Gianna Jessen grew up believing that she was born with cerebral palsy because she had been delivered prematurely in a particularly traumatic birth. However she later found out that actually it was due to the fact she was starved of oxygen during a failed abortion.
Her mother, a 17-year-old single woman, decided to have an termiation by saline injection when she was seven-and-a-half months pregnant (there is no legal time limit for abortion in America).
The abortion failed. Against the odds, the baby had lived. A nurse called the emergency services and the child was rushed to hospital. Gianna weighed just 2lb and somewhat ironically, it was the abortionist who had to sign her birth certificate. At 17 months of age, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
She is now a full-time disability rights and anti-abortion campaigner.
Of her mother she said, "I've never been angry with her because she's a stranger... She hasn't said she's sorry and I know that she had another abortion after me. But I don't feel sad or bitter because we can choose to overcome and be sweet or we can overcome and be angry. I want to be the former."
On people's rights to abortion, she has this to say, "It's more comfortable for people to think of abortion as a political decision, or a right. But I am not a right. I am a human being. I am the reality. Gently I put the question, if abortion is about women's rights, then where were mine? There was no radical feminist screaming for my rights on that day... That is why I want to live my life with integrity, having lived what I profess. My job is not to change your mind [if you are pro-abortion]. My job is to present the truth and leave you to decide."
Do you think Gianna has the right approach to her biological mother (who she has not met)? Do you think Gianna's story would change people's mind about abortion? Around 50 babies per year survive abortion in the UK each year, is this significant to the abortion debate?
Find out about the film of Gianna's life <here>
Gianna's personal website <here>
Read more <here>
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