By Dorothy Brotherton

THIRTY-TWO years ago, a 17 year old girl in Los Angeles was almost eight months pregnant. She scheduled a saline abortion at a clinic.

The abortion proceeded, but the two-pound baby girl would not die. She was delivered alive, and the doctor who did the abortion had to sign a birth certificate. This was how Gianna Jessen came into the world.

“I could have been blind, burned and dead. But the fire didn’t singe my skin. Like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, someone was with me in that fire,” said Jessen, speaking at a recent Kelowna pro-life banquet.

Before 2002, when the Born Alive Infants Protection Act was passed, it was legal to kill or neglect an aborted baby who showed signs of life. But in Jessen’s case, a nurse called an ambulance to take the baby to a hospital, where she was placed in an incubator. Jessen was left with what she calls “the gift of Cerebral Palsy” from the abortion.

“I wasn’t expected to live, but after several months of not dying, they placed me in an emergency foster care home, where I was not treated well.”

At 17 months, she was placed with a woman called Penny, who has raised 56 foster children. Eventually, Penny’s daughter legally adopted Jessen.

Penny was told the baby would never hold up her head, sit up, crawl, walk nor make any great gains. But Jessen defied the odds. At age three, she walked with braces and a walker. Today she walks without those aids, with a slight limp. She has run two marathons.

Mother Teresa stated of her: “God is using Gianna Jessen to remind the world that each human being is precious to him.” Today Jessen travels, telling of her experience. She has been interviewed by BBC News and World Radio, Sky News, and the Good Morning Show in England.

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In 2005, she spoke in several colleges in Ireland and at the House of Commons in London. Besides numerous schools and churches in the United Kingdom and North America, she has spoken several times before the U.S. Congress.

Jessen brings passion and humour to her speeches. She names two important decisions in her life: “For Jesus – and that I am not a victim.” She emphasized that a truly pro-life perspective must encompass all at-risk groups.

“There are lessons only the weakest and most vulnerable can teach. We will pay the price if we exterminate them. Disabled people often have such a light inside. And why do we want to rid our society of the elderly, when the elderly have all the wisdom?”

She elicited laughter in describing her relationships with men, insisting she will “not marry a weasel.” Jessen said that, too often, she has heard phrases such as: “You are such an inspiration,” or, “You are so special.”

“That’s synonymous with, ‘You scare the crap out of me!’” she observed. Jessen advised young women not to be beggars for love –  but to realize they are queens.

She advised young men to be brave hearts. “It’s exhausting when women have to sit around and wait for you to come through. It makes us want to slap you,” she said to peals of laughter.

From humour, Jessen moved to reverence – and closed by singing acappella: “Soon and very soon, we’re going to see the King. Hallelujah.”

The Jessen presentation kicked off 40 Days for Life in Kelowna. The initiative calls upon participants to pray around the clock, from February 15 to March 28. This is the first time the 40 Days campaign has taken place in B.C.

March 2010