The word “survivor” is thrown around casually today to describe people who endured incidents that may have been very difficult but were never life threatening.
Melissa Ohden is a genuine survivor in the way that one is, say, a Holocaust survivor or the survivor of a lethal terror attack. In 1977, Ohden survived her planned execution by way of saline infusion. Seven months beyond her conception, her mother and her medical accomplices attempted to abort her. Miraculously, the abortion did not succeed.
“I don’t believe God originally wrote abortion into my life, as God is the Creator of life,” says Ohden, “but when it was introduced by man, or in my case, a woman, He rewrote the story of my life around it, to create the story of a life that is more intricate, more redemptive, more grace-filled, than anything anyone else could have planned or written.”
Ohden did not learn of her near death experience until she was fourteen. Since then her life has come full circle. She founded the Abortion Survivors Network and gave birth to her first child in the very hospital where her life nearly ended. She has documented this extraordinary journey, including the search for her biological mother and father, in the book, You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir.
Ohden will be speaking at the Missouri Right to Life Western Region STAND UP FOR LIFE BANQUET, Thursday evening, November 2, appropriately enough All Souls Day. The site is the Adam’s Mark Hotel near Royals Stadium. The reception begins at 6:00 p.m. and dinner at 7:00. The event is open to the public, and tickets are still available.
Says Ohden, “We are not all called to share our stories publicly; we are not all called to write a book. What we are each called to do, however, is live out the story of our life as God has written it, and believe it or not, as we live out the story of our lives, others are reading it, right along with us.”