| Abortion
survivor tells her story at Manhattan pro-life
benefit. Four weeks after she survived an abortion
that killed her twin brother in the womb, Sarah
Smith said, "I started kicking." "I sit here not
as an apparition, not as some voice from the grave.
I'm a person, just like anyone else," said Ms.
Smith, 24, who was born with serious medical problems
five months after the abortion, "I absolutely
forgive my mother for the abortion," she continued.
"She was like the majority of women who go for
abortions, totally ignorant of what she was doing
and uninformed about the consequences." After
realizing that she was still pregnant, her mother
went back to the doctor who did the abortion.
He told her that the baby was very likely severely
deformed or brain dead and recommended another
abortion. Her mother said, "No way, I feel it
kicking and I know now it's alive," Ms. Smith
told a Manhattan audience recently. "I am an abortion
survivor," she continued. "Let my face be that
point of reference for everyone to know what is
being killed in the womb. When you hear the word
'choice,' think of me. My life, my limbs were
meant to be torn apart." She added, "I am a person
now, I was a person then. It's time the U.S. Supreme
Court realized that. Once they do, Roe vs. Wade
will crumble." She told her remarkable story at
a luncheon June 14 at the Harvard Club. The event
was held to raise money for Expectant Mother Care
and the Legal Center for the Defense of Life.
For the past two years, the young woman from Redondo
Beach, Calif., has been traveling around the country
with her personal pro-life message. In January,
she and her mother spoke to thousands of people
at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and
since then she has appeared on numerous television
news and talk shows. She intends to devote her
life to the pro-life cause, she said, and has
taken a year off from pre-med studies for the
work. Her schedule will be interrupted when she
undergoes a double hip replacement to correct
a degenerative condition related to the circumstances
of her birth, she said. She was 14 when her mother
first told her about the abortion of her twin
brother, later named Andrew. Her mother had five
children at the time of the abortion and did not
think she could bear the stress of another child,
she said. It took Ms. Smith many years and an
abortion of her own following a teenage date rape
before she decided to go public with her story.
"I tried to block it out of my mind and get on
with my life, but it didn't work," she said. She
had dreams about her aborted brother and felt
that she had to do something to preserve his memory.
Since then she has come to realize that as long
as one unborn baby is denied the right to life,
she also is denied that right in theory, because
she was supposed to have been killed, she said.
Her work over the past two years has brought strong
opposition from abortion advocates. She said a
woman on a call-in show told her, "You shouldn't
be talking about these things. You should be dead."
Four weeks after she survived an abortion that
killed her twin brother in the womb, Sarah Smith
said, "I started kicking." "I sit here not as
an apparition, not as some voice from the grave.
I'm a person, just like anyone else," said Ms.
Smith, 24, who was born with serious medical problems
five months after the abortion, "I absolutely
forgive my mother for the abortion," she continued.
"She was like the majority of women who go for
abortions, totally ignorant of what she was doing
and uninformed about the consequences." After
realizing that she was still pregnant, her mother
went back to the doctor who did the abortion.
He told her that the baby was very likely severely
deformed or brain dead and recommended another
abortion. Her mother said, "No way, I feel it
kicking and I know now it's alive," Ms. Smith
told a Manhattan audience recently. "I am an abortion
survivor," she continued. "Let my face be that
point of reference for everyone to know what is
being killed in the womb. When you hear the word
'choice,' think of me. My life, my limbs were
meant to be torn apart." She added, "I am a person
now, I was a person then. It's time the U.S. Supreme
Court realized that. Once they do, Roe vs. Wade
will crumble." She told her remarkable story at
a luncheon June 14 at the Harvard Club. The event
was held to raise money for Expectant Mother Care
and the Legal Center for the Defense of Life.
For the past two years, the young woman from Redondo
Beach, Calif., has been traveling around the country
with her personal pro-life message. In January,
she and her mother spoke to thousands of people
at the March for Life in Washington, D.C., and
since then she has appeared on numerous television
news and talk shows. She intends to devote her
life to the pro-life cause, she said, and has
taken a year off from pre-med studies for the
work. Her schedule will be interrupted when she
undergoes a double hip replacement to correct
a degenerative condition related to the circumstances
of her birth, she said. She was 14 when her mother
first told her about the abortion of her twin
brother, later named Andrew. Her mother had five
children at the time of the abortion and did not
think she could bear the stress of another child,
she said. It took Ms. Smith many years and an
abortion of her own following a teenage date rape
before she decided to go public with her story.
"I tried to block it out of my mind and get on
with my life, but it didn't work," she said. She
had dreams about her aborted brother and felt
that she had to do something to preserve his memory.
Since then she has come to realize that as long
as one unborn baby is denied the right to life,
she also is denied that right in theory, because
she was supposed to have been killed, she said.
Her work over the past two years has brought strong
opposition from abortion advocates. She said a
woman on a call-in show told her, "You shouldn't
be talking about these things. You should be dead."
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