Abortion Survivor Pleads With Ohioans in New TV Ad | Claire Culwell

Mark Harrington (00:00):

Last night during the G O P Presidential debate, created equal aired a ad featuring an abortion survivor. We will have her on the program today to tell her story. Also, we’ll continue to update you on the campaign to defeat issue one. We’ll talk about the door to door and phone banking effort. So stick around. You’re listening to the Mark Harrington Show

(00:34):

Activist Radio. The Mark Harrington show is brought to you by Created Equal and you can donate to our work, especially now. We need your help to defeat issue one by going to create equal.org. Also, you can pick up the program on all the popular podcasting platforms and you can go to our flagship website@markharrington.org. So as I said in the intro last night, we aired an ad, a TV ad in digital that played on during the G O P debate. That is the Republican presidential debate. And this ad features a survivor of a late term abortion. And we’re going to have Claire on the program here. But first I want to play the ad. This is new as of yesterday. And so folks, if you’re watching, obviously you can see it, but you’re going to be able to listen to some of the audio. This is Claire Caldwell. This is the ad that ran last night and is going to be running at least two more weeks here in selective markets in Ohio. Go ahead and play the ad.

Claire Culwell (Video) (01:41):

My birth mom was a scared teenager when she was forced into a late term abortion because of a doctor’s mistake. I survived, but my twin did not. I was left, broken and hurt. Late term abortion is real and so is the pain, but the pro-choice industry wants it right up to birth. Abortions that are too late, too painful and too extreme for Ohio. Will you stand for victims? Please say no to late term abortion in Ohio.

Mark Harrington (02:10):

Alright, today we have a treat on the program. I have as my guest by phone, Claire Calwell. And Claire is the person that is featured in our ad that is running in selected markets in the state of Ohio. It ran last night for the first time at the G O P Presidential debate. So Claire has in a powerful testimony of redemption and also one of telling her story as a survivor of an attempted abortion. So Claire, thanks for coming on the program. We appreciate it.

Claire Culwell (02:48):

Thanks you so much for having me.

Mark Harrington (02:50):

So Claire, listen, you all know we came down there shot the ad. The ad went live last night on the G O P debate. We’ve been getting a lot of great input. People love the ad that is the pro-life people do. I don’t think the pro-abortion people do for sure. So I wanted to bring you on the story on the show because it’s a 32nd ad and people watch the ad. They don’t get the full story. I mean they get a bit of the story and we’re going to play that the ad for everybody. But what I want to do is kind of fill it in if you would, let’s go back if you would and start at the beginning of how this whole thing unfolded.

Claire Culwell (03:32):

Yes, thank you so much. It’s an honor to be able to share. So my story is that I am adopted. My sister and I are both adopted, and I met my birth mother when I was 21 and I thanked her for choosing life for me, and she absolutely shocked me when she told me that she didn’t choose life for me. And she apologized over and over again as she said, I didn’t choose life for you. Your life is a miracle. And she described being pregnant with me at 13 years old and her mother taking her to an abortion facility and my birth mother undergoing a late term d and e, which is a dismemberment abortion. It’s actually still a very commonly performed abortion procedure where the doctor goes in with his abortion instruments and takes the baby’s body apart and out of the woman’s uterus piece by piece.

(04:38):

And so extremely painful, not just for the unborn child, but also for the woman. My birth mother described it as excruciatingly painful. And she said she went, underwent this late term abortion procedures surrounded by nurses and a doctor who never once asked her what her choice would’ve been as a 13 year old young woman. They never spoke to her, never gave her a choice, never encouraged her in any way that there was any other option than abortion. They just followed her mother’s instructions, which was to give her daughter this abortion because she was too young to be a mother. And so she thought her life would go back to normal because that’s what the doctors told her, that she could go back to her eighth grade life, that she would never think about it, things would be totally fine. And she said they weren’t. And she said that she went back to the doctor a few weeks later and they told her that they accidentally missed my body when they aborted my twin. And so the doctor’s mistake led to my survival and then my birth, and then my birth mother placing me for adoption. And so my birth mother actually

Mark Harrington (05:56):

Carried, just want to pause right there, if you don’t mind. I want people to understand the nature of all this. This is a miracle that you survived this abortion attempt. So what you’re saying is the abortion doctor intended obviously to take your life, must have not realized maybe there were twins and only took the life of your sibling more or less, and you survived that abortion attempt and then your birth mother went back to the doctor and found out she was still pregnant with you. I mean, is that it? That’s how it worked out. It’s crazy.

