By Dave Hrbacek
The Visitor
4-29-11
Abby Johnson is at the epicenter of our country’s abortion battle and she’s coming to the Twin Cities to tell her story.
After working at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas, for eight years and eventually becoming the director, she had a change of heart and crossed over to the pro-life side.
Within days, she resigned from the clinic and joined forces with a local pro-life group called Coalition for Life in October 2009.
She has released a book about her experiences called “unPLANNED.” She also does speaking engagements throughout the year. One of them is to be May 5, at the fundraising banquet for Pregnancy Choices LifeCare Center in Apple Valley.
The event takes place at Brackett’s Crossing Country Club in Lakeville. Johnson, who lives in Bryan with her husband, Doug, and 4-year-old daughter, Grace, answered a few questions about her experiences.
The following are excerpts from the interview.
What caused you to leave Planned Parenthood?
“There were several things that influenced my leaving. But the ultimate thing that set my departure as an employee was an ultrasound-guided abortion that I watched.
The reason it was so shocking to me was because, for so long, I had believed so many lies [about abortion]. I believed that the fetus had no sensory development until 28 weeks [and could not feel pain]. Because I believed it, I then told so many women that lie. Then, I thought: What else had I been lying about? These women have come to me and they’ve looked to me as an authority for their health care and I haven’t been truthful. That was very scary for me. It was really sad for me as well because I got into this business because I wanted to help women and help them in the best way I could. I just realized that I had betrayed them in a terrible way.
“Ultimately, I had to do the right thing and the right thing was leaving that facility and organization, even if we didn’t know where [my] next paycheck was going to come from. . . . Neither one of us, my husband [Doug] nor I, had ever done anything like that before. Our faith had never been tested like that before. So, it was a big thing for this to be the first time we were really pushed to a lot of trust in our faith. We just knew [leaving] was the right thing to do, and so we did it.”
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