WTE: Every born alive infant has the right to the same care. Period.

Melissa Ohden is a survivor. She was born at 31 weeks of gestation, weighing just 2 pounds and 14 ounces. Severe respiratory and liver problems, along with seizures, made her doctors doubt she would survive. But she did survive.

Perinatal medicine in 1977 was primitive in comparison with today’s technology. The most important factor that gave her a chance to live was that nurses saw to it that she received the same care that any other child would have received. They were all that stood between Melissa and death.

Her mother, Ruth, was a nineteen-year-old college student who wanted to marry Melissa’s father. But her parents insisted she have an abortion and return to school. They made it clear that it was not her choice to make.

Caustic saline solution was injected into Ruth’s abdomen with assurance that the abortion would be completed in three days. Melissa was born alive five days later. She was terribly injured, but alive.

Ruth was never told that the baby survived. Drugged and dazed, she was rushed home—never to return to the University. Only the medical staff remained to protect Melissa. Thankfully, they did.

Melissa is a poised and strong woman. She found her birth mother, who was overjoyed to know that she survived. Today she has become a voice for others like her.

On Superbowl Sunday, Melissa was slated to appear in a commercial that was would reach 99.9 million viewers. She gazes at you and asks, “Can you look me in the eye and tell me that my very survival was a mistake?” She is joined by others—many others.

They ask, “Can you look me in the eye and tell me that I shouldn’t exist? …that I should be dead? …that I deserved to die that day? …that I am subhuman? …worthless?” Nearly five hundred faces appear. Theabortionsurvivors.com estimates that there are 44,000 others in the United States alone. Each is a valuable member of the human family. Each has a story to tell.

But Fox refused to broadcast the commercial. People who only want to be acknowledged were denied two minutes of airtime. Once more their voices were silenced, their lives devalued. When will it end?

How old does a person have to be before our society deems her fully human and worthy of compassion and protection? That is the question before us today.

This is not a question of abortion. Whatever position you hold on the issue, abortion has nothing to do with a person who is living and breathing and totally independent of her mother. This is a question of infanticide.

Melissa’s survival affected our entire world—even without her mother’s knowledge. She brought joy to her adoptive parents, love to her husband, life to her children and enlightenment to millions of people whom she has touched with her message. The same is true of every single person who ever lived. Each is a gift to the world.

That’s why we owe them the full protection of law. Every child born—whether premature, or full-term, whether injured before birth, or whole—should be given the same medical care regardless of what happened before birth. Our own humanity is at stake. Surely, we can all agree on that.

Sadly, some have been swept away by our culture of death. States like New York and Illinois have stripped out of state law many long-standing legal protections for newborn children. Even in Wyoming, we recently heard a reporter from the Casper Star Tribune confuse abortion and infanticide. When Representative Cheney said, “you cannot be for the people if you cannot protect the babies,” he counted the statement as “against abortion.”

There is a world of difference between infanticide and abortion. Cheney’s statement was about a federal bill to ensure that children like Melissa Ohden would receive the same medical care as any other child born at 31 weeks.

As long as it’s possible for even one public figure to confuse abortion with infanticide, the Wyoming legislature needs to act. Wyoming already holds that born infants—regardless of the circumstances of their birth—are entitled to the full protection of law. However, the language is unacceptably weak. Had Melissa been born in Wyoming, the law would not have protected her life.

Wyoming’s Constitution guarantees “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But our resolve to protect a fellow citizen is only as strong as the actual laws that we pass.

Senator Cheri Steinmetz (R-Lingle) has introduced SF 97 “Born alive infant-means of care.” Unlike the legislators in New York and Illinois, ours can make it clear that Wyoming values every person born in Wyoming as a gift to Wyoming.

Also published in the Wyoming Tribune Eagle on February 14, 2020.