Claire Culwell (06:34):

Yes, it absolutely is. There are situations where even if an ultrasound is performed, a twin can hide another twin. And so we don’t know exactly how it happened. We just know that they made that mistake and they actually ruptured the amniotic stack that I was in. And so my birth mother was leaking amniotic fluid for a few weeks afterwards. She carried me about four weeks longer until she delivered me. And I was born at three pounds. I had a dislocated hip, I had club seat. I’ve had kind of a lifetime of complications that my birth

Mark Harrington (07:17):

Mother was told. Do you attribute, sorry to interrupt. Do you attribute those to the abortion attempt?

Claire Culwell (07:24):

My birth mother was told that my physical complications were caused by caused the abortion attempts that failed, that ripped my amniotic sack and that led to a dry birth. She was also told that it could have been the abortion instruments that did it. And so either way it’s a miracle. But there’s also been doctors who know more now and there’s so much more medical technology, so many things that doctors know more now than they did then. And so this is in the late eighties. And so they say that there’s a possibility that the abortion instruments never touched my body and that these are just common complications with twins because we do see dislocated hips in twins. So either way, absolute miracle that I survived that type of abortion because this type of abortion is absolutely horrific and really, really hard to survive when they’re tearing a baby’s body apart limb by limb.

Mark Harrington (08:35):

Right. My guest today is Claire Calwell and Friends, you can go to her website@clairecalwell.com. That’s claire calwell.com. And we have her on the program today because last night we aired a 30, 30 minute, I wish a 32nd ad on during the G O P debate, Republican debate last night. And this ad is going to be playing in selecting markets for the next two weeks, starting tomorrow. And friends, also, I want to plug our book, it’s called Survivor, an Abortion survivor, surprising story of Choosing Forgiveness and Finding Redemption. Claire, you can pick that up on our website@clairecaldwell.com. Claire, let’s talk about the forgiveness and redemption side. We understand what happened or during the abortion attempt you survived. Your twin sibling did not, which is awful. You are a victim of abortion in that someone that they attempted to take your life you lived, but you have had to live with that. Tell us about the forgiveness and redemption side. You meant your birth mother. I mean, that must’ve been something

Claire Culwell (09:58):

I did. And she told me the most shocking news of my life, I mean the most heartbreaking news of my life to find out that I was aborted, rejected, unwanted, all of the things that she unfolded to me that day as she shared the truth behind my birth were absolutely heartbreaking. But I was raised and adopted into a home of believers who told me about a God that those before me, and I knew that what God had provided for me, he wanted to provide for my birth mother. And so it was pretty easy to forgive. But also I knew as I sat there with my birth mother looking into her eyes, watching her relive this experience as a 13 year old little girl who knew no better, who was following the direction of her mother, I really didn’t have much to forgive her for if anything.

(10:59):

But I’ll say I met her mother the next day and I did have something to forgive her mother for. And I believe the same thing about her mother. Jesus died for her. I was happy to forgive her, but it was very eyeopening for me because I feel that yes, I had a choice to make to forgive. But the reason that I’ve been able, I’ve chosen to share my story is because my birth mother told me what she would’ve needed in her moment of crisis. And it wasn’t her mother to take her to an abortion facility. It wasn’t a room abortion facility room surrounded by nurses and doctors who just provided this abortion procedure and told her that it would magically go away and her life would go back to normal. What she needed in her moment of crisis was someone to walk alongside not only her but her parents, and to educate them on the reality of what abortion is and what it does, not just to a baby, but to a young girl, a woman, a family like them. And to tell her that she was worthy of walking alongside of that she was capable of motherhood, that there were resources available to her, that the impossible could be possible for my birth mother. That’s what she needed in her moment of crisis. So crisis, yes, I have absolutely chosen to forgive my birth mother and her mother and her family for what happened to me. But more importantly, I think I’ve chosen to speak out because I do not want something that to my birth mother to happen to another young girl or another family like ours.

Mark Harrington (12:52):

And that’s the power of the story. Obviously what the devil meant for evil, God has turned around for good and now you’re being used across the nation speaking to audiences about this entire story, the tragic nature of it. Of course that is abortion takes the life of an innocent human being. And your twin, your sibling, was taken by the abortionist, but you survived and you survived for a reason, obviously that God gave you this opportunity to share your story, not just a story of surviving the abortion that would be enough, but the redemption that comes through Jesus Christ and forgiveness, which is such a beautiful thing. And we’re so, so happy we were able to connect with you and use your voice here in the state of Ohio because we need everybody that we can to get together and share the truth about what could be coming if issue one passes.

