The Michael Knowles Show - Choosing Life： Confessions of a Planned Parenthood Director

00:00:00.000 A quick note before the episode begins. This conversation involves graphic discussions

00:00:04.400 related to abortion and the abortion industry. Please consider turning off the episode if

00:00:09.060 children are present and continue listening with caution.

00:00:12.680 You know, I think about just the eight years that I was at Planned Parenthood and during

00:00:17.180 that time, you know, I definitely would have called myself a, you know, feminist and, you

00:00:21.120 know, a champion of women. There is not one time in that eight years where a woman came

00:00:27.860 to me for help where I sat down across from her and I said, you know, I'm going to help

00:00:32.040 you today. If a woman came to me and said, I'm pregnant, I essentially looked at her and

00:00:38.180 said, that's tough. You know, you're really not strong enough to do that. You're not strong

00:00:45.140 enough to be a single mom. You're not strong enough to meet your educational goals. You're

00:00:49.120 not strong enough to meet your career goals. So the only thing I have for you to do is I'm

00:00:54.960 going to capitalize on your moment of weakness and I'm going to take advantage of your vulnerability

00:01:00.020 and I'm going to convince you to give me money to kill your baby. That's not strength. That's

00:01:07.760 not teaching her that she's strong. That's not giving her resources. That's really the

00:01:12.940 opposite of what feminism is.

00:01:18.620 When Abby Johnson started working at Planned Parenthood, her facility performed blind abortions.

00:01:25.680 That is, abortions without the help of an ultrasound. She worked as a director at the clinic for

00:01:32.400 several years before a doctor walked in and showed the staff a more efficient way of performing

00:01:37.920 abortion. Holding the ultrasound probe, Abby watched for the first time at a baby being ripped

00:01:45.660 limb from limb before the doctor uttered four words that sent a shiver up her spine and set

00:01:52.860 her life on a new course.

00:01:54.240 Right now, I would strongly recommend you go to hallo.com slash choose life because today's world is a

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00:02:30.180 rooted in people becoming less or really just anti-religious. That's why it's more important than

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00:02:43.120 States. It's like Calm or Headspace, but rooted in Catholic faith. It is the perfect resource to deepen

00:02:49.640 your relationship with God and find peace through audio guided prayer and meditation. Several of

00:02:55.300 hallo's meditations encourage you to choose life and to pray for others to choose life, such as their

00:03:00.200 Litany for Life with Lila Rose. Hallo is free to download. It will help you find peace and calm

00:03:06.160 throughout your day. So do it. Do it right now. Download the app for free at hallo.com slash choose

00:03:13.560 life. That is hallo.com slash choose life. Let's hear from Abby Johnson.

00:03:25.400 I'm Abby Johnson. I was a director of an abortion facility in Texas, which is now closed. That facility

00:03:33.700 is closed. And I worked there for eight years, started as a volunteer, worked up the ranks,

00:03:41.100 became the clinic director. And, you know, loved my job, thought I was doing the right thing,

00:03:48.420 got involved in college. And the last year of my work there, started to get really uncomfortable with

00:03:56.180 the way things were going, had to implement abortion quotas,

00:04:00.320 just the way that we were treating women I saw was really poor. And ultimately, though,

00:04:08.440 ended up leaving after witnessing a live ultrasound guided abortion procedure and

00:04:14.520 saw a 13-week-old baby fight and struggle for his life. And I knew then that there was humanity in the

00:04:24.600 womb. I knew that there was life in the womb. And I knew if those two things were true, then I was on

00:04:30.920 the wrong side of this debate. So I ended up leaving the clinic. And when I left the clinic,

00:04:36.120 Planned Parenthood sued me. They tried to get a permanent gag order against me. And when they did

00:04:40.920 that, the Associated Press picked up my story. And I've been trying to expose the abortion industry for

00:04:49.140 what they're doing to women, what they're doing to the preborn child, but also really trying to

00:04:55.060 help people heal, help our society heal from the damage of abortion, because abortion really does

00:05:03.260 hurt everyone that it touches.

00:05:05.920 So you mentioned you started becoming shocked or concerned maybe about how your clinic was treating

00:05:15.360 women. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what was Planned Parenthood encouraging you

00:05:19.840 guys to do in terms of the treatment of women?

00:05:24.080 There were a lot of things that were going on at my clinic that were concerning to me.

