Fresh off the nation-wide opening of her movie and 32 weeks pregnant with her 8th child, Abby Johnson spoke at the Connect Medical Clinic fundraising banquet in Dickinson on April 4 talking about the power of God's love and forgiveness.
The movie, “Unplanned,” retelling her story opened in theaters across the nation on March 29 and is based on her book of the same name. She began her talk to a “sold-out” crowd in Dickinson at the hotel Astoria ballroom with these words, “Any child born into our society today is a miracle!”
As a society that has accepted abortion and made it readily available at just about every stage of fetal development, it is indeed a miracle that a baby survives.
“I wish I could stand up here and tell you that I’ve always been pro-life,” she said, as she launched into her story of working as a clinic manager for Planned Parenthood for eight years. She left there in 2009 after witnessing an abortion procedure on ultrasound and deciding that taking innocent lives wasn’t the business she wanted to be in.
“Wherever there are vulnerable women, there is Planned Parenthood,” she said. It was in college where Abby first heard of the clinics claiming to be available for low income, uninsured women. Planned Parenthood was touted as the only safe healthcare for women in need.
“I believed it and what I didn’t know, lead me into the doors of Planned Parenthood.” But, what she eventually realized was that for an abortion to be a success, a unique, precious individual must die—the antithesis of safe healthcare.
After eight years of serving as a clinic director and buying into what Planned Parenthood was selling, Abby said God changed her life in an instant one day in the fall of 2009.
“I was telling everyone who’d listen that our goal was to keep abortion safe, legal and rare. Everyone was saying that,” Abby explained.
Life-changing day
On that day in the fall of 2009, one of the clinic doctors asked Abby to assist during an abortion. He wanted her to hold the ultrasound probe so she could see what the procedure was like.
Abby, who served as a manager at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, went on to describe that the abortion was of a 13-week-old baby—a boy. She held the ultrasound wand as the doctor inserted and moved the cannula into the woman’s uterus. A cannula is a long plastic tube connected to a suction device that is inserted into the uterus to suction out the fetus and placenta. As the doctor pushed the cannula near the baby, Abby witnessed the baby resisting, moving away from the suction tube as if he was startled by it. The doctor proceeded by suctioning the baby out, bit by bit, until the procedure was completed.
“The baby was fighting for his life one minute and gone the next,” Abby explained. “What I had witnessed that day, was an injustice. We claimed to provide reproductive justice, yet there was no justice for the baby in the womb.”
Deciding to leave
Abby was shaken by watching that little boy fight for his life as everyone in the room, including her, just stood by as he was killed. She went back to her office and contemplated her next step. It was there at her office window that she spotted the people praying outside. This was not a new sight, as they had been there praying pretty much every day.
But, that day was different. That day, Abby went to them.
As she took a moment to think about her time working at the Planned Parenthood clinic, Abby estimates being personally responsible for overseeing 22,000 abortions. She had two of her own years before. “God reminded me that there was nothing I could do to make up for what I had done. But, because of His amazing love and mercy, He reminded me that I didn’t have to.”
She described the view in the rear-view mirror of her car as she drove away from the clinic after telling a few people praying outside that she was leaving for good that day. Those prayer warriors had arranged for an escort for her to exit the clinic safely after she went back into retrieve her belongings from her office. A man, named Bobby, watched her leave in her car after fulfilling his escorting duty. She looked back for a moment to see Bobby lifting his arms to the sky and falling to his knees. Although she didn’t know what he was saying or doing exactly, she figures he was overcome with disbelief. During their days, months, perhaps, years of praying for this, those people probably never thought that she (nor any other employee) would ever experience a conversion of heart and leave. This was the day that Bobby might have realized that his efforts, and those of all the other prayers, were not wasted.
“I am standing in front of you as a testament to the power of conversion,” Abby said. “No one is beyond conversion, because no one is beyond the power of Christ.”
Converting hearts
This night in Dickinson, she told the audience that their mission is to focus on converting the hearts of the mothers and fathers who make up our society that accepts abortion and makes it readily available. She said the only way to straighten this crooked path we are on must come from the Church—the Christians who recognize the evil of abortion. We have to stand up, not remain silent and stop worrying about offending people with our pro-life message.
“The Church’s silence on moral issues is deafening and it’s hurting those who need to heal,” Abby added. To which she followed up with the sobering statistics of 61 million recorded abortions in the 46 years since the Roe vs. Wade supreme court decision legalizing abortion.
Now is the time to get involved and do something to support the pro-life movement. Now is the time to get behind the mission of organizations within our diocese like Connect Medical Clinic in Dickinson, Dakota Hope Clinic in Minot or FirstChoice Women’s Care Center in Bismarck who are in the business of saving lives and offering reproductive justice for parents in need and for babies.