(13:50):

So again, friends Claire Calwell, who’s been my guest today, and you can go to claire calwell.com, that’s claire calwell.com, and you can book her to come and speak to your event. If you have say, a right to life event or a pregnancy resource event or any other. She’s happy to come out and share her beautiful story of redemption and forgiveness in Jesus Christ and also the horror of abortion, which people need to understand. You can also pick up her book by going to declare callwell.com. The book is called Survivor, an abortion survivor, surprising story of Choosing Forgiveness and Finding Redemption. Claire, thank you so much for being willing, and I know this isn’t easy to be courageous enough to stand up and be as vocal as you are, especially with what you’re doing now with this ad that’s now going to be seen by hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of Ohioans before November 7th.

(14:50):

We appreciate that and we’re thankful that God is using you to spread the message of forgiveness and also what abortion is and does worldwide. So bless you and thank you and friends, please support Claire if you would go to claire calwell.com, pick up her book or send her a donation or book her to come and speak to your organization anywhere in the United States. So Claire, thank you so much for being on the show. God bless you. And again, thank you for your voice, for the unborn and for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Thanks again for being on the show.

Claire Culwell (15:25):

Thank you so much for having me. And thank you all so much for all you are doing for pro-life causes in Ohio.

Mark Harrington (15:33):

All right, God bless. Thanks, Claire. Well, friends, here’s your call to action today. As you all know, we are fighting to defeat this constitutional amendment that is on the ballot here in the state of Ohio on November 7th. And early voting begins on October 11. And so created equal is basically organizing, handling, deploying everybody in the state to do volunteer canvassing and phone banking. And I can’t emphasize enough how important this is. Our ground game that is going door to door. Knocking on doors is the key to victory. We’ve got to reach hundreds of thousands of voters here in the state of Ohio. Thankfully, our friends at the Susan B. Anthony Pro, pro-Life America are hitting a lot of doors, but we’re organizing the volunteer effort in Ohio. And so my guest today is Mary Rose Short, and she is one of our regional field directors. She’s set up in the northwest part of the state.

(16:41):

And just to let people know the structure that we have set up in this state, we have five regions and five regional directors, regional field directors. Hopefully we’ve got one more to hire who are in these different regions. We’re talking about the northeast, northwest, southwest, southeast, and central. And so if you live in the state of Ohio, you can get connected to one of these regional field directors and we’ll put you in the game. So Mary Rose, thanks for being on the program. Appreciate all you’re doing up there in the north heart of Ohio. And friends, just real quick, created equal.org/issue one to get that out of the way. That’s how you get involved in the volunteer effort. How’s it going in the northeast part of Ohio Cleveland area?

Mary Rose Short (17:30):

It’s going pretty well. I have to say I was actually intimidated at first to go door to door, but people are very grateful for the information. Of course, we do run into some staunch pro-abortion people, but not that many because we are purposely targeting moderate voters. We have lists of names of people who could be swayed. That’s the idea. So we’re avoiding the strongly pro-abortion people, the strongly pro-life people. We’re going to the people in the middle, and a lot of them don’t know there’s another election. They don’t know what issue one entails, and they’re actually grateful. Even the ones who say they haven’t yet made up their mind, they’re grateful to have the information that we give them.

Mark Harrington (18:12):

And friends, just so you know, as Mary Rose said, we are hitting the persuadable doors right now. That will change as we get closer to the election. We will be going to doors and people who we think need to get out to vote on our side, but we’re trying to hit the persuadables.

Mary Rose Short (18:31):

Yeah, so they are persuadable a lot of them. And then there are others who just need the information. They don’t need to be persuaded, they just need to be informed, which is interesting. I mean, we need to reach these people in order to get their votes. And then there’s also an interesting contingent of people who do support abortion to a certain extent. And when they think issue one is just about abortion, they support it. But when we let them know it’s not just about abortion, and it’s not just about adults, but it’s about minors. Minors would get a state constitutional right to not just abortion, but other undefined reproductive freedoms. They turn to oppose abortion. For instance, there was this one couple, I approached the man in his driveway and started talking to him about issue one, and when he heard it was about abortion, he said he was pro-choice.

(19:26):

And then his wife came out and said she also supported abortion. She said that she had had an abortion and they agreed, or they volunteered the information that they thought abortion was killing, at least late term abortion was. But the man said that it should be on the woman’s conscience and not against the law. And the woman said, yeah, the government should stay out of it. So they were very pro-abortion. But then when I told them about the other part, that issue one would do that, it would open that up to minors to have abortions. They were appalled. And the woman actually then volunteered that her first abortion, she said, had been as a minor, but that her mom had gone with her. And I was kind of taken aback, and I suggested that it was important for parents to know in case the girl experiences adverse physical situation after the abortion, some side effects. And the woman kind of cut me off and was like, no, it’s the mental effects are so enormous the parents need to know. So they became firm. No, voters said they were going to tell their friends. They were really grateful for the information once they knew, even though they supported abortion. But that’s why it’s, it’s important. Even people you think are pro-abortion, they could be persuaded that this is too extreme or just they need the information about everything issue one entails.