00:05:29.860 You know, one was the abortion quotas. I had always believed that at Planned Parenthood,

00:05:37.600 we were there to keep abortion safe, legal, and rare. That was, you know, when I got involved,

00:05:42.240 that was the talking point. That was what everyone said. But now all of a sudden we have an abortion

00:05:48.500 quota. We are to do anything to get women in the door, to help sell them on an abortion. And so we

00:05:58.960 were told that we were to turn every telephone call and every client visit into a revenue generating

00:06:07.220 visit. Well, at Planned Parenthood, we didn't provide prenatal care. We don't get kickbacks if

00:06:14.260 a woman chooses adoption. So the only way that we can make money on a pregnant woman is to sell her

00:06:22.580 an abortion. And so you basically get a woman into the facility and you wreck her plan. So if she comes

00:06:34.360 in and she says, well, you know, I've been thinking about parenting or, you know, I've been thinking

00:06:39.520 about adoption, then your job is to say to her, well, it's probably going to be really difficult

00:06:45.120 to be a single mom. You know, daycare is really expensive. Or, you know, you already have other

00:06:51.440 kids. So how are you going to do that if you don't have support? Or, you know, the dad already said he's

00:06:56.100 not going to support you. So how do you plan on doing that? And that's your job is to make it seem

00:07:03.200 impossible for her to be a mom and to make it seem like abortion is the only option for her. And

00:07:12.020 that's despicable. I mean, that is what we were doing each and every day. And it happened so slowly

00:07:23.740 in my life. I didn't even really realize what we were doing. But that summer when they were really,

00:07:32.440 really saying to us, we've got to get these women in. We've got to meet these quotas. We've got to

00:07:37.780 double our quota from the previous year. We lived in a college town. And so, you know, students would

00:07:47.480 go away for the summer. And so it was harder for us to get women in the door for abortions.

00:07:54.440 And that particular summer, we were told that we were to go into minority neighborhoods,

00:08:01.080 low-income neighborhoods. We were to put up flyers about the abortion services that we offered

00:08:07.860 to essentially lure these minority women into our facilities to encourage them to abort their

00:08:18.120 children. And that was really gross to me that we were targeting minority women, poor women,

00:08:31.580 and saying, here, clearly, you don't need to be a parent because you're poor. Clearly, you don't

00:08:39.580 need to be a parent because you're black, because you're a minority. And it was at the same time that

00:08:47.900 we were getting all of this money in from Warren Buffett, from the Buffett Foundation. And it was

00:08:55.600 strictly for low-income women, primarily minority women, to kill their children through abortion.

00:09:04.440 And he had been, of course, very vocally a supporter of abortion because of population control.

00:09:14.520 And so there were just a lot of things that were sort of coming together for me that were making me

00:09:19.760 very uncomfortable. It was also that summer we had run out of one of our title cash grant funding

00:09:28.200 programs, which we always did. Every summer, you run out, and it replenishes September 1st.

00:09:35.200 And here we are, this supposed women's health care provider. And we pay, this birth control is so

00:09:45.680 minimal. It's such a low cost for us. And we have these women coming in, minority women coming in,

00:09:54.820 low-income women coming into our facilities. And I remember in a management meeting saying,

00:10:01.240 you know, we pay $2 for a pack of birth control. Why can't we just give them the birth control at our

00:10:09.440 cost? We were charging them $32 to $35 for a pack of birth control. And we're literally paying

00:10:15.180 $2 for it. Why can't we just give it to them at a discounted rate? And they just said,

00:10:23.400 no, absolutely not. They're going to have to find a way to pay for it.

00:10:28.320 It was at that same time that we were witnessing more and more complications of abortion. So uterine

00:10:36.480 perforation, doctors just poking a hole through a woman's uterus. We're, of course, not allowed to call

00:10:42.480 an ambulance in those situations because we've got protesters outside and they will video an ambulance

00:10:49.100 coming up to our facility. We had, I remember that last year, several instances where, you know,

00:11:01.780 as the director, I was handing basically hush money to women who we had left pieces of their baby

00:11:10.680 in their womb. They had become sick. They had become septic. They had had to go to the emergency

00:11:17.680 room. They had terrible infections, potentially fatal infections, because we had been negligent.

00:11:27.860 And they had threatened us. They had threatened to sue us. They had threatened to go to the media.

00:11:33.200 And we were handing them, these were poor women. And we were handing them hundreds of dollars,

00:11:42.000 $800, $900, and making them sign a nondisclosure agreement. And it was sick. And I was the one that

00:11:51.740 was having to hand it to them because I was the director. Knowing that we had put these women's

00:11:57.200 lives in jeopardy, we had put their lives at risk. And we were literally giving them a check for $800.

00:12:04.760 They could have taken us to court. They could have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from us.

00:12:09.260 But these women were poor. They were vulnerable. They didn't know any better. And our medical team

00:12:15.080 had come up with some deal with them to keep them quiet. And for a poor woman,

00:12:20.840 $900 is a lot of money. So they were taking it. And there were so many times I wanted to be like, girl,

00:12:27.200 don't take this check. Don't take this money. Don't sign this nondisclosure. I mean,

00:12:33.680 you're making a deal with the devil. But I didn't. And so just all of these things happening

00:12:41.060 in that last year were causing me to say, what is going on? And then we were also building

00:12:46.440 the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere, second largest to China.

00:12:52.720 And we were going to be aborting babies electively for any reason up to six months of pregnancy.

00:13:01.380 And that had been really, that had been my line in the sand. You know, viability was my line in the

00:13:08.000 sand. And here we were going to be killing viable babies. And so that was also something I was really

00:13:17.580 struggling with. And this was what year? So this was in 2008 to 2009.

00:13:24.540 So, you know, this is, in terms of the history of abortion, this is relatively recently.

