I would encourage people to look at come out of Canada. So they have some of the best reporting when it comes to abortion survivors and born alive infants. ACOG. So these are essentially pro-choice OBGYNs. Put this out back in June of this year. So this was called the second trimester abortion and risk of live birth. In this sample of nearly 14,000 second trimester abortions, with babies who by and large had some sort of a diagnosis, but the other side would say it's life limiting and therefore this is compassionate. You know, they shouldn't be provided medical care.

They should be left to die. In this study, there was an 11.2% overall failure rate. Labor induction alone was a 15.2% failure rate. Dismemberment abortions was a 0.2% failure rate. When we look at gestational weeks, the largest proportion was 21.7% survival at 20 to 24 weeks. But we saw babies in this sample that they were looking at that were 15 to 19 weeks, and there was over a 3% survival rate. Now, how long? Some of these kiddos live longer than three hours. There were only a small percentage that were provided medical care that there was about almost 25 percent that went to

the NICU, but a very small proportion were provided palliative care. And when you say failure, you mean the baby survived the abortion attempt, at least for some period of time. Correct, right. I know. Yeah, isn't abortion really about the only situation where we would say, wow, this failure of this quote-unquote procedure, that results in a live birth when something failed, huh? And this is the reality. Babies survived abortions before Roe. Babies like me survived during Roe, and I can tell you babies are surviving abortions after Roe was overturned. Even the Washington Post shared a story that I shared with members of Congress when I testified earlier this year. The Democrats were wanting to blast pro-life laws and talk about what a nightmare they were.

And I share the story of Evelyn, a woman that the Washington Post covered. She had two rounds of abortion pills that failed. And we're talking months apart. And then after that baby survived both rounds of abortion pills, the quote-unquote treatment was that she was given $12,000 by abortion organizations. to travel to New Mexico for a late-term abortion, $12,000. The good news is that baby was not aborted because the abortionist at that facility were only trained to complete up to 24 weeks. And when they completed an ultrasound, they found that she was actually 28 weeks pregnant.

In that case, Evelyn carried that baby to term and made an adoption plan. And, you know, luckily, this kiddo got to celebrate a first birthday not to, long ago. But when I asked Democrats that question during this hearing earlier this year, this is the response to a woman in need. This is the response to a baby who survived two attempts to abort them. This is the best we can do in our society. And I can tell you there were crickets in that room. But again, we hear that talking point where they will say a late-term abortion is only completed because a woman's life is in danger or there is something so wrong with a child, that that is the only option. But I think what I want people to understand, and we hear this

through women's voices, and we see it in reports from time to time. When we work with women who have experienced an abortion failing and a child surviving, what we often find is that women are much further along in that pregnancy than what they believe that they were. And I've given a couple presentations just in the last week to various groups. And I always see the nodding of heads from ultrasound technicians and even general practitioners who will say, yep, you know what, women don't always know how far along they are. And even in my case, my medical records state, my abortionist thought my birth mother was 18 to 20 weeks. Well, when I survived, I weighed almost three pounds. And so a neonatologist remarked in my records, he estimated,

she was probably 31 weeks pregnant with me. So think about that in today's society where we know chemical abortions are a huge proportion of abortions being completed. Women aren't being provided medical care, right? They're receiving those abortion pills at home, so they don't know how far along they are. And that was part of Evelyn's story in the Washington Post.

She was much further along likely than what she thought she was. And so when we look at the quote-unquote failure rates resulting in a live birth from abortion, even chemical abortions when you look at meta-analysis would show us about a 1 to 8% failure rate. And when you reach about the 10-week mark, it drops to about an 84% effectiveness rate. And again, how many women are taking abortion pills having any idea that it could ever fail and they will continue to. to be pregnant. I think we know the answer to that. Women aren't told that information. Yeah. Now, can you share maybe just one or two stories from your work from the abortion survivors network? What does this actually look like when it plays out in a medical setting? Yes, and every survivor's experience is different. And again, I would love for Democrats to create

space for our voices, our experiences to be heard because there is this reality that they are somehow threatened by the survival of babies who survive abortions and our voices, they don't create an opportunity for this to be heard. And that's part of what we do is share stories and empower people because people deserve to know they're not alone and they need answers. When Roe was overturned, we saw a dramatic increase in the number of women experiencing abortion pills failing and reaching out to us. And one case is a very important. particular will always haunt me because I don't know what happened to this abortion survivor. What I can tell you is this mom reached out when she had taken abortion pills very early on

in the first trimester. And when she found out she was still pregnant because she was still experiencing pregnancy symptoms, we get that a lot from women. Her OB had told her that she needed to take another round of abortion pills and then started to say if that fails to, what will then happen is you need to have a surgical abortion after that. And the woman said, I don't know if I can keep doing this. So our social workers were working with her and we communicated with her and we're supporting her up until her next ultrasound and right about that time she stopped talking to us. And, you know, that scares me for her. That scares me for her. That scares me for that baby who had already survived an attempt to abort them.

But that's the reality is that medical professionals need to be giving women information and hope and not just passing abortion as the solution time and time again. Last question. What would be your call to action for Americans who are kind of on the fence regarding this issue? What resources might you suggest they pursue? It is time for America to wake up when it comes to conversations about abortion. This is clearly a time where we need to take action and not just listen to those who are in debates or in leadership. And so I would encourage the American public to, first of all, go to our website, abortion survivors.org.

You can read research studies like those that I've already been talking about. You can come face to face with the voices of survivors and moms who have experienced this. Be willing to go to other organizations as well, like the Family Research Council, who put out an updated map last week on legislation and Born Alive Laws, go look at Susan B. Anthony Pro Life America, read through the statistics and the truth about abortion, be willing to ask questions, and then have conversations with people around you about it.

We can't leave it up to anybody else to share the truth with other people. This is our opportunity to make a difference. All right. Well, Melissa, thank you so much for coming on and talking with us today. Thank you. Have a great day. That was Melissa Oden, founder of the Abortion Survivors Network. And this has been a Saturday edition of Morning Wire.