Ep 191 ｜ Planned Parenthood Uncovered with Abby Johnson
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Summary
Abby Johnson used to work at Planned Parenthood. She left, and now she is a force to be reckoned with within the pro-life movement. She tells us a little bit about her story and what you and I can do to get involved in fighting what we know is one of the greatest atrocities of our age.
Transcript
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Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope that you guys are having a great week so far.
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Tomorrow is Thanksgiving, so this week we're doing something a little bit different. Typically
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on Wednesdays we'd be talking about culture, what's going on in the news, but because we won't
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have an episode on Friday, today we are doing the interview that we would typically be posting
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on Friday, and I am talking to Abby Johnson. She used to work at Planned Parenthood. She left
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Planned Parenthood, and now she is a force to be reckoned with within the pro-life movement. So
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she's going to tell us a little bit about her story and what you and I can do to get involved
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in fighting what we know is one of the greatest atrocities of our age. Without further ado,
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here is Abby Johnson. Abby, thanks so much for joining me. Yeah, of course. I'm so glad to be
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here. So I think most people who are listening know who you are, maybe have read your book,
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probably have seen the movie Unplanned. But just in case there's anyone out there listening who
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doesn't know, can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are and what you do?
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Yep. So I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years. I was a clinic director at one of their
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abortion facilities out of the Houston affiliate in Bryan, Texas. And I left in October of 2009 after
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witnessing a live ultrasound guided abortion procedure and seeing a 13-week-old baby fight
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and struggle for his life against the abortion instruments. And I knew then that there was life
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in the womb, that there was humanity in the womb, and that I had been on the wrong side of this debate.
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So I ended up leaving and went to a pro-life organization in my area just looking for help,
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looking for someone to sort of understand what I was going through at that time. And
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Planned Parenthood ended up suing me. And they tried to get a permanent gag order against me,
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so I wouldn't be able to tell my story and talk about the things that I had seen inside of these
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clinics. That sort of catapulted my story then into the national spotlight. Then the media was saying,
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well, you know, what does she know that you don't want her to say? And so then there was this
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curiosity. And so ever since then, I've just been speaking publicly, sharing my story. I'm a CEO to
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two different nonprofits. I started my first nonprofit called And Then There Were None in 2012. And we
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seek to help abortion clinic workers transition out of the abortion industry and into a life with Jesus
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Christ and into a permanent place of healing. And then I started my second nonprofit just this year
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called Pro-Life Ministries. And we seek to fill gaps in the pro-life movement by providing support
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throughout the globe. So internationally, here at home, in a variety of different ways.
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What has this fight against Planned Parenthood? And I know you obviously, like you just articulated,
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your focus isn't exclusively on Planned Parenthood or even fighting against them. You're fighting for
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something much bigger and better than that. But they have targeted you. They have attacked you.
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They do call what you do the unplanned movie propaganda. What has that back and forth looked
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So, you know, after they took me to court and they lost, and I think they were really embarrassed.
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I think that they had tried to make an example of me to other clinic workers. So, you know, if you
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leave us, if you defect from our organization, then this is what happens to you. Then you have to sit
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in a courtroom and face us, this billion dollar organization, right? But they failed. And I think
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that really embarrassed them. And so, you know, they have done things before. I've come out with
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information before, like exposing abortion quotas, the certain number of abortions that they had to
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sell, that these workers have to sell to women. And so one time I came out with this big, you know,
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expose sort of thing, talking about abortion quotas and Planned Parenthood responded and said,
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that's ridiculous. We don't have abortion quotas. And then I provided evidence. I provided proof
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that they do indeed have quotas. And in fact, they give out awards if you meet that abortion quota.
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So I was able to provide that evidence. And then they had to backtrack and say, well, okay, yeah,
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we do have quotas, but we're really proud of the abortion services we provide. Same thing happened
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with this whole mammogram scandal. You know, Cecile Richards is on Joy Behar's show talking about
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these mammograms they provide. I did this big national call. It was just sort of funny. It was
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just meant to be funny. It was called Call Planned Parenthood to Schedule Your Mammogram Day. And so we
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had tens of thousands of people calling Planned Parenthood clinics all over the country asking to
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schedule their mammogram. And of course, Planned Parenthood doesn't operate any mammogram machines.
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They don't pay for mammograms. So that ended up getting picked up by Drudge and went all over the
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media, forcing then Planned Parenthood to actually come out and say, actually, no, we've never provided
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a mammogram. We don't do them. We don't have licenses for that. So every time that I've claimed
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something and then they have come back and said that it was untrue, I've come back with further
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evidence. So they're pretty quiet, honestly, when it comes to me. You know, even their response to
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Unplanned was so weak, you know, saying, oh, this movie, they said one thing about it. They said,
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this movie is a misrepresentation of the services that we provided our health centers.