00:13:32.360 Is this sort of thing still going on in Planned Parenthood clinics?

00:13:35.200 You know, I work with women, I've worked with over 615 former abortion clinic workers in the past 10

00:13:44.940 years. Some of them have been from my affiliate where I worked. And they've been from all over

00:13:52.300 the country. We've helped abortion clinic workers in almost every state, in over 45 states. And

00:14:01.780 we hear the same exact stories, the same things that I experienced. This is a systemic problem

00:14:11.800 in the abortion industry. And even worse things. I mean, we're hearing even worse things than what I

00:14:23.460 experienced. We're hearing stories from former abortion workers who are saying,

00:14:31.780 that babies are being born alive in their facilities. And the backs of their necks are being slit.

00:14:40.500 They are being drowned in buckets of water after being born alive. Their necks are being snapped.

00:14:52.160 This sort of barbaric, evil behavior, it's happening more often than people want to think about.

00:15:01.780 I think it's happening more than they realize. Women are being harmed at an exponential rate.

00:15:11.360 But these abortion facilities, these abortion providers, these doctors, they don't care about

00:15:21.160 these women. We have on record stories from former abortion workers saying that they have walked in

00:15:32.580 on these abortion on these abortionists, sexually assaulting some of the patients while the patients

00:15:38.900 were under sedation. We had a former worker who left. And when she left, the owner's son put a gun to

00:15:48.660 her head and threatened her, if she ever talked about her experiences there.

00:15:53.120 It is one of the most corrupt industries in our country. And they are getting a pass from the

00:16:04.280 federal government. They harm women each and every day. They kill our most innocent each and every day.

00:16:13.020 And they are being funded with our tax dollars each and every day. And there's no industry on the planet

00:16:24.580 that is receiving the same sort of grace, the same sort of amnesty that Planned Parenthood and the

00:16:36.300 abortion industry does on a daily basis. Why do you think that is?

00:16:43.540 I think one of the reasons that they get away with it is because abortion is so incredibly rampant

00:16:50.980 in our society. So many people have had abortions. I mean, depending on what statistics you look at,

00:16:57.960 one in three women or one in four women have had abortions in our country, which means one in three

00:17:05.420 or one in four men have participated in abortion. I think that their abortion covers up a multitude of

00:17:15.520 sins. We know that, I know from my own experience, that abortion is a great coverup for abuse. And I know

00:17:30.940 that that's happening on a daily basis inside of abortion facilities. You know, it's tied hand in hand

00:17:41.760 with the trafficking industry. There are so many wounded people in our culture right now, wounded from

00:17:54.440 abortion. And I'm not sure that people really in higher offices want to get to the bottom of it.

00:18:08.960 I'm not really sure that they want to admit what's taking place inside of these abortion clinics, because

00:18:18.040 I think many of them have participated. I think many of them have been a part of it.

00:18:24.440 And I think they're scared to take away the option, honestly.

00:18:31.340 Why is it, you know, why is all this being kind of swept under the rug and why are people ignoring it?

00:18:38.300 You know, I think there's many reasons that we sort of cover up abortion, that we allow abortion to

00:18:47.980 continue. You know, depending on the statistics you look at, one in four women have had abortions,

00:18:54.160 one in three women have had abortions. And I think that abortion goes up to some of the

00:18:59.900 highest levels in our government. I think that many, many people have participated in abortion.

00:19:06.260 I think that they are fearful to not have abortion as an option available to them.

00:19:15.380 But I think it's just, by and large, a very wounded culture that we're living in.

00:19:22.500 And I think there's a lot of fear. I think there's fear of being exposed, fear of

00:19:29.360 not having the availability. I think just fear.

00:19:38.280 I think, too, I think there's also a fear of healing. What would it be like if I had to admit

00:19:45.060 to what I've done? You know, if abortion goes away,

00:19:50.200 and we actually start calling abortion what it is. And we, and our laws now are formed around

00:20:01.760 what abortion is, and that it's murder. And it's taking an innocent human life. And we call it what

00:20:10.380 it is. And our laws call it what it is. I think that's scary for a lot of people who have had

00:20:18.260 abortions or who have participated in abortion. Because then they have to deal with that reality

00:20:25.520 that, oh, my gosh, I had an abortion. So what does that make me? I've murdered my child.

00:20:33.020 That's a very difficult reality to live with. That's a very difficult reality to

00:20:40.300 come to terms with. So it's easier not to. And it's, that's a very difficult,

00:20:51.660 it's a very difficult label to live with.

00:20:56.760 Can you tell me a little bit more about the quotas? You know, what, what, when you say quota,

00:21:01.680 you know, what does that mean in the context of your clinic? And how widespread was that across

00:21:06.480 Planned Parenthood at the time? We had a quota at our clinic, I, you know, I would say it was just

00:21:13.380 under 100 abortions every month that we had to perform. So, you know, you, we had a, it was an

00:21:22.860 annual quota that was essentially broken up into months. That is at every Planned Parenthood abortion

00:21:30.700 facility. So it's how you come up with the budget, with your, with your abortion budget. It's,

00:21:41.980 you know, how they essentially keep the doors open. You know, Planned Parenthood parades around

00:21:49.200 as this nonprofit organization, as this great benefactor to the masses, this charitable group.

