u/BerlinWallCrosser wrote about Roe v. Wade, "I say no one should decide this unless ... they have had their brains sucked out of their skull by a vacuum, or have been immersed in saline and had their limbs plucked out of the womb one piece at a time, or been drugged to death by the woman carrying me with pills given by her doctor, or (you name [any] gruesome procedure I may have missed)"; and suggested I expand my reply into a new post.

Here is your court then. Learn their names.

Claire Garton [lost right arm, required hip surgery]

Little Baby Claire is ... missing her right arm. Like Ana Rosa, it was wrenched from her helpless body in the sanctuary of her mother's womb. Her Korean mother was unmarried and considered abortion to be the only "solution" to her problem. Claire, considered undesirable and "unplaceable" in Korea, was adopted and brought to the United States by an American couple whose warm and loving family already included their own four biological children - triplet boys Joshua, Jonathan, and Jeremy, and their sister Caitlin - and a severely disabled, adopted daughter from Taiwan named Carissa.

Claire was one year old when she came to America. A year later she "celebrated" her second birthday by having hip surgery. For six weeks the energetic two-year-old was immobilized in a body cast. As her adopted grandmother, Jean Garton, says, it could have been a 42-day-long "Maalox moment" for the whole family. But that's when sister Carissa came to the rescue. Carissa was born with severe head deformities. She has a severe cleft palate, and no lower jaw, making speech difficult, and difficult to understand. But there's nothing wrong with her loving heart. With infinite patience, she took care of her little cast-bound sister.

"What could have brought chaos to the family turned into something wonderful," Mrs. Garton relates. "Carissa became Claire's missing hand and Claire became Carissa's voice." When others in the family can't understand what Carissa is saying, Claire pipes up with the translation.

Heidi Huffman [survived vacuum and curette, mother sued, clinic lost records]

In 1978, Tina Huffman was a pregnant, unwed 17-year-old from a broken, dysfunctional home. Her mom and dad, as well as her boyfriend's parents, adamantly insisted she had only one option. She was told her life would be ruined if she had a baby at the age of seventeen. She was offered no alternative to abortion. At approximately 10 weeks gestation, Tina was asked to sign a waiver and pay $150 in cash. She was then given a valium and asked to lie on her back, next to a suction machine. When the suction started Tina recalls, "my body started to vibrate. I felt my insides being pulled out, all of them."

She told the accompanying nurse, "I am dying!" The abortionist responded "empty your bladder." Next came the curette, a loop-shaped knife used to scrape out the remains of an unborn child. Once the abortion was presumably finished, the nurse remarked to Tina in surprise, "You're not bleeding" and proceeded to send Tina home with birth control pills and antibiotics.

After 2 months of sickness, Tina informed her regular physician about the abortion. Her physician examined her carefully and told her the abortion had failed. He also told her to get an attorney.

Tina's days were now filled with anguish over the well-being of her child. Fear gripped her heart. She could not forget the powerful suction machine tearing at her baby. "Why is my baby still alive?" she asked herself. "What is its destiny?" In the months to follow, Tina's fear increased when three amniocenteses produced blood instead of amniotic fluid.

Distraught, Tina took her receipts, waiver and grievance to a lawyer, who contacted the clinic that performed Tina's abortion. When told by clinic personnel that Tina's file was misplaced, the attorney told Tina he could do nothing more.

At 28 weeks gestation Tina was given an oxytocin challenge exam, with a positive result and a labour was induced. When her baby's heart rate dropped, her doctor performed an emergency C-section and the result was a beautiful baby girl 3lbs, 3ozs and 15 inches long. Tin's physician termed the baby "a miracle." She had survived with minimal placenta and minimal amniotic fluid.

Gianna Jessen [burned by saline 18 hours, causing cerebral palsy]

In 1977, Gianna was scheduled for an appointment with death. Because her mother was already in the 24th week of her pregnancy, the abortionist opted for the saline method. The doctor injected a saline (salt water) solution into the amniotic fluid surrounding baby Gianna. In this type of abortion, the caustic, toxic saline solution slowly poisons the baby while burning her tender skin. Gianna was supposed to be delivered dead the following day.