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Never once talking about, you know, what I actually saw in the ultrasound. Not once talking about,
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you know, the fact that women are harmed, sometimes irreparably. So, I mean, it's just been a pretty
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weak attempt consistently by Planned Parenthood to try to undermine my story or what I'm saying. And
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I think now they realize there's really, I think they're always scared to sort of refute what I'm
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saying because they don't know what evidence I might have against them.
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And you've made them look foolish more than once, but definitely the two times about
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the mammograms and the quotas. And so they probably want to avoid coming out and trying to concretely
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refute something that you say, knowing that you're going to be able to present evidence that they're
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going to then have to admit that they lied about. And I've actually, I've noticed that in their
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rhetoric that for something like Unplanned, they might come out and say, this is a misrepresentation
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or Abby Johnson is a propagandist. She doesn't know what she's talking about, but they won't
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actually correct you. Like you could say, this is what happens in an abortion. And they could say,
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no, no, no, you're misrepresenting it. The same thing has happened to me, but you'll notice that
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they won't actually say what is correct. Okay. If that's not an abortion, what is an abortion?
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If that's not how Planned Parenthood operates, how do they operate? They won't refute it. They'll just say,
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no, that's wrong. And unfortunately, because they have so many henchmen in the media,
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they're able to get away with that kind of deceit and manipulation. How do you push back against
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their obviously falsifiable rhetoric? You know, that's sort of the thing with a lie, right? If you
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say a lie enough times, people will begin to believe it's true. And that's what's happened with
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the majority of secular liberal media in our country. Planned Parenthood keeps saying a lie
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and they just keep believing it without even doing an investigation, without even looking into the
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claims that myself or other former clinic workers or you or other people are saying. You know, honestly,
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it makes me mad. And I think that anger in a sense that they are lying to women, that they are lying to
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our society, that they are manipulating people, that they are exploiting women for money, that keeps me
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engaged. And it keeps me wanting to come back and to continually refute what they're saying and to
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continually educate people. You know, they can, they can say whatever they want, they can lie and say
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whatever they want. But those of us, particularly those of us who have worked inside of these clinics,
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we know the truth. And that's one of the beautiful things about it. And then there were none is that,
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you know, for a long time, it was just sort of me, you know, it was like, oh, Abby Johnson,
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former clinic worker, she's, she's out there saying these things about Planned Parenthood.
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Um, so I think it was easy for pro-choice people to dismiss what I was saying, right? Like, oh,
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she's just a rogue employee. She's just disgruntled, you know, whatever. But now we have 550
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other former abortion workers who have come forward and they're all saying the same thing.
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Our message is the same. Uh, no matter which Planned Parenthood we worked at, no matter if it was a
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private clinic or Planned Parenthood, no matter what part of the state, no matter what the
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demographics look like, the, the systemic abuse of women inside of these facilities is the same.
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That's so interesting. It's so interesting that you are able to get the testimony and the stories of
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people within these Planned Parenthoods, because all we hear about, like we've already noted,
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all we hear about is that you are either for women or against women. And if you are, uh, for,
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or if you are against abortion, then you are against women. And Planned Parenthood has this kind of
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media empowered monopoly on being for women's liberation, being for women's healthcare, being
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for women's compassion. And on the other side of that are us, you know, brutal pro-lifers who want
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to take away women's choice. Can you talk about specifically how you saw firsthand that that's
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not true, that Planned Parenthood and abortion providers are not in the business of liberating
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and caring for women? You know, I subscribed to secular feminism for eight years of my life,
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right? I was like a flag-toting feminist, right? And I went to all the rallies and I did all the things
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and I wore all the pink and, and I knew the mantra. I said the chance, right? There is not one time
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in my eight years immersed in that world, immersed in Planned Parenthood. When a woman came to me,
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vulnerable, broken, scared, alone, where I actually empowered her. So a woman would come to me and she
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would say, you know, I, my boyfriend just left me and I found out I'm pregnant. And my answer to her
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would be, Oh gosh, it would be really hard to be a single mom. Right. And there's no way you can do
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that. I mean, essentially my message to her was, you can't do it. You're not strong enough. You're not
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empowered enough. You are too weak to rise above your current circumstances. So instead we're going
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to exploit you. We're going to take your money and we're going to take the life of your child.
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It was the same. A woman came to us and she's like, Oh, I'm a student. You know, we were in a college
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town. So we had a lot of students. I'm a student. I found out I'm pregnant. Um, you know, what do I do?
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And we would say, Oh, how in the world could you ever go to school with a baby? I mean, you'd have
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to give up your career. You'd have to give up your education, you know? So here, there's no way you
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can possibly do that. Let us give you an abortion. And, and that's such a, it's like really a false
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dichotomy. It's, it's telling women that, um, they are too weak to overcome their current circumstances.