00:21:58.720 But honestly, they are profit driven. They are looking for the most effective ways to

00:22:09.200 make money. They are trying to get the most women in their doors as they can to

00:22:17.180 have abortions because abortion is their

00:22:22.000 highest revenue generating product with the lowest cost. So it does not cost them very much

00:22:31.400 to commit an abortion, but the payout is very, very high for them. And so they try to shove as

00:22:39.920 many women as they can on the schedule. Women sometimes are waiting four or five, six hours

00:22:44.960 to have an abortion because they overbooked themselves. It's such a high amount, but they

00:22:51.860 don't care. And the women don't care because they see this as a service that they need and they're

00:22:57.940 willing to be treated like trash in order to receive it.

00:23:03.240 How, how were the quotas communicated to you? And when did you become aware of quotas when you

00:23:08.840 joined Planned Parenthood? You know, I really didn't even understand that there was a quota

00:23:17.000 until I became the director. And that was when I was given my budget and my budget was broken down

00:23:25.720 by quotas. And that was sort of, that was really eyeopening to me. And then when I had my next budget

00:23:34.900 meeting, that was when I was told, we're going to be ramping these up. We're going to be doubling

00:23:39.360 quotas. And so much so that we're going to get you a whiteboard and we're going to put a whiteboard

00:23:46.520 in the staff break room. And you are going to have to start writing down how many abortions are

00:23:54.080 performed at your facility every week. And you're going to have to start counting down on this whiteboard

00:24:00.520 how many abortions still need to be performed from week to week, how many abortions still need to be

00:24:05.300 performed from month to month in order to meet your quota. And you've got to really motivate your

00:24:11.540 staff. And on the months that we met our quota, then the staff would get free lunch. We would bring in

00:24:19.920 lunch and my supervisor would put it on her company card and we would get lunch from, you know,

00:24:27.680 a pizza place or sandwich place or something like that to celebrate meeting our quota and killing

00:24:34.640 the number of babies that they wanted us to kill. I can say regrettably now that there was never a month

00:24:45.080 when I was on staff that we did not meet our quota. Um, and that was honestly,

00:24:54.500 I was given, I was given Planned Parenthood's employee of the year award

00:25:01.720 my last year that I was there. And

00:25:06.260 that's why I got their employee of the year award. It wasn't because,

00:25:12.840 you know, I was good at remembering birthdays or

00:25:17.880 I was the friendliest at the affiliate or anything like that. I was the best at selling

00:25:25.280 abortion. I was the best at motivating my staff to sell abortion.

00:25:32.520 So with what you know of Planned Parenthood, was Planned Parenthood interested in the well-being

00:25:39.180 of the woman who stepped through their doors?

00:25:41.220 Planned Parenthood is not interested in protecting women. They're not interested in the well-being

00:25:48.400 of women at all. They're interested in the bottom line. They're interested in generating a product.

00:25:56.540 And that product is abortion. And we see that, right? We see that now. We see that across the country.

00:26:05.160 The Planned Parenthood's talking points have changed. And they changed actually while I worked

00:26:15.180 at Planned Parenthood. So when I started working at Planned Parenthood in 2001, the Planned Parenthood

00:26:26.140 talking point, their media points were, we provide preventative health care services.

00:26:33.600 Abortion is a very small percentage of what we do. It's less than 3% of what we do. We are not an

00:26:41.440 abortion provider. We are a health care provider. And they really, really focused on their family

00:26:47.400 planning services. So, you know, STD testing, birth control, well-women exams, things like that.

00:26:56.840 About, let's see, it was in about 2007. So it was right around the time that I became the director

00:27:03.500 at Planned Parenthood. Their talking points changed. Everything changed. Their persona in the media

00:27:12.180 changed. And they really became more brazen about their support of abortion. In my first few years

00:27:23.160 at Planned Parenthood, we didn't even keep the pamphlets, our abortion pamphlets, out for the public.

00:27:30.300 So if somebody wanted a pamphlet on abortion, they were actually kept behind the desk. They had to ask

00:27:35.780 for one, and we would give it to them. Now, all of a sudden, abortion information was out for people

00:27:41.940 to see. It was out in our waiting room. It was just out and open for people. And the talking points

00:27:48.980 changed. So now it became abortion is essential. It's an essential part of the services that we provide.

00:27:57.300 And having an abortion is sacrificial. So women who choose abortion are doing so for the well-being

00:28:08.340 of themselves, their current families, and their future families. That became Planned Parenthood's

00:28:15.540 talking point. And that was when we saw the pendulum start to swing to the other side.

