Originally published in the October 2019 digital edition of National Right to Life News:   www.NRLC.org.

I know I’m far from alone in finding the news that more fetal remains were found in the trunk of abortionist Ulrich Klopfer’s car beyond the 2,246 stashed in his garage to be heartbreaking and, frankly, sickening. But, as you can imagine, as a abortion survivor, this pains me in a very distinct way.

While the media continues its near shut out of this story; while pro-life leaders call for a proper burial for these children; while many questions remain about what possible motive Klopfer could have for keeping the babies’ remains; while some of the women whose abortions he completed call for an inquiry to determine if their child was among the “perfectly persevered fetal remains,” I read every news story about it and think, “Once again, that could have been me.”

Although I’m healed from the truth of what was done to me in 1977 and to my birthmother, the greater truth is that I will never be unaffected by it. Compounding it all, not only are children targeted for death through abortion, but they’re at risk of being left to die or even killed afterwards, if they do survive. And as the Center for Medical Progress videos revealed, their body parts can be sold for research.

And, if that weren’t awful enough, the Klopfer discoveries show us how, even after their deaths, aborted babies are treated as objects, basic respect for their dignity and value denied.

While I’m not surprised by this, I’m still sickened. I think about how if at least one nurse hadn’t rushed me off to the NICU that day, I would have died forty-two years ago. But had that come to pass, my body could have been kept, used for research, sold to the highest bidder.

Even though the abortionist couldn’t or wouldn’t acknowledge it, I was someone then, just as I’m someone now. Children who are aborted everyday are “someone” but sadly, never get to grow into their future “someone” selves.

I grieve that each year, 862,320 unborn children don’t experience the same miracle that I was blessed with. I grieve that we don’t even know what’s happened to the many hundreds of thousands of bodies of these discarded children. I grieve that we live in a society that by and large turns a blind eye to this moral catastrophe.

Every child deserves better than abortion, to borrow Feminist for Life’s motto about women. Even in death, every child deserves better than to be objectified, treated as if they were nothing more than biohazardous waste.

The Abortion Survivors Network, which I founded, joins pro-life leaders in demanding proper burial for these children.

We would be honored to be a part of a movement to ensure, at the very least, that these babies are treated with the respect they were not shown when they were in their mother’s womb.

Grief has this way of either holding us down or motivating us. I choose to again use my grief to motivate me to do something. Demand action. Demand answers. Fight for this to be prevented in the first place.

What are you going to do with your grief?