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And that's ridiculous. Um, you know, people in general are made to be overcomers, right? We're
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made to be survivors. We're resilient. Yeah. Yes. There are consequences to our actions,
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but that doesn't mean that hope is lost just because we're dealing with a consequence. Um,
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and so, you know, I think it's, I don't know, it's just always been interesting to me how
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they talk about women's liberation. They talk about women's empowerment, but they're actually
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not empowering women at all. They're actually oppressing them. And then they're making women
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the oppressor. Did you, Oh, go ahead. Using them, using these women to then oppress the rights of
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their unborn child. Right. So then these women who are being oppressed by the abortion industry are now
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oppressing others. And that's just that continuation, you know, violence begets violence.
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Yes. Uh, hate begets hate. Right. And hurt people hurt people is another kind of cyclical,
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uh, saying that we often hear in your experience. Did women come to you, come to the clinic already
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knowing most of the time that they wanted an abortion and they came in and said something like,
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you know, I'm a student, I cannot do this. I need to have an abortion. Or did they come for some kind
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of help and guidance and you guys kind of had to steer them in the direction of saying, you can't do
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this. You need an abortion. I would say it's about 50, 50. So about half the women came in, they know
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that Planned Parenthood is an abortion clinic. Right. I mean, so they find out they're pregnant.
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That's the first call they make. That's the first door that they open. Um, but about half of women
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came to us, uh, because they'd had a positive pregnancy test at home. They wanted a pregnancy
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test at a clinic. It's positive at home. It's probably going to be positive at the clinic. Um,
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and so, you know, they would, they would come to us seeking help, seeking support and guidance.
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And here's the thing. If a woman decides to parent her child, we can't, that's where our
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assistance stops at Planned Parenthood because we don't provide any prenatal care. Um, we don't have
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any resources for her baby items, diapers, anything like that. Right. So essentially she becomes a
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person who is not revenue generating for us. Right. So we don't want her in our doors anymore.
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Right. So we send her on her way. Right. Um, if a woman chooses wife, but then decides to place for
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adoption, it's the same situation. It's not like we worked with adoption agencies or we got some sort
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of kickback for adoption referral. Right. So it's the same. She's now become a money drain on us,
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a time suck on us. And so we send her out the door. Um, the only way that we could keep our
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patients as revenue generating clients was to sell them an abortion. And honestly, it's a pretty easy
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sell. Um, you know, convincing a woman who's already scared and vulnerable that she's too weak to be a
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parent. That's really easy. And the easiest client to sell on an abortion, uh, unfortunately was women
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who were Christians. Really? Why is that? Um, shame. Uh, they didn't want to disappoint their parents.
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Didn't want to disappoint their church. Didn't want to be an embarrassment. Um, they'd essentially
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gotten caught in their sin and it's a sin that you have to basically wear for nine months. Right.
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Right. But you know, the consequence of the sin and, um, it's a sin unlike any other, right? Because
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you cheat on your spouse, you get away with it. Nobody knows. Maybe your husband finds out,
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but nobody else knows, you know, whatever it is. I mean, it generally is private. Right. It's,
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it, it involves someone in their, their private life. Right. And even though it may affect multiple
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people, um, pregnancy is public. You're right. This, you know, getting caught having sex outside of
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marriage, that's a very public, you get pregnant. That's a very public sort of view of your sin.
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And so in order to not have to deal with that, women would come in and have abortions and, and we
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would have women who would come in and they would call us and say, you know, do you have a back entrance
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to the clinic? Um, and we would say, no, you know, we just have one in, you know, one entrance,
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what's going on. And they would say, Oh, well, um, people from my church are outside praying and I
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don't want them to see me. Or we had women who said, I used to pray outside of your clinic and I know the
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people who are out there and I don't want them to see me walk in. So it's, it's interesting, but you
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know, the church hasn't really done enough in my opinion, I don't think the church has done enough
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to create a safe haven inside the church for centers. Yeah. And, um, and so instead of our arms
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being open to a woman who's in a crisis pregnancy, you know, we look down our note, our noses at her
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and say, Oh, how dare she? And then that sends her into the arms of the abortion clinic.
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Right. I was, I was going to say that the fact that there, I mean, obviously people who sin and
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who know that sin is sin, they're going to deal with some level of guilt and shame and not all of
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the responsibility is on the church. But there is no doubt in my mind that churches can do a better
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job of saying, you know, we can clearly say this is sin. This is God's intention for sex and for
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marriage and for life and all of that. And still make clear that, Hey, if you find yourself in this
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situation, you come here first, this is the first place that you go. And you know, that you can receive
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love and care and help and even funds and protection. If you need it, that should be the
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first place of refuge that a young woman understands that she can go and be loved and cared for.
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And I think you're right. I think a lot of young or a lot of churches, maybe they don't outright
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say from the pulpit, Hey, if you get pregnant outside of marriage, you're not welcome here.