00:28:24.240 And that was really when Planned Parenthood, I think, started to change overall. That was when we saw

00:28:34.920 more of a push for abortion quotas. That was when they started backing off of all of these family

00:28:42.940 planning services. And we've seen that. So in the past 10 years, these other family planning services

00:28:49.540 have plummeted, most of them by over 65% to 70%. So, you know, birth control services are down by more

00:28:57.740 than 65%. STD testing, down by more than 65%. Breast care, down by more than 65%. While woman exams,

00:29:08.720 down by more than 65%, just in the past 10 years. The only thing that has continued to increase

00:29:15.860 at Planned Parenthood in the past 10 years has been abortions and government funding.

00:29:23.500 Everything else has been on a sharp decline. And we also see something different at Planned

00:29:32.060 Parenthood that we did not see, you know, 15, 20 years ago when I was there. And that is the opening

00:29:39.500 of abortion-only facilities. So there are now facilities across the country, Planned Parenthood

00:29:47.380 facilities, that only do abortions six days a week, 50 hours a week. So they do not provide

00:29:55.640 well-woman care. They do not provide STD testing. They do not provide birth control. These are abortion-only

00:30:03.980 facilities. They have gotten rid of any other preventative care. And we saw that shift under

00:30:09.220 Cecile Richards, their past president, and Richards' daughter. We saw that shift coming under her.

00:30:16.960 She said in a tweet one day, she said, abortion care is as essential as cancer screenings.

00:30:26.800 So we saw that shift coming under her. And they, you know, appointed a new president,

00:30:33.640 Leanna Nguyen, who was only there for nine months. She ended up leaving because she was not pushing

00:30:42.520 abortion enough. She's a physician. And she wanted to get back on track with the whole prevention

00:30:48.620 model. And they said no. And she's been outspoken about how her ideals about, you know,

00:30:57.580 what Planned Parenthood should be, were at odds with what the Federation, what Planned Parenthood

00:31:04.580 Federation wanted her to push. And that's why she left.

00:31:08.780 So let's go back in time a little bit. You know, why did you join Planned Parenthood originally?

00:31:16.400 I joined Planned Parenthood completely ignorant about what they were,

00:31:21.980 what they did, what they were about. I grew up in a Christian home, pro-life home. My parents,

00:31:31.380 you know, I remember my parents saying abortion was wrong. But I can't say, you know, I grew up

00:31:36.920 knowing about abortion or about the pro-life movement or pro-choice. We didn't really talk

00:31:43.080 about that around the dinner table or anything like that. And so I went to college, met a woman

00:31:51.500 on campus who was recruiting students to volunteer with Planned Parenthood. And their table was

00:32:00.160 dripping with hot pink. And that's what drew me over. And she just started asking me about,

00:32:07.200 you know, what I thought about women's rights and feminism. And I didn't know. I never really

00:32:14.460 thought about it. And everything that she was saying made sense to me as someone who was just very naive.

00:32:20.240 And I thought, OK, yeah, I mean, what does it hurt just to go volunteer and check it out?

00:32:26.740 I knew it was wrong. I knew in the back of my head it was wrong because I did not tell my parents

00:32:32.900 that I was at Planned Parenthood. I had been there a year and a half before I told my parents what I

00:32:39.060 was doing. And I knew they would not like it. I knew that they would say, this is wrong. You're

00:32:45.220 at an abortion provider. This is not OK. But I thought, you know what, I'll get up enough stories.

00:32:51.400 I'll come up with enough good things to convince them that what I'm doing is OK. And, you know,

00:32:58.120 then I just thought I'm in. I mean, once I was in, I just thought, no, this is the right thing to do.

00:33:03.800 This is what I should be doing. And there was a contingency of pro-life people on the sidewalk.

00:33:14.440 There were two groups. There was one group that was really loving and they were out there praying

00:33:18.400 and they were praying the rosary and they were trying to reach out to women. There was another

00:33:21.460 group out there who were very aggressive. They were very hateful. They were calling women names.

00:33:26.340 They had these big graphic signs and they were terrible. And I remember pulling up my first

00:33:33.200 day to volunteer. And I remember seeing that group of people out there and thinking,

00:33:37.720 if that's the pro-life movement, I don't want to have anything to do with them. And I remember

00:33:42.640 feeling very protective over the women going in and just saying, I need to help them. This is where I

00:33:49.640 need to be. And that was it. And that really started my eight-year-long career. And then I ended up having

00:34:00.860 two abortions of my own. I ended up being an educator for Planned Parenthood. I worked a little

00:34:12.760 bit in political affairs for them. I mean, I sort of was very involved in every part of Planned

00:34:20.060 Parenthood and really believed in our mission. So when did Planned Parenthood communicate to you

00:34:29.740 and how did they communicate to you that you were to start targeting minority communities?

