Abby Johnson is the author of Unplanned, a book about her experience as a pro-choice clinic director at Planned Parenthood. She talks about abortion, contraception, and the abortion industry in general. She also shares her thoughts on abortion and contraception.
00:01:14.000She reads almost anything she can get her hands on.
00:01:16.000But there was something here that really touched her.
00:01:18.000Have you noticed a reaction from many people who've read your book that sort of differentiates it, I guess, from a lot of the other sort of pro-life sites or books out there?
00:01:27.000Yeah, I think one of the things is that because I used to be a pro-choice person and then writing a book kind of about being that person and being in the pro-choice movement, My purpose was not to vilify them, but just to help people have an understanding of where they're coming from.
00:01:51.000Abortion is absolutely wrong, but that we're not at war with these people that are working in the clinics or these people who are pro-choice.
00:02:04.000And so I think that was something that was new to the pro-life movement, honestly, because they had for so long wanted to make enemies of the people who do support abortion.
00:02:22.000I think there's a time to throw caution to the wind and offend people and it's okay because you're offending the right people.
00:02:27.000And I think there are people who are not beyond reaching and you need to understand the difference.
00:02:31.000And that's really sort of the skill, I guess, of expressing political ideology is knowing how to walk that line in a way that's appropriate for your audience.
00:02:38.000So you worked at, now was it, it was Planned Parenthood, right?
00:03:13.000It's kind of a tricky question because...
00:03:15.000We were there as a family planning clinic who provided abortions.
00:03:21.000But the whole premise behind being a family planning clinic is to get women on a contraceptive method that will eventually fail them.
00:03:30.000We know that 54% of women having abortions were using contraception at the time they got pregnant.
00:03:36.000So the whole purpose is get them on a contraceptive method that will fail them so that we can make them abortion patients.
00:03:44.000So we're willing to be loss leaders, if you will, in the contraceptive movement because we will eventually sell them our big-ticket item, which is abortion.
00:03:59.000Now, you say you were actually encouraged to give them the less effective contraceptive available or do you just mean contraception in general?
00:04:06.000Well, we want to give them a contraceptive method that has a higher risk of failure.
00:04:24.000I can't remember to take a pill at the same time every day, right?
00:04:28.000A 14-year-old sure as heck is not going to remember to take a pill at the same time every day so that it's 99% effective, right?
00:04:36.000So, put her on a pill that she's probably not going to take at the same time every day and That she's not going to know how to properly take.
00:04:43.000Eventually, she will get pregnant and then she will be one of our clients.
00:04:48.000That makes us now a quick question because you're going to have critics here.
00:04:51.000Was that actually outlined to you as an employee at Planned Parenthood or was it just sort of an unwritten, well, we know that this contraception will eventually fail them or do they say, listen, our goal is to get them on the big hook for abortion?
00:05:36.000So the idea that they're there to offer options or referrals for other services, it's just a farce.
00:05:43.000Because my director told us that our goal was to create every phone call and every client visit to turn that into a revenue generating visit.
00:05:55.000Well, if a woman comes in and she's pregnant, the only way we can do that is by selling her an abortion.
00:07:39.000And she talked about something, Abby, to get a little serious here, she talks about your turning point.
00:07:43.000I don't want to give anything away for the listener, but you pinpointed Yeah.
00:07:55.000So after working there for eight years, I mean, I was the director, so I wasn't, you know, in the room very often for medical procedures or anything like that.
00:08:07.000We had a visiting physician come in from out of town who was performing abortions at my facility.
00:08:15.000Planned Parenthood's protocol and the National Abortion Federation, their protocol for abortion is that it be done in a blind manner.
00:08:23.000So they have a suction tube that's hooked up to the machine and they just blindly poke around inside the woman's uterus until they think they have enough tissue in a jar.
00:08:35.000So that was the way that I knew abortion to be performed day in and day out.
00:08:40.000But this doctor actually used an ultrasound at his own practice I don't know that I agree with the premise, but continue.
00:09:02.000was something I never really thought about before.
00:09:04.000So he said that, you know, if time permitted that he would have me come in so I could assist.
00:09:11.000My job during the abortion was to hold the ultrasound probe on the woman's abdomen so that he could see what was going on during the abortion.
00:09:20.000And I watched a 13-week-old baby fight and struggle for his life during that abortion procedure.
00:11:09.000But, you know, you can't sue somebody for becoming pro-life and I had never signed any sort of confidentiality statement while working there.
00:11:22.000Well, even then, though, it would seem in most cases, and you can tell me I'm out of line here, friends, people who are your friends, you develop these strong relationships.