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But also the silence, I would say the silence about this subject, I would say is also complicity
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that there's not an outright statement of saying, this is the refuge that you can come to if you are
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in trouble. Um, so I absolutely agree with that. And we look at, we look at what's happening and look
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the highest ordered Bishop in the Episcopal church is now the head of the national abortion federation.
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Wow. You've got the United Methodist church that has for years been accepting of abortion. Um,
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there are many unorthodox Judaism accepting of abortion. You go to abortion clinics and many times
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you see clergy as the volunteer escorts. You see clergy with their collars on escorting women from
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their cars to the abortion clinic for them to have an abortion. We were trained in the clinic
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how to overcome religious objections. So if a woman came to us and she, maybe she had been raised in a
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church and she knew, you know, abortion is wrong. She comes to us and she says, I don't know. I just feel
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like abortion is a sin. I feel like, I don't know if God's going to forgive me. Our scripted response
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to get back to her was, well, don't you think that God is a forgiving God? Wow. And she'd say,
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yes. And we would say, don't you think that God understands your situation and that you're trying
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to make the best decision for your family? Well, yes. So even though people can be raised knowing that
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truth, when you have religious leaders across the world accepting of abortion, escorting women in to
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have abortions, heading up abortion organizations, national abortion organizations, it is actually
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very easy to say, hey guys, we have a problem within the church. Absolutely. We haven't done enough.
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We haven't spoken up enough. You know, it's, it's very easy to justify sin when you are in a moment
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of crisis. And, uh, you know, it's interesting. Uh, I was reading about, I'm getting my doctorate right
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now and I was, I was reading about counseling through crisis and it's, it said in this book,
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it said that, um, crisis is actually a term that means danger and opportunity.
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And I thought, you know, all of these women, they need to understand that, yes, they might be in a
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place where they are concerned. They're scared. Um, they don't know what to do. They don't know how
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they're, they're going to make it from day to day, but that there's also a great opportunity that can
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come out of crisis, but they've got to find the right people, the right support system, the right
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community to surround them. And I believe in most situations, the church should be that community.
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Right. It reminds me, it reminds me so much of, of what you were saying when you were explaining
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kind of like the lines that you would give people who have religious objections, your responses to them
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remind me so much of Satan in the garden of Eden. And Satan has always historically had a special
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evil place, uh, for women in his mind and in his intentions for a temptation. Did God
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really say, yes, you heard God say that this is a sin, but did God really say that he wouldn't
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forgive you? And so he twists the truth just a little bit to put women in a situation to where
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they think they don't really have a choice, but to take a bite of the proverbial fruit or get an
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abortion or whatever it is. And it's frightening to know there are so many so-called religious leaders
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who have fallen into the trap of believing this only to extend and perpetuate these cycles of
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oppression that are hurting God's image bearers, not just in the womb, but outside of the womb.
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And I'm so glad I am so thankful for the testimony that you have that your job is so hard. It's so
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difficult to be up against so much. Ephesians six talks about, you know, being against the prince of
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the power of the air and being against, uh, the spiritual realm of darkness. And that is what
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you are up against every day. But your job is also really simple in that all you have to do
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is tell the truth. Telling the truth is a lot easier than being Planned Parenthood who constantly
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has to come up with a new lie. And one truth that you talk about that struck me the most when I watched
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Plant Plant when I saw Unplant was the truth of humanity inside the womb. The truth of this little
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child, even in the first trimester, fighting for his or her life. And my question for you in that,
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when you saw that and it changed everything, have you found that that simple truth, that life inside
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the womb is a human, it's a baby made in the image of God, that that has been an effective
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catalyst to changing women's minds about abortion in the same way that it did for you?
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So I think it can be really successful. So I think a lot of young people are looking for
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the scientific reason for the why, you know, why would we be pro-life? Where's the science behind
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it? Now for us, for believers, we know that science comes from our creator, right? Um, but if you just
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for a second sort of separate that and you say, okay, let's talk about the science here.
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Um, you know, inside of the womb is a human being. It's, it's nothing else. It's, it's DNA
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is human. And, and you can get people to say yes, very easily to that. Yes, of course it's,
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you know, it's not a dog. It's not a cat. Of course it's human. Um, and they'll say, but it's
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not alive. I'll say, okay, well then is it dead? No. Okay. Well, there are only scientifically two
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states of being alive or dead. So if it's not dead, then what is it? Well, it's alive. Okay.