00:34:34.940 We really started targeting minority communities when I worked as one of the jobs I had before I

00:34:46.220 was the director of the center, before I was the clinic director. I was the community services

00:34:52.260 director. And I didn't realize it then, but part of my job then was to really help rally support

00:35:02.280 for the clinic. And so the regional director at the time would say to me, okay, you need to go out

00:35:12.420 and you need to put out flyers about Planned Parenthood. And you need to get out there and

00:35:20.500 garner support for us. And I was in charge of the fundraiser in the town for Planned Parenthood. And so

00:35:28.220 we ran a fundraiser and all this kind of stuff. That was the first time in that community services

00:35:36.480 director position that I was told, you need to go into poor neighborhoods and put out flyers and put

00:35:45.200 out information about Planned Parenthood and the services that we provide. And they said, you know,

00:35:51.140 you need to go and you need to try to do talks in these communities. You need to try to go into these

00:36:02.100 HUD housing developments, these projects. And you need to try to, a lot of times they'll have

00:36:07.480 community meetings and you need to try to be the one to be the presenter in these community meetings

00:36:13.360 and let them know about our services and let them know that we provide abortions too, and that we can

00:36:19.160 help them with their family size. And at the time I thought, oh, that's great. We really are helping

00:36:29.960 them. You know, they don't have enough money to feed the mouse currently at their table. And so

00:36:35.560 this is great. We're, you know, we're helping them. I was like, so naive. It had been presented to me

00:36:43.220 as this good. Like, look at the good that we're doing for these people, you know. And I remember one time

00:36:52.900 they really, for some reason, my boss was a fallen away Catholic. And she had a real thing about trying

00:37:06.460 to get Catholics into the clinic. And she had said, you know, you need to try to reach out

00:37:19.780 as the educator. You need to try to reach out to Catholic churches. Just don't tell them that

00:37:23.840 you're with Planned Parenthood. And just tell them you're a health educator. And go to these Hispanic

00:37:30.780 churches. And these women, they're going to tell you that they can't use birth control.

00:37:39.420 That their husbands won't let them use birth control. Tell them that's fine. Tell them we'll

00:37:44.560 put in a type of birth control that their husband won't know about. And that they could come here for

00:37:50.600 free. That we have funding. We can put them on. And we can do an IUD or we can do an implant in their

00:37:57.300 arm. And their husbands will never know. And it was like she had this joy about getting women into

00:38:09.760 the clinic to stray from their faith. And she was like, won't that be great? That'll be great.

00:38:20.340 We'll get them in. They don't have to be just these baby-making machines, you know, for their

00:38:24.760 husbands. Their husbands are just trying to, you know, trying to just make them submissive. And I

00:38:32.000 was so young and just so easily almost brainwashed. I was like, yeah, yeah, okay. You know, I'll do that.

00:38:43.700 Um, and she was so much older than me. She was like a, she was older than my mom. You know,

00:38:55.300 she was, she had been with the facility forever. And I wanted to take over her job. So I was trying

00:39:02.900 to do everything I could to please her. I mean, I'm not making excuses. I did terrible things. But I

00:39:07.240 mean, I was trying to do everything I could to please her and do what she told me to do. And,

00:39:13.060 and so I was like, okay, yeah, I mean, I'll, you know, I can do that. Yeah, I'll do that.

00:39:18.240 And, and at the time I really thought it was a good idea.

00:39:23.380 And, but that was also the time that we started really going into minority neighborhoods. That was

00:39:34.060 the time that, that year was really the time that we started going into, um, these HUD housing

00:39:41.760 developments. And really at her request, I mean, she was like, these are the clients that we want.

00:39:48.540 These are the clients that we need. And I mean, I can't say at the time that I,

00:39:57.980 I had any qualms about it. I can't say at the time that I thought, oh, this is wrong

00:40:03.200 because I was still at the time, very, I, I was still very much thinking, oh yeah, we'll get them

00:40:10.560 on birth control. We'll help them. That's, that was sort of my mindset, but I know that's not,

00:40:18.440 I know that's not where her head was. Um, because we weren't making money on birth control.

00:40:23.620 We, a lot of times we actually lost money on birth control. We were making money on abortion

00:40:30.560 and I know that's where her head was. So how, how widespread is this targeting of minorities?

00:40:38.260 Was it just your clinic or is there reason to believe that this is something systemic in the

00:40:44.500 whole organization? Targeting minorities is a systemic problem inside of the abortion industry.

00:40:53.620 period. Uh, we have former workers that talk about giving discounts to minority patients for

00:41:03.660 abortions and not giving discounts to white patients. So let's talk about the hush money that

00:41:09.680 your clinic was giving patients. Um, same, same question, you know, was that just your clinic or,

00:41:18.060 you know, where did this idea of giving hush money to patients come from? Was that handed down from,

00:41:22.740 you know, higher up in the organization or what were the origins of that?

00:41:27.140 Unfortunately, we hear stories about this hush money situation. We hear that from many

00:41:34.060 different workers, particularly former clinic directors like myself who have had to hand over

00:41:41.240 the same sort of checks that I did. Um, you know, it, it happens. Um, the problem is that there are so

00:41:54.900 many women who are harmed by abortion, but the shame keeps them from coming forward and going to a

00:42:08.840 medical malpractice attorney, going to a personal injury attorney and saying something bad happened

00:42:16.040 to me. Um, you know, I, part of my baby was left inside of me, or I was left laying on an abortion

00:42:23.740 clinic table for five hours while they were trying to pack my uterus full of gauze.

