Republican Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri compared the abolitionists fighting the "moral evil of slavery" to pro-life supporters fighting against abortion.
Hawley praised abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, on Wednesday, during a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing regarding the Democratic Women's Health Protection Act, which, if implemented, according to the Daily Caller, would "create a statutory right for health care providers to provide abortion care."
"You think about the abolitionists who for decades and decades and decades fought against the moral evil of slavery," Hawley said, "fought it when it was the majority position of the country, fought it when they were told that they were crazy, fought it because they knew, they knew, there was a moral truth that every person is created equal and has equal rights. And they were willing to fight for that in our country."
"That's what you're fighting for," the senator told abortion survivor Melissa Ohden, founder of Abortion Survivors Network. "That's what pro-lifers are fighting for, is that great moral principle. I look forward to the day when we look back and say how could abortion have ever been allowed in this country."
Ohden said she survived her mother's abortion after being in her womb for 31 weeks after doctors misleadingly told her mother that her unborn baby was 18-20 weeks along. The doctors then unknowingly performed a forced saline solution abortion on an already far along baby, but there were complications. Instead of the saline solution, which usually takes 72 hours, creating a forced abortion, Ohden was born alive.
"They did finally succeed that fifth day, and I was delivered at St. Luke's Hospital in Sioux City, Iowa, in the final step of the abortion procedure, expected to be a successful abortion—a deceased child, but when I was expelled from the womb, I was accidentally born alive," Ohden stated.
“I now know from admissions of my biological family that my grandmother was there when I was delivered alive and demanded to the nurses that they leave me to die,” Ohden added. “We may never know how long I was ‘laid aside,’ in the words of a nurse who has communicated with me about her experience that day, but we know that ultimately, a ‘tall, blond nurse,’ rushed me to the NICU shouting out, ‘she just kept gasping for breath and I couldn’t just leave her there to die.’”
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