00:11:33.000Generally speaking, if it comes down to siding with a corporation or an organization or a friend, they would side with the friend.
00:11:42.000So what do you think was such a strong pull that they decided to support Planned Parenthood or the organization to come against you, Abby, the person in court?
00:12:34.000When you see You know, I've talked about this with my producer, actually, who's not here right now, Fundip, who is liberal socially but incredibly pro-life.
00:12:42.000When you see the political football being played with the issue of abortion and Planned Parenthood comes in the news, I mean, right, the defense is always from the left.
00:13:07.000You know, Planned Parenthood does not provide any services in regard to women's healthcare that low-income women cannot get from any other federally qualified health center, rural public health center, hospital system, or Medicaid provider in their city.
00:13:25.000There is not one place where Planned Parenthood is located where there are not multiple other options for her to get healthcare.
00:14:31.000When a woman would come in, we would take her payment based on her last cycle.
00:14:37.000So we would say, okay, you're, you know, we think based on your last cycle, you're eight weeks and five days pregnant, right?
00:14:43.000Well, if we got them back to the room for their abortion and we did the ultrasound and we found that they were actually, let's say, 10 days, 10 weeks and one day pregnant, well, there's a price difference between eight weeks and 10 weeks, $100 price difference.
00:14:57.000So somebody, usually the last person hired, We'd be tasked to go into the room while the woman's on the table and say, hey, you're a little bit further along than what we thought you were, so we're going to need to collect $100 extra before we can start your abortion procedure.
00:15:13.000And then we would be like, is it down in your purse?
00:15:51.000Now, where do you line up politically, for those listening?
00:15:53.000Were you to the left before and did you shift your whole political ideology or just in the life issue?
00:15:59.000You know, I was definitely as left as left could be when I worked at Planned Parenthood.
00:16:09.000It was funny when I first started getting calls about doing media interviews and I got a call to go on Bill O'Reilly's show and I called my parents.
00:16:56.000Since you're pro-life, would you agree with me?
00:16:58.000I say, listen, there are open-handed issues, there are closed-handed issues.
00:17:00.000I could vote for a Democrat in a local election because there are pro-life Democrats in a local election who don't, you know, they don't have the control to increase the size of the federal government, you know, and local municipalities have the right to do public schools.
00:17:53.000But no, I mean, you've got a, you know, the Democratic Party who's trying to take God out of their platform, who is trying to make abortion one of the top, you know, issues in their platform.
00:19:30.000Does the Republican Party platform – you might have some individuals like Dick Morris and your feet or something like that.
00:19:36.000But no actual Republican platform has an interest in a lady's body in any other facet aside from what has to do with that life.
00:19:45.000They don't want to have an opinion on whether you can buy contraception, whether you can shave your legs, whether you can work – none of it.
00:19:50.000Shouldn't that show people that it's not really about taking your body?
00:19:52.000No, to be perfectly honest, the Republican Party is not really interested in what you're doing with your body.
00:19:57.000We're more interested in what you're doing with the body of the innocent person that's in your womb.
00:20:23.000I'm surprised she stayed after all of that Nether Region talk beforehand.
00:20:26.000But you have to talk about it when you're dealing with abortion.
00:20:28.000I mean, feminists are so ugly in their language right now.
00:20:33.000And the truth is, you have people out there like Patricia Heaton.
00:20:34.000You have people who are genuinely strong women who support women.
00:20:38.000In selling their personalities, in putting on display their talents and their skills as opposed to their body.
00:20:45.000And there really is a tie-in between the abortion issue and what we sort of call third-wave feminism.
00:20:52.000Have you noticed now, I guess sort of being more middle of the road, the pushback on this authoritarian feminism that you see from people at Planned Parenthood and CARA-FEM, those kinds of campaigns?
00:21:06.000I mean, I think we're seeing a lot, you know, kind of this idea of like new feminism.
00:21:10.000We're seeing a push in that, and that's really exciting, actually.
00:21:15.000I mean, I have some friends that are pro-choice writers, and, you know, they have told me, you know, Abby, if there's one thing that's going to flip this abortion movement on its head, it's going to be When women really embrace this idea of new feminism, that women don't have to choose between being a mom and having a career, right?
00:21:34.000We can have both and that we're not just breeders, that we have more to contribute to society than just our ability to have children, which is amazing, but we're not just that.
00:21:49.000Men don't think of you that way at all, particularly the pro-life men who tend to respect women much more.