00:42:28.860 Hmm. When did you realize the truth about the organization you were working for and, uh, the

00:42:40.360 reality of, you know, what abortion was? I think for a long time I had done a pretty good job of,

00:42:49.680 or particularly in the, in the last two years, I had done a good job of justifying all the things

00:42:56.160 that were bothering me. And I'd done a good job of just sort of saying, well, it'll get better. Or,

00:43:04.100 you know, this is for a reason or, you know, whatever. But when I saw the ultrasound guided

00:43:10.640 abortion, I did try. I mean, I did, I did try to make sense of it. I tried to

00:43:19.440 make it okay in my head, what I had seen, but I just, I knew that it was, it was too much. It was

00:43:31.020 too far. I knew I could not make sense of what I had just seen. I knew that that was not supposed

00:43:38.900 to happen. That there had been women throughout that past eight years that had come to me who had

00:43:47.160 asked me probably the most frequently asked question I had gotten was, is my baby going to

00:43:53.220 feel this? And I'd said, no, of course not. No, it's not, no, it's not even a baby. It's nothing.

00:44:00.880 It's just, it's just tissue. It's just cells. It's just nothing. And yet here I was watching this baby,

00:44:11.260 you know, fighting for his life. And I thought, oh my gosh, I, I had lied to them, not intentionally,

00:44:24.440 but I had lied to them. And because of that, I, I mean, I had been lied to, but I, I had lied to them.

00:44:38.020 And I thought, I can't, I can't make this right. I hate liars. I hate lying. I, and I just thought,

00:44:45.560 I'm, I'm the biggest liar I know right now. And there was nothing I could do to justify that.

00:44:53.860 I feel like, you know, over my life, over that eight years, I kept coming to crossroads. And I

00:45:00.860 think that's always in all of our lives. You know, we come to a crossroad and we can either

00:45:05.200 choose righteousness or we can choose sin. And over and over in the abortion industry,

00:45:12.160 I would choose sin over and over. And every time I would choose sin, my heart would become a little

00:45:18.520 more callous, a little more hardened. But in that moment, when I saw that, you know, I did have,

00:45:25.740 I did have a choice to make, but it was like God was not allowing me to choose that other road.

00:45:35.200 God was only going to allow me to choose righteousness. It was like that, you know,

00:45:40.500 the Bible says that, you know, their hearts of stone would be turned into hearts of flesh.

00:45:46.400 And I felt like that is what had happened to me. And it, it took seeing that child die. You know,

00:45:57.880 it wasn't, it wasn't the mangled body parts that did it. It wasn't the blood. It wasn't the gore. It

00:46:04.400 wasn't, it wasn't the death. Actually, it was seeing the life of that child and seeing that,

00:46:13.920 that life disappear. You know, it was seeing that heartbeat stop

00:46:21.540 in real time, right in front of my face.

00:46:29.060 That's, that's what caused me to say, this is wrong. I cannot do this anymore.

00:46:34.620 We have more of our conversation with Abby coming up in just a second. First though,

00:46:41.160 be sure to text pro-life to 47581. Because as the country grapples with the aftermath of overturning

00:46:48.500 Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement has come under fire from far left pro-abortion extremists.

00:46:55.240 Not only have leftists firebombed and vandalized pro-life clinics in multiple states,

00:46:59.860 but online pro-life groups have experienced mass censorship by Google, Facebook, TikTok,

00:47:07.160 you name it. That's why Live Action has been working tirelessly to find ways to spread the

00:47:11.780 truth about abortion and share resources with those who need it most without relying on biased big tech.

00:47:18.760 If you want to join Live Action's Fight for Life, text pro-life to 47581 and opt in to receive

00:47:25.740 updates from Live Action about their ongoing work to end abortion. Texting pro-life to 47581

00:47:32.320 means you won't be at the mercy of the big tech censors in the ongoing fight for life.

00:47:46.900 Can you give audiences who aren't necessarily familiar with your story, kind of set the scene

00:47:53.040 for us? Maybe just take us on that journey, like put us in your shoes, you know, the moments leading

00:47:58.860 up to you walking into the room, you walking into the room, what's the abortionist ask you to do?

00:48:05.600 Why are you there? And what do you start seeing? You know, what are you seeing? What are you hearing?

00:48:10.480 Yeah. As a clinic director of the facility, I've, you know, I'm not a nurse. I'm not a doctor.

00:48:15.540 Um, I'm a therapist by education, but, um, I don't have any medical credentials whatsoever. So

00:48:22.480 I was an administrator, you know, I made sure that medical protocols were being followed,

00:48:29.900 but I was not the one to be the medical person. Um, I was not typically in the room for abortions.

