Despite the fact that two abortion survivors testified in Congress during the first hearing into Planned Parenthood selling aborted babies, the CEO of the abortion business claims no baby has ever been born alive after a botched abortion attempt.
Members of the committee and viewers of today’s hearing into the Planned Parenthood abortion business were shocked when Richards told members of Congress she had never heard of a baby surviving a failed abortion.
But in recent weeks, at a Congressional hearing over Planned Parenthood’s sale of aborted babies and their body parts, pro-life advocate Melissa Ohden, an abortion survivor, told Congress that Planned Parenthood would have killed her if given the chance. The LifeNews writer said there are many other abortion survivors like her who are speaking up against abortion.
Here’s how the conversation went down:
DeSantis: Ms. Richards, if a child survives an abortion attempt, should it be given nourishment and medical care?
Richards: I’ve never heard of such a circumstance happening.
DeSantis: Really?
Richards: Yes. I mean, I certainly…I can say that at Planned Parenthood, I am not aware of a circumstance where …we don’t provide abortions after viability. So…but it certainly, in my experience at Planned Parenthood, we haven’t ever had that kind of circumstance.
DeSantis: But you would say that medical care would be in order at that point? Forget Planned Parenthood, just generally?
Richards: Well I’d say, again, I want to be responsible for Planned Parenthood and what we do there, and certainly in that situation in, which again has never occurred that I know of, a baby born…that baby should as the mother should, get appropriate medical care from the physician. And would.
The federal government confirms a large number of babies survive failed abortions. In 2011, the CDC recorded 1,298 cases of infant death in the U.S. due to “Other perinatal conditions,” which includes ICD-10 category P96.4, death subsequent to a failed “termination of pregnancy.”
The surprising comments come after Planned Parenthood itself opposed a new pro-life bill the House of Representatives approved that would hold the abortion business criminally liable for harvesting body parts from aborted babies who are technically still alive.
During the previous hearing, Ohen told the panel:
“I’m here today to share my story to not only highlight the horror of abortion taking place at Planned Parenthood but to give a voice to other survivors like me, and most importantly, to give a name, a face, and a voice to the hundreds of thousands of children who will have their lives ended by Planned Parenthood this year alone,” she said.
Ohen said that while some of them had survived abortion attempts at abortion facilities not affiliated with Planned Parenthood, “the expectation for our lives to be ended by abortion are the very same as those who do lose their lives there.”
“I have long believed that if my birthmother’s abortion would have taken place at a Planned Parenthood, I would not be here today. Completing over 300,000 abortions a year provides them with the experience to make sure that ‘failures’ like me don’t happen,” Ohden continued.