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So, you know, you can sort of start deconstructing their arguments one at a time. And, and then
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you finally get to the point where you say, you know, one of the things I'll tell them is like,
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you know, everyone has a life continuum, right? And so any artificial disruption in that life
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continuum is death. It's killing. And so if it's intentional, it's killing. Um, and so are you okay
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then if I can get them to agree to that, which usually I can, I'll say, okay, so then you are
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telling me that you are okay with someone killing, taking the life because you've agreed that it's a
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life, taking the life of a human being, because you've agreed that it's, it's a human being as long
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as it's in a specific place. So as long as it's in the womb, you're okay with it. Right. And, and a lot
00:26:59.460
of times they'll say, yeah, I guess I am. That is really powerful to get them to actually say it,
00:27:10.240
to have them listen to their words over and over again. Right. It's sort of like, I hope that that
00:27:18.920
rings in their head, um, for the rest of their life that they admitted that morally they are okay
00:27:27.680
with killing an innocent human being. Um, because once you can get them to that place,
00:27:35.200
that's really when hearts can start to be changed. Right. Because then they start thinking,
00:27:41.360
am I really, I mean, I just said that, am I really okay with that? I mean, um, and, and I've had
00:27:47.700
success with that before. Um, I was out in front of a clinic one time, actually, I was, I was talking to,
00:27:55.740
uh, a guy that came out to protest, um, as in front of the, he was protesting us, those of us who were out
00:28:04.660
there praying. And, uh, he said, you know, he was, he was out there. He had a sign that said,
00:28:11.320
you know, pro choice, uh, is pro life. And, um, so I engaged him, you know, all the other sidewalk
00:28:17.960
counselors, they were like, Oh, don't talk to that guy. I think his name was Tom or something like,
00:28:21.700
Oh, that's just Tom. He comes out all the time. So I engaged him. And so I actually got him to say,
00:28:26.900
he said the words, yes, killing an innocent human being is okay with me. And he never came back.
00:28:38.260
Interesting. He had been coming out week after week after week, and he never came back. And I
00:28:44.640
don't know if it was that conversation that did it, but I believe that the Holy spirit in that moment,
00:28:50.320
hearing himself say those words had to do some sort of convicting in his conscience because no
00:28:59.300
civilized human being says that out loud and then walks away and is okay with it.
00:29:05.740
Right. Right. Because they can't answer the question of why, whenever I talk to people about
00:29:14.480
this, about a lot of the things that you just said, I think sometimes, which you've articulated
00:29:20.380
perfectly, sometimes the best argument that we can have are really just questions. Okay. What about
00:29:27.740
this? Why do you believe this? How did you come to that perspective? And if you push them to the
00:29:34.400
moral limit, which is to say that you're okay with killing an innocent child and then ask why are
00:29:40.620
there any other situations in which you believe it's okay to kill someone who's innocent and
00:29:44.880
defenseless? Well, no. Well, then why inside the womb? Is it location? Is it size? Is it age? Is
00:29:51.760
it dependence on the mother? Can you explain that justification even in a non-attacking way?
00:29:58.780
And they really start thinking about it for the first time, because I think you're right. A lot of
00:30:02.700
people are pro-choice by default because they have bought into so much of what the media has told them.
00:30:08.540
And when they really start thinking about the scientific truth and the moral truth that's
00:30:12.720
associated with it, it's very difficult. Because whether or not someone is a Christian,
00:30:18.600
we are all made in the image of God. And because of that, there is this internal moral compass
00:30:23.440
in all of us. And there is something that appeals to the image bearer inside all of us that says,
00:30:29.600
killing an innocent person just because of their age or size or dependence or whatever
00:30:35.920
doesn't sit well with most people, like you said. And so I found the same thing,
00:30:41.240
that sometimes the most effective thing you can do is not to point fingers and say, you know,
00:30:45.680
this is the truth, but to say, why? How? How do you lean on that perspective?
00:30:51.060
Yeah. And if you look at Jesus during his years of ministry on earth,
00:30:55.900
most of the time when the apostles ask him a question, he answered with a question.
00:31:00.980
Hmm. And so I think that obviously it was very effective for Jesus. Right. And so what works
00:31:07.500
for him should work for us too. Right. So, um, I found that asking the why asking the questions
00:31:13.180
makes a lot of sense. So a lot of times, you know, they'll say, well, you know, uh, and I get this
00:31:19.200
with people who say, you know, well, I mean, I'm against abortion except, you know, in cases of rape.
00:31:24.060
Um, and, and so I'll say, oh, wow. Okay. So, you know, and so I'll go down that road and then,
00:31:31.540
and then getting them to, to the place where I say, huh. So making a decision who lives and dies based
00:31:39.160
on their, their circumstances that, I mean, that sounds a little like eugenics, doesn't it?