But, Gianna was born alive, though small, premature, badly burned and injured from the saline abortion. A nurse rushed her from the abortion clinic to a hospital, where she spent the first three months of her infancy. She was then placed with a foster family specializing in high-risk babies.

The doctors said Gianna would never be able to sit up by herself, let alone walk, run, jump, and play like "normal" children. The abortion procedure had deprived her brain of oxygen and had left her with severe cerebal palsy. But at the age of three she was defying the medical experts and walking with the aid of a walker.

She has undergone a number of painful operations that have enhanced her muscular control and coordination. When interviewed in 1991, when she was 14 years old, ... "I still limp," the effervescent teenager said, "but I can walk, run, dance, and jump. Maybe not as well as you or a lot of other people, but I do O.K. for me."

Jim Kelly [mother-inflicted abuse that killed twin sister]

Jim Kelly is largely unknown, even to the pro-life community. Although he is the oldest abortion survivor we are aware of, he has only told his story publicly once, to a pro-life rally on the steps of the state capital in Sacramento, California. Like Sarah Smith, Jim Kelly is a surviving twin. His twin sister, Katherine Marie, was killed by his mother in a self-inflicted abortion 50 years ago, in 1949. Although he did not suffer his sister's cruel fate, Jim Kelly's life has not been an easy or cheerful one, by most standards. His mother was a troubled woman who had nine children by five different men, only one of whom she ever married.

Jim Kelly never met his father. Although he was too young to remember, Mr. Kelly told The New American he was physically abused by one of the men his mother lived with (his ankle was broken and his hands burned). His mother placed him in foster care while he was still very young and he was raised in a series of foster homes and institutions, where he also suffered physical, emotional, and sexual abuse. The greatest pain for him, however, was the lifelong feeling of rejection and the craving for his mother's affection and approval. Jim learned of his mother's abortion and the death of his twin sister when he was 27 years old.

Christelle Morrison [abandoned premature in snow, found blue and lifeless]

In 1980 Christelle Morrison was aborted and left to die naked and helpless in the snow. At 28 weeks of gestation, Baby Christelle was a mere two pounds, a difficult entry into life under the best of circumstances. But after surviving the abortion, she was abandoned on a bitter cold, 15-degree, Nevada winter night. She was blue and lifeless when found and rushed to a rural emergency clinic. Like Lazarus, however, she came back to life when the clinic physician placed her in a tub of warm water. She was rushed to the Medical Center in Reno, where Registered Nurse Susan Walker and other personnel gave her intensive, loving care.

Three months after her traumatic "birth," the tiny, three-pound Christelle underwent and survived heart surgery.

Susan Walker and her husband adopted this throw-away miracle baby, who is now a young lady. According to Mrs. Walker, Christelle is "bright, beautiful, strong and healthy, and probably the most loving person you could ever meet! She is a living testimony of God's tremendous power and love and of the value of each and every unborn child."

Melissa Ohden [saline didn't succeed in burning alive]

My biological mother, a 19-year-old college student, got pregnant out of wedlock. I am not sure that I will ever truly know what she thought or how she felt about her pregnancy. I am not sure that I will ever know if and how her parents, my biological father, her friends, or the culture of the time impacted these thoughts and feelings and her subsequent decision regarding her pregnancy. What I do know, however, is that in the late summer of 1977, her life, my life, the lives of my biological father, and their families was forever changed.

When my biological mother was somewhere between 18 and 22 weeks pregnant, she underwent a saline infusion abortion. Saline abortions involve injecting a caustic saline solution into the amniotic fluid, which causes the fetus to be scalded to death and then delivered dead.

Throughout the course of a 5-day period, I endured the deliverance of this saline solution into the fluid around me, breathing it in through my nose and mouth, while numerous rounds of Pitocin were delivered to my mother, to induce labor, and ultimately dispel my dead body from her womb.

When I was delivered in bed by a nurse that fifth day, I was believed to be dead. Weighing a mere 2 pounds, 14 ounces, suffering from jaundice and severe respiratory distress, my future appeared to be bleak, but I was alive.

Soon after my birth, my biological parents put me up for adoption. As an infant, doctors believed I would suffer from any one of a number of physical and emotional disabilities as a result of the abortion procedure and my subsequent premature birth.