Mark Harrington (20:47):

So let’s walk our volunteers through. Let’s say there’s someone listening or watching the program who wants to volunteer? How does it work? Take ’em through the process of from the time they hear us on the radio or on my podcast, to the point that where they go to the website, sign up, and then they’re actually put and deployed to go to ator. How’s it work?

Mary Rose Short (21:10):

Well, if you start by going to create equal.org/issue one, there’s a volunteer form. You fill out some basic information about what you’re interested in helping with, then we’ll get your name and contact information. And one of the regional directors will connect you with a field coordinator or will contact you directly

(21:34):

To then get you an account with the app that we’re using to get the list of doors to go to and fill out the information. Because we want to keep track of which households say they’re going to vote no, which households say they’re going to vote yes. So then we can conserve our resources later on and go back to the no votes and urge them to get to the polls. So it’s important to get on that app. And there’s a number of steps, but it’s pretty simple. And so we’ll connect you with a local group and you can go out door knocking in a group and be connected with someone who’s done it before.

Mark Harrington (22:06):

Yeah, and what’s really cool here is we have a volunteer portal. Once you sign up, once you volunteer and you’re vetted, so to speak, we set you up on the volunteer portal. The volunteer portal will allow you to access events that are happening in your area basically, and give you alerts. So if you want to go to door-to-door, you know where to go if you want to be part of an event. So the app is I 360. It’s real easy to use. It’s on your phone, you download it, we give you a quick tutorial. There’s actually one on the website too from Seth, basically explaining how it all works. So friends, if you’re not high tech, don’t worry about it. This is easy. As long as you have a smartphone, we can get you in the game. We can also help you to phone banking anywhere in the country. Explain that to our listeners.

Mary Rose Short (22:58):

Yeah, phone banking. Well, that’s another thing about phone banking. You can do it anywhere in the country, and you also, you don’t need a smartphone. You should be able to do it from your computer as well. And it’s a little bit more straightforward than door knocking. So if you’re a little intimidated by the technology, it’s you should be able to do phone banking. But we do need door knockers. We need lots more door knockers right now. We

Mark Harrington (23:20):

Do, if we’re going to hit the number of doors as we want to hit, which our goal is 150,000 as created equal, of course, Susan B. Anthony is doing their own thing. We’re trying to hit 150,000 doors. Here’s how it can get done. 62 regional coordinators, let’s say a regional people who are underneath our regional field directors who help with their network in their region, in their area, in their neighborhood community, what have you, hit 2,500 doors. If you take 62 leaders, 2,500 doors, guess what? That’s 150,000 doors. And that’s how many doors we are trying to hit between now and election day. So that’s what we’re doing, and we need everybody that’s able to start going door to door. And so in order to get involved, friends, go to created equal.org/issue one that’s created equal.org/issue. One volunteer for door knocking or phone banking. And when you do someone from Create will contact you and get you hooked up to the volunteer portal, and then the app that sets you up for the phone calling and for the door to door.

(24:39):

And Mary Rose is one of our regional field directors in the northeast part of the state, and we have several of these across the state of Ohio. So friends, again, created equal.org/issue one if you want to be involved in door knocking or in phone banking. So friends, I hope you enjoyed listening to Claire Caldwell today. Tell her powerful story of surviving an abortion attempt and also listening to Mary Rose Short, who’s one of our regional field directors running the door to door campaign. So today, the call to action is this. If you want to see that ad play in more places in the state of Ohio, more markets, more TV stations, more digital placements and so forth, you can give to our organization by going to created equal.org/donate. Created equal.org/donate and give, and then we will do it, we can to keep that ad up all the way through election day. Also, if you want to be part of the door-to-door campaign that Mary Rose was talking about, whether you live in Ohio or not, you can come to this state and knock on doors. Or if you want a phone bank, that means making phone calls to persuadable voters, then we can get you hooked up. You just go to our website@createdequal.org slash issue one that’s created equal.org/issue one. So thanks for listening to the program today. We’ll see you next time. God bless you. God bless America, and remember America to bless God.

Narrator (26:23):

You’ve been listening to Mark Harrington, your radio activist. For more information on how to make a difference for the cause of life, liberty and justice, go to created equal.org.org. To follow mark, go to Mark Harrington show.com. Be sure to tune in next time for your marching orders in the Culture War.