00:31:45.080
Yeah. Like that's not, you know, and then they're like, Ooh, yeah. Cause eugenics, I mean, that's tied
00:31:50.380
with Nazis and Hitler. And, and so then they're like, Oh, well, yeah, I guess it does. Yeah. So
00:31:56.640
I mean, it's, it's asking those questions though and getting them to really think about this for
00:32:01.620
themselves. Cause you're right. They're just parrots. They're parroting what they have been told
00:32:07.760
and they're being told that to support abortion is the compassionate choice. Yeah. And, and I,
00:32:15.380
I understand that a lot of times they are coming at it from a place of compassion, but it's misguided
00:32:20.140
compassion. Right. So that's where we need to help them correct their thinking, but it's a lot more
00:32:25.000
effective if they are able to correct their thinking on their own. Right. Because they are able to kind of
00:32:31.640
work through the fallacies that they might be thinking that we don't even know because all they've
00:32:36.620
done is listened to. I was sitting two seats down from, um, an abortion provider and abortionist
00:32:44.140
when I was at the congressional hearing a couple of weeks ago. And, uh, she is the head of the
00:32:49.820
Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis. And she was asked by Republicans, very specific questions,
00:32:55.380
you know, what is viability? Have you ever, uh, aborted, you know, a full-term baby and just a bunch
00:33:03.800
of questions about what an abortion is, what circumstances she thinks justifies an abortion.
00:33:08.680
And she would not answer, she wouldn't answer a single question. She wouldn't acknowledge what
00:33:14.540
she actually does, what an abortion is, if it's actually a life inside the womb. I actually heard
00:33:19.400
her say the phrase pregnancy remains instead of even a fetus or anything like that. Um, and so in order,
00:33:27.040
I think if any of us in any situation are on the side that is in the business of obscuring truth in
00:33:33.680
order to stay afloat, obscuring truth in order to make a profit, we should all ask ourselves,
00:33:40.360
why is it? Why is it the side that I'm on won't actually say what's real, won't actually say what's,
00:33:46.080
what's true. It's, it's very hard for me, honestly, to understand how more people aren't just
00:33:52.800
asking those very basic questions. Hang on. If abortion is moral, as this abortion doctor said
00:33:58.000
in the hearing, why won't you just say what it is? Look, why not? Yeah. And that's, you know,
00:34:04.220
they've done a really good, you bring up a good point. They've done a really good job of
00:34:07.880
sort of using this, this lexicon of language, right? So, you know, first it was,
00:34:17.540
you know, abortion of a fetus, then it was termination of a fetus. Termination of, yeah,
00:34:25.580
yeah. Um, then they realized that fetus actually means little one or offspring. So then they're
00:34:33.580
like, that's a little too much humanity there. Right. Right. So now it's, you know, maybe they
00:34:42.040
use termination, um, they say termination of pregnancy, of a pregnancy. Right. And then
00:34:48.560
they won't say pregnant woman anymore. Now it's pregnant persons. Um, and so they, they really
00:34:55.600
are directing the narrative in our society surrounding so many issues. Right. Um, you know,
00:35:02.820
the LGBT agenda, I mean, so many different things. Right. Um, but definitely abortion as well.
00:35:07.680
And so, you know, one of the things that, that I always tell pro-lifers is not to fall for that.
00:35:15.020
Right. So if somebody comes to me and says, you know, Oh yeah, I'm, I'm okay with, with abortion.
00:35:20.420
I'm like, Oh really? So, okay. So killing, killing human beings in the womb, that's okay with you.
00:35:26.100
You know? And they're like, well, no, I said abortion. Yeah. And I'm like,
00:35:29.860
Oh, do you know what an abortion is? What is an abortion? Right. Let's, let's talk about it.
00:35:33.740
And that opens the door. Right. So I think that we have to stick to language that's not
00:35:40.080
inflammatory. I'm not saying go around and, you know, say weird stuff that sometimes pro-lifers say
00:35:45.900
like abortuary or abortion mill or whatever, just use the correct terms to sort of take that language
00:35:55.040
back, um, to help them understand what they actually support and to stop. They're trying to
00:36:01.100
whitewash it. Right. And they're trying to take all the humanity out of the unborn. And we can't
00:36:08.080
allow that to happen. Right. Can you tell everyone about your two nonprofit companies or the two
00:36:13.740
nonprofit organizations, what they do and if people want to get involved, how they can do that?
00:36:20.640
Yeah. So, um, and then there were none, we get abortion clinic workers out of the industry.
00:36:25.540
We get them into a place of healing and to hope, um, get them into new lines of employment. We provide
00:36:33.120
legal help for them if that's necessary. Um, how do you get them? They come to us. So, uh, but we're
00:36:41.100
pretty proactive about it. So we send mailers into clinics, you know, uh, I remember when we would get,
00:36:46.440
um, mail from pro-lifers inside of Planned Parenthood and what would happen is we'd get it. And then we
00:36:53.260
would be like, Oh, look what they sent us today. Look what they sent us today. And it would make
00:36:56.260
its rounds across the clinic. So that's what we're sort of hoping happens with the mail that we send
00:37:01.200
in is that it's, it's sort of sent around the clinic and it does. I mean, it is happening.