Despite these ominous forebodings that were made regarding my future, I was wanted. My adoptive parents adopted me, knowing full well that as they opened their hearts and their home to me, they took a chance on raising a child who would quite probably not live past their infancy.

Ximena Renaerts [referred, born alive, abandoned 1 hour, extensive permanent brain damage]

Ximena's odessy with Vancouver General Hospital began on Dec. 16, 1985, the day she was born. After attempting an abortion at a free-standing mill in Bellingham, Washington. Ximena's birth mother entered VGH, where she gave birth. According to court documents, staff delivered the child into a "hat" - a plastic pot - and then senior nurse Vera Wood whisked her away. Ximena was placed in a room "where dead fetuses were stored," even though she was "moving, gasping, (and) crying weakly." Court documents say Wood checked back some 26 minutes later, to find the child still alive. A nursing supervisor was called and arrived almost an hour after Ximena's birth.

She found the child still in the "hat," uncovered, on a stainless-steel counter. By the time the Infant Transport Team arrived, Ximena had suffered a severe loss of heat, which in turn caused extensive and permanent brain damage. Ximena's adoptive family eventually sued VGH for $10 million. Hospital officials petitioned to have the case heard before a judge only, but the B.C. Supreme Court ruled it would be best heard before a jury. In June of this year, facing the prospect of a public trial, the hospital settled out of court for an undisclosed amount of money. All family members will say is that Ximena will be well taken care of.

Ana Rosa Rodriguez [arm ripped off in full dismemberment attempt]

Ana Rosa Rodriguez was a 32-week-old fetus when her mother, Rosa, went to the New York City abortion chamber of Doctor Abu Hayat, the notorious "Butcher of Avenue A" in 1991. Even though abortions after the 24th week of pregnancy are illegal under New York law, this was going to be just another of the thousands of routine, late-term abortions performed annually in the state. According to Rosa, who was then 20 years old, she told Hayat that she had changed her mind and didn't want to go through with the abortion. "He said that it was impossible to stop, that I had to continue," she told New York Newsday.

According to Rosa, Hayat's assistants held her down while he sedated her. When she awoke, she was told that the abortion was incomplete and that she should come back the following day. That evening, however, she experienced increasing pain and bleeding. Her mother took her to Jamaica Hospital by taxi, where, five hours later, Baby Ana Rosa was born. But Hayat had left his mark upon her; Ana Rosa's tiny right arm had been torn off in the brutal abortion attempt. Ana Rosa has disappeared from public view, but when last reported, in 1996, she was a perfectly healthy, beautiful, little girl, aside from the abortionist's stigmata, which she will always bear.

Sarah Smith [twin brother aborted, dislocated hips and many other handicaps]

In 1970, my mother decided to have an abortion. At the time, she was pregnant with twins, but nobody knew this, not even her doctor. My tiny brother and I were both there growing in her womb, until that dreadful day. Before the abortion, we were both alive. Moments later, I was alone.

It's frightening to think I was almost aborted when my mom had a D&C abortion. Somehow, miraculously, I survived! My twin brother wasn't so lucky. Andrew was aborted and we lost him forever.

Several weeks later, my mother was shocked to feel me kicking in her womb. She already had five children and she knew what it felt like when a baby kicked in the womb. She instantly knew that somehow she was still pregnant. She went back to the doctor and told him she was still pregnant ... that she had made a big mistake and that she wanted to keep this baby.

To this day, my mother deeply regrets that abortion. I know the pain is unbearable for her at times when she looks at me and knows she aborted my twin brother. Mom says the protective hand of Almighty God saved my life ... that God's hand hid me in her womb, and protected me from the scalpel of death.

After surviving the abortion, I was born with bilateral, congenital dislocated hips and many other physical handicaps. Nine days after I was born, I was taken to an orthopaedic surgeon who applied a cast to each of my tiny legs. My mom would remove these casts with pliers every Monday morning and take me to the doctor to have new casts put on.

At six weeks I was put into my first body cast. Many surgeries and body casts followed over the next few years. Unfortunately, doctors are telling me that now I'll need surgeries about every 5 years (please pray for me).

---

All names and bios found on both these sites (if you can't get them to serve on the court then alternates are listed there):

https://culturallegacy.org/abortion-survivors/

https://thelifeinstitute.net/learning-centre/abortion-facts/survivors