00:21:54.000Listen, a pro-life man doesn't get to check out and say, sorry, sweetheart, go have it sucked down a tube.
00:22:00.000They have to assume responsibility for that woman.
00:22:02.000So I'm just saying it, not to derail the conversation, but I have tons of guy friends.
00:22:08.000Never once does a conversation go, hey, now that the women are wrong, they're going to, Aren't you just so glad that we have a bunch of walking uteruses waiting on us hand and foot to make sandwiches?
00:22:22.000So, you know, and there's been I think there's been actually just like there's been more racial division in this country.
00:22:26.000There's been more gender, sexual division I think than ever because there's a rejection of this from this supposed men's rights activists, which are kind of silly too, and this third wave feminism.
00:22:36.000And it sounds like you, maybe even some pro-choice friends that you have, are somewhere in the middle where you can find reason.
00:22:43.000Yeah, and I think they're – they hate it, honestly.
00:22:47.000They hate that this idea of new feminism makes sense, this pro-life feminism.
00:22:52.000They hate that that makes sense to them because it completely goes against the traditional feminist model, right?
00:22:59.000There is no equality between the sexes, that women should be ahead of men, that it's not about equality, that it's this us versus them.
00:23:08.000But if you're ahead of men, then we have rape culture, and that's a whole other problem.
00:23:14.000We need to do another show about that.
00:23:15.000Yeah, we need to figure out where exactly we need to be in the line to just avoid the rape culture and the retroactive non-consent is a big issue now.
00:23:33.000Now, she contends that obviously he's terrible and they're doing a movie on it because it was a national story, but that it's not that far off from what's probably happening at some other abortion clinics across this country.
00:23:47.000Now, we're not talking about the sanitary conditions, but how far along the trail they actually do abortions, how it's just a chop-shot boom, in and out.
00:23:55.000How much in common do you think someone like Gosnell would share with the general American abortion doctor, maybe at Planned Parenthood?
00:24:03.000You know, I don't think a whole lot, honestly.
00:24:33.000It's these later term abortionists, those that are willing to do abortions into the third trimester, because let's be honest, if you're willing to do abortions into the third trimester, you're probably kind of shaky on morality in the first place.
00:24:48.000But not to people like Elizabeth Warren.
00:24:53.000But I think a lot of people, even pro-choicers I know, were just appalled by what they saw in the Gosnell trial and You know, I've talked to people who were actually there who are pro-choice writers who said, you know what, hearing about what took place inside of the clinic, that made me really question what's going on, you know, made me question the humanity of the unborn child, which is...
00:25:21.000I think it's an interesting point there.
00:25:47.000So you say a lot of your pro-choice writers or a lot of pro-choice people in the country were appalled at that.
00:25:52.000But you didn't see the outrage from HuffPo, from liberal websites.
00:25:56.000And you don't see the outrage in third trimester abortion from Democrat politicians.
00:26:00.000So do you think that that's an issue where the elite are so much further along the trail that people, the general pro-choice person in this country, can be reached still effectively?
00:26:25.000You cannot start saying, well, okay, I think abortion's okay here until 24 weeks, or I believe abortion's okay if it's done this way, but not that way, right?
00:27:00.000So you're saying even if those people in leadership may agree with those points that, hey, come on, you're talking about a third trimester abortion, they would, behind closed doors, you think, say, yeah, I agree, but they publicly cannot deviate from the game plan?
00:28:21.000I mean that's a point where there's really no scientific debate as to whether it's potentially viable, as to whether it's an individual, as to whether they have nerve endings.
00:28:29.000There's no scientific debate at that point.
00:29:02.000I mean, I remember a pro-lifer asking me one time, you know, when do you think life begins?
00:29:08.000And I remember my answer just being like, what does it matter?
00:29:11.000It doesn't matter when life begins because abortion is legal and I'm going to do everything I can to support legal abortion through all nine months of pregnancy.
00:29:51.000I didn't know anything about Planned Parenthood.
00:29:53.000And, you know, when this woman is telling me how they serve these, you know, uninsured or underinsured women and they're the only hope for these women if they need health care.
00:30:03.000I mean, it just sounds really, it sounds like Planned Parenthood is this I'm a benefactor to the masses.
00:30:08.000And that was something that I was interested in helping with.
00:31:25.000So there are a lot of people who are working in these clinics, who want to leave, who are looking for an excuse to leave, and they just need a hand.
00:31:35.000They just need a hand up so that they can get out.
00:31:37.000And that's what we've been able to provide.
00:31:39.000And 160 of those workers were, six of them were abortionists that are now no longer performing abortions.