00:37:06.400
Um, every time we send a mailer, we usually get about 10 workers that come out, um, because they
00:37:11.900
saw the mailer. So, um, we are reaching out to them. We're also training, we work with sidewalk advocates
00:37:17.180
for life. Um, and, and so we work, we train those sidewalk advocates, the best way to reach out to
00:37:24.100
abortion clinic workers and abortion doctors as they're walking in and out of the facilities on a
00:37:29.840
daily basis. Um, so, but a lot of it's word of mouth, you know, if we can get one worker out of
00:37:35.680
a clinic, we can usually get several, uh, because nobody likes working in an abortion clinic. And,
00:37:42.060
and so they're always looking for a way out. So if we can get one to take that step of faith and to
00:37:47.860
leave, and then we can provide help for them. A lot of times they will reach back in to the people
00:37:53.340
at the clinic who are still there and say, Hey, remember how we always talked about getting out
00:37:56.840
of this place. You can do it. These people can help. So we've actually, um, because of the workers
00:38:03.920
who have left, we've actually been able to permanently close 21 abortion facilities. Wow. Um, because they
00:38:11.440
haven't been able to get workers to work at the clinic cause we've been able to drain clinics
00:38:17.840
entirely of all their staff. Um, or because these workers came forward to different legislative bodies,
00:38:25.120
uh, different officials, uh, licensing agencies, and we've been able to help them with legal
00:38:31.180
representation, get these clinics shut down because of regulation issues or health and safety issues,
00:38:37.900
whatever it may be. And why are these, why are these workers afraid to leave? So why is it like
00:38:45.500
unlike any other, you know, place of work that you don't want to work at anymore? Why can't they just
00:38:50.840
quit and go work somewhere else? Yeah. So it's, you know, working in the abortion industry, it's not
00:38:57.320
like working anywhere else. So there's going to be a lot of spiritual warfare that, that come at these
00:39:02.000
workers when they're even thinking about leaving and then when they do leave. Um, but you know,
00:39:07.340
they are basically told if you leave, we'll sue you. If you leave, we'll give you a bad reference.
00:39:14.420
You'll never work in the medical field again. Wow. Um, you know, just for any reason, if anyone
00:39:20.640
leaves for any reason, it's that kind of bullying. Yes. Oh yes. Wow. Absolutely. Um, I remember one
00:39:28.660
time there was a gal that worked with us. I was, I was sitting having a meeting with my supervisor about
00:39:33.480
something and, uh, her, her dream had been to be a teacher and she was, she had gotten her, uh,
00:39:40.940
she was finishing up her, her bachelor's degree in education. She wanted to be a teacher
00:39:44.900
and she had worked with us for about a year just to make money until she was finished working,
00:39:51.420
until she was finished with school. She came in to the office one day and she told my supervisor,
00:39:56.600
you know, I just want to let you know, I'm going to start, you know, um, applying for jobs over the
00:40:02.260
summer to, to be a teacher. And she said, my, my supervisor said, you really think that any school
00:40:11.760
system is going to want you after they know you've worked in the abortion clinic? We're going to make
00:40:15.840
sure that anybody that calls us knows that. Wow. We're going to give you a bad reference. Um,
00:40:22.160
and she was a great employee, but it's this, I mean, they're definitely bullying workers inside
00:40:29.260
of there and convincing them that they can't leave, that they're stuck. Um, so there's definitely that,
00:40:35.540
but you know, it is true. I mean, once somebody works in the abortion clinic, it is very hard for
00:40:41.740
them to get a job in another medical clinic. Um, it's hard for nurses. It's, it's, it's just hard.
00:40:48.660
So even though the medical community by and large supports abortion, these doctors don't work. They
00:40:55.420
don't want people who used to work in the abortion clinic in their clinics because they know that it's
00:41:00.960
not sanitary. They know that they cut corners. They know that they participate in Medicaid fraud.
00:41:05.220
They know that they are, um, they could be potentially dangerous to their own lines of work. And so they
00:41:12.340
don't want them in their clinics. They're willing to support them from afar. Okay. Tell me about
00:41:18.320
your other nonprofit. Okay. So, uh, Oh, well, if people want information about it and then there
00:41:22.760
were none, they can go to abortion worker.com. Okay. Uh, we've got, we'll put it in the bio for
00:41:27.980
this. Uh, we'll put it in the, um, info for this episode so people can just click on it. Okay, perfect.
00:41:34.320
Um, and then, uh, so yeah, so I, I started seeing after 10 years of being out of the abortion
00:41:39.740
industry, I started seeing just, I don't know, just some gaps in the movement. You know, we're doing
00:41:46.120
so many things right. I mean, amazingly well, we've got, you know, over 2,500 pregnancy resource
00:41:53.520
centers that are reaching out to moms in crisis, providing resources, providing limited medical
00:41:58.580
care. I mean, those centers are just doing an amazing service. We've got, you know, post-abortion
00:42:03.940
recovery groups, hundreds of them all across the country for women, men, um, you know, people who
00:42:10.520
have experienced abortion in their lives. So we, we've got, you know, we've got educators,
00:42:16.520
absence only educators in our schools, you know, trying to make a difference with our
00:42:19.680
children. So we've got all these different ministries, but I felt like there were still
00:42:24.100
some gaps, some places that needed to be filled. And, uh, it's one of those things where I kept
00:42:31.860
praying. I kept saying, God, you know, if you could just tap somebody on the shoulder and
00:42:37.120
say, you know, Hey, could you go start this organization? That would be awesome. Right.
