By Sarah Holliday

Democrats are good at saying, “No one wants abortion up until birth.” But unfortunately, that statement is simply not true.

During and after Tuesday night’s presidential debate between Republican nominee Donald Trump and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, the ABC moderators were accused of having extreme bias against Trump. In one instance, moderator Linsey Davis chose to insert her opinion into the debate when it came to abortion. She said, “There is no state in this country where it is legal to kill a baby after it’s born.” And after welcoming a response from Harris, the vice president added, “Nowhere in America is a woman carrying a pregnancy to term and asking for an abortion. That is not happening. It’s insulting to the women of America.”

Except for the fact, Ms. Harris and Ms. Davis, that it is happening.

On Wednesday’s episode of “Washington Watch,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins set the record straight. “[L]et’s fact check ABC,” he said. “Twenty-one states allow abortion until birth, [and] 15 states have no laws protecting babies that are born alive after a failed abortion. And those states, the baby who was born alive dies.” And the reality of these babies born alive after an abortion is that “there’s evidence to suggest that [while] in some cases, they’re left to die. In other cases, they’re not left to die” but “are assisted in dying.”

Melissa Ohden, founder and director of the Abortion Survivors Network, joined the show and paid special attention to Harris’s claim that it’s “insulting” to expose the fact many Democrats do want abortion until birth. “Well,” she sighed, “if we want to use the word ‘insulting,’ I think I can speak on behalf of our population of survivors to say it’s insulting to be told that this doesn’t happen and that … we don’t exist.”

Ohden is not just speaking out of a passion to protect the unborn, but because she herself is a survivor of an attempted abortion. And it is this group of people, children who barely escaped the womb alive, that Ohden pointed out “is the most marginalized, silenced population … in our world today.” It’s especially tragic when considering that “the media gets away with … denying our existence when there are not only stories of survivors and the moms who went through it … but we have research.” There’s so much proof, “yet they’re still trying to say this doesn’t happen.”

In fact, The Washington Stand reported last year on how Democrats refuse to set limits on abortion. Virginia State Delegate Kathy Tran (D) proposed a bill in 2019 that she said “would allow” a pregnant woman about to give birth to get an abortion. The 2020 Democratic Party Platform stated, “Democrats oppose restrictions on medication abortion care.” Abortionists, such as Dr. Warren Hern, have made statements such as “the viability of a fetus is determined not by gestational age but by a woman’s willingness to carry it.”

Again, there is an incredible amount of proof that, unlike what Harris claims, far too many people want abortion available up to the time of birth. Or as Perkins noted, “[E]ven though there’s just a handful of states that actually report on this,” there are “numbers that show very clearly this does happen.” And it’s in actually looking “at the overlay of what abortion laws are and where states have repealed abortion protections,” Ohden said, that makes it clear “this is not an anomaly.”

She continued, “We know what the playbook of the abortion industry and lobby is: Unregulated, unrestricted abortion and stripping born-alive reporting and rights.” Ultimately, “This is not a coincidence. They know exactly what they’re doing. They know that unrestricted abortion leads to live births after abortion, and they simply don’t want to report it” or “acknowledge the fact that therefore children like me are not being provided medical care.” And these realities are why FRC’s Center for Human Dignity has collected the data to help bring awareness through the recently updated “Born-Alive Abortion Survivors: Just the Facts” issue brief and born-alive protection map.

In a separate interview on Wednesday’s program, Mary Szoch, director of FRC’s Center for Human Dignity and editor of the issue brief, expressed, “I wish that we lived in a world where every child was protected from the moment of fertilization,” but “that’s just not a reality.”

She elaborated, “We released a report this week on babies born alive following an abortion. … And these reports are done by abortionists who intended to kill the unborn child.” The results showed that “there have been reports of 277 babies born alive.” Shockingly, as Szoch pointed out, “The person who is making this report is someone who was paid to kill the child,” which means “they have every incentive not to report that.” Because of this, it is more than likely the reported number of babies born alive “is not anywhere near the number of actual babies who survive abortions and then are either left to die or are actively killed.”

It’s a tragedy. And as Perkins noted, these innocent children are subject to such painful deaths because, in the eyes of an abortionist, the “baby has no right to live. Therefore, if the baby survives, it really doesn’t matter because [they] wanted to kill it anyway.” Szoch agreed, emphasizing that Minnesota Governor Tim Walz (D) and the laws he has altered are great examples of this.

Minnesota used to have laws in which “babies who were born alive [would] be given health care on par with what another baby of the same gestational age would receive,” Szoch explained. But “Tim Walz actually repealed those laws.” Not only that, but “he repealed laws requiring the proper burial of those babies.” According to Szoch, this leads to the conclusion that “he really does want to pretend that these children just don’t exist, that they’re somehow just pieces of medical waste that can be done away with and thrown in the trash.”

But at the end of the day, she urged, “It’s a baby.” This is true from conception to “the moment that child was born,” which is why, moving forward, Ohden wanted to encourage those who fight for the protection of the unborn. Not only do we have to be able to think for ourselves, but we need to actively “question the media.” Especially considering the lengths they will evidently go to in order to try and consider unborn children as almost anything but unborn children deserving of life and protection.

But “for those of us who know the truth,” Ohden contended, “be willing to have these conversations with friends and family,” encouraging them and helping them understand “there’s more to this story than what [they’re] hearing, even in these debates.” Especially for “these babies that are born alive,” Perkins added, we have to understand what happens to them in states where there are no protections in place.

Ohden recalled a story of a mom she met years ago who attempted to get an abortion. “She was at an abortion clinic in Saint Paul, and that dioxygen shot to the heart did not end her child’s life,” which was discovered through an ultrasound. But “the abortion clinic staff said, ‘In circumstances like this, we would break the baby’s neck.’” Ultimately, Ohden concluded, “This is the reality that people need to face, and we need to do something with it.”

The reality of abortion is that it hurts the child, the mother, and the father. It kills innocent children. Too many people are set on silencing that truth, causing too many people to be oblivious or ignorant of how destructive abortion is. Pro-lifers provide a voice for the voiceless, and that mission cannot stop for anything.

Sarah Holliday is a reporter at The Washington Stand.