00:42:42.560
And then I realized after praying that for over a year, he's like, Hey, Johnny, it's you,
00:42:47.160
you know? So, um, we started pro love ministries and it's an umbrella group essentially. And we
00:42:53.720
have several ministries underneath pro love ministries. So, um, one that's probably the one
00:43:01.440
that people know the most about is called love line. It's a crisis line for moms. So, um, maybe
00:43:08.900
moms that don't have a pregnancy resource center in their area, maybe moms who have older children
00:43:14.860
that can't be serviced by a pregnancy center, but they need help with their rent, with getting food
00:43:21.520
on the table. Um, there's just a lot of different circumstances right now. We're working with four
00:43:26.980
different victims of domestic violence, getting them into safe housing. So, you know, there's a
00:43:32.520
lot of issues that come up that can't be filled by pregnancy resource centers and that's not their
00:43:37.720
calling. That's not what they're meant to do. Right. Um, and so we wanted to, and yeah, there's
00:43:42.880
domestic violence places out there. There's rape crisis centers out there, but a lot of those
00:43:46.800
support abortion. And so we wanted to have a pro-life alternative for these women. And so, um,
00:43:53.960
that's one of the things that we're doing. We also operate the pro-life women's conference,
00:43:57.820
which is, um, the largest gathering of pro-life women in the nation. Um, we have over 800 every
00:44:04.940
year that come together. You know, one of the things that pro-choice groups are really good at
00:44:09.840
is conferencing, networking together, uh, just being together, strategizing together. And we really
00:44:16.840
failed to do that in the pro-life movement because we're all very busy doing our own things,
00:44:21.700
right. Our own ministries. So five years ago, I started the pro-life women's conference. And,
00:44:26.780
uh, that first year we had 400 people. The second year we had 500 people and it just continues to
00:44:32.380
go up. And now, um, we're selling out every year, 850 people. Awesome. And it's just, it's such a time
00:44:39.160
of like just refreshments and, and healing really, because doing this work is hard as you know,
00:44:45.980
battling against, uh, this morally decaying society and being counter-cultural. It's hard.
00:44:55.380
It's tough. It's tiring. Coming together to energize is, I mean, it's just really an amazing
00:45:01.040
experience. So we've got a bunch of different organizations there and people can, can look
00:45:05.640
at all of them on our website. Okay, cool. That's great. Are there any other resources? Like
00:45:09.960
tell people where they can buy your book, where they can watch unplanned, any other resources you want
00:45:14.780
to direct people to? Yeah. So, um, unplanned, the film is it's streaming on Amazon and, uh, you can
00:45:23.700
buy it at Walmart at target. It's on the shelves. You can get it online. You can of course get it on
00:45:29.500
Amazon online. If you want the, the actual physical disc, um, and DVD and Blu-ray. And then also if you
00:45:36.200
want an autograph copy, you can go to our website, abortion worker.com and on the store, uh, link, you can
00:45:43.980
actually get autographed copies of unplanned, the movie. You can get autographed copies of
00:45:49.660
unplanned, the book. You can also get autographed copies of my second book called the walls are
00:45:54.460
talking. Um, so we've got a lot of really great items there that people can check out.
00:45:58.900
That is so great. And people can follow you on Twitter, correct? And on Instagram, Twitter,
00:46:03.900
I'm on Instagram, I'm on Facebook. I try to be social media savvy. I'm not very great at it,
00:46:09.220
but I do pro-life Abby Johnson is your handle, but we'll, we'll double check and we'll put that
00:46:14.820
in the description as well. Thank you so much. I really encourage everyone out there to go watch
00:46:20.140
unplanned as someone who is pro-life, uh, the scene of what Abby saw that really changed her life and
00:46:27.240
changed the direction of where she was going. It totally broke me in a very hard, difficult way,
00:46:32.840
but in a very good way. And even for those of us who know that it's life inside the womb,
00:46:36.980
we need to be reminded of that. And sometimes we just need to see the stark reality of what abortion
00:46:42.080
is to kind of get a kick in the seat that tells us, Oh, we need to be doing something about this.
00:46:47.580
This isn't something that we just think about and we cry about. This is something that we do
00:46:51.160
something about. And Abby, you are such a perfect example of putting action to your beliefs and your
00:46:56.600
convictions. And I am just so thankful to God for you. Um, so thank you. Thank you so much for what
00:47:01.960
you do and thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much, Allie.