00:48:39.380 Um, I handled staff, I handled clinic flow, things like that. And we had a visiting physician in that

00:48:50.680 day from another facility and he owned his own private abortion facility. And he had told me

00:49:01.140 one time in the car when I was actually driving him to the clinic that at his facility,

00:49:09.380 he performed something called an ultrasound guided abortion. And that was new to me. That

00:49:16.740 was something that we did not do at our facility. Our facility, we only did sort of these blind

00:49:23.800 abortion procedures. So the doctor has a suction instrument. He puts that into the woman's uterus

00:49:30.160 and he just blindly pokes around inside of the woman's uterus until he thinks he has enough blood

00:49:35.040 and tissue in a glass jar. That glass jar then goes into a lab called the POC lab. POC stands for

00:49:43.160 products of conception. That's of course the baby, that POC tack dumps everything into a glass baking

00:49:51.100 dish. She reassembles the parts of the baby to make sure that everything is accounted for and nothing is

00:49:57.100 left in the uterus. And then all the parts of the baby go into a red biohazard waste bag. And then

00:50:05.560 someone comes to pick that up every week or every other week and it's taken and incinerated. And that

00:50:11.920 was the only way I knew abortion to occur. This doctor said he did it differently. He came to our

00:50:19.740 facility that day and he said that he wanted to show us what this type of abortion procedure looked

00:50:26.920 like. And I thought, okay, well, you know, this will be a good learning experience for me. I was called in to

00:50:33.720 assist and my job was to hold the ultrasound probe on the woman's abdomen during the abortion so that

00:50:42.640 the doctor would be able to, in his words, visualize his target. And we do the ultrasound, the baby's 13

00:50:51.560 weeks, a little over 13 weeks. And at this point at 13 weeks, everything on the baby is, I mean,

00:51:01.080 completely formed. Arms, legs, fingers, toes, heart's been beating since 21 days post-conception,

00:51:07.200 brainwaves are functioning. Every internal organ that we sit here with today is completely formed

00:51:15.460 on a baby by that point. And so I stood there looking at the ultrasound screen, just honestly

00:51:22.200 feeling very apprehensive about what I was about to see because I recognized that this really looks like

00:51:32.960 a baby. But, you know, I was saying in my head, oh, well, it can't be because I have been taught

00:51:40.600 abortion science. And abortion science says that a pregnancy only turns into a baby when the mother

00:51:50.280 decides this pregnancy is wanted. And if a mother decides that this pregnancy is not wanted, then that

00:51:59.040 that pregnancy never turns into a baby. And this woman is here having an abortion. So clearly,

00:52:05.900 even though this really looks like a baby, it's really not. It's just tissue. It's just waste. It's

00:52:12.680 just something to be discarded. But I was feeling very nervous about what I was going to potentially see.

00:52:20.680 And I saw the, I could see, I could see on the, the ultrasound, I could see the suction tube. The

00:52:29.760 suction wasn't yet turned on. And I could see that going into the woman's uterus. And I saw it getting

00:52:36.540 closer and closer to the side of the baby. And then when it finally touched his side, he, he jumped

00:52:43.320 like he had been woken up or something. And, um, he started just flailing his arms and legs as if he

00:52:55.080 was trying to move away from the suction tube. And, um, then when the doctor got everything in the

00:53:05.460 right position, he said to the, to the tech to turn on the suction machine. And he said, uh, beam me up,

00:53:13.720 Scotty. And the suction was turned on. And I watched as this tiny baby was just torn apart in his mother's

00:53:29.280 wound by the power of the suction. And, um, you know, I just, when it was over, I remember just

00:53:40.120 dropping the ultrasound probe. And I remember looking down at, at my hands and I remember just

00:53:51.960 thinking, oh my gosh, you know, our, our hands and what we do with them. It's just so powerful. Um,

00:54:03.660 at that time, my daughter, Grace was three and she was just about to turn three. And, you know,

00:54:12.440 my hands were the first one to hold her after I gave birth to her. And, you know, they were the hands

00:54:19.340 that nursed her and rocked her back to sleep when she was upset and all of these things. But,

00:54:26.460 but in that moment, it was these hands that helped to take a life from another mother. And I just

00:54:33.540 thought, you know, what we do with our life, what we do with our hands, what we do with our bodies is

00:54:40.560 so powerful. And I just thought, I don't ever want to cause destruction again with these hands,

00:54:47.340 with my life. And I walked out of that room knowing that my life was going to be different,

00:54:55.820 knowing that I could never participate in abortion again. I didn't know what it was going to look like.

00:55:03.600 Um, but I knew that it was going to be different somehow.

00:55:06.940 Do you think most pro-choice supporters

00:55:11.240 are like you were just, you know, thinking, Oh, I want to support women's rights.

00:55:20.480 I want to do what's right for what, you know, for women, uh, and just not thinking about,

00:55:27.660 or just, you know, being whether ignorantly or intentionally, you know, just not thinking

00:55:33.860 about the truth of what abortion is. And we're not, and I'm not talking about like the pro-choice

00:55:39.740 movement or the industry, but just the average American. Yeah.

00:55:45.760 I think the average American doesn't really know a lot about abortion. Honestly, I think

00:55:52.500 a lot of people just think about the women. I think a lot of people have been sort of led to believe

00:55:59.820 that abortions are happening on these poor, pathetic women who have been victimized by

00:56:05.740 someone. And, you know, by gosh, what would they do if they didn't have the option of abortion,

00:56:15.540 right? They would go to these very, very dangerous back alley clinics and well, they would die if they,

00:56:22.080 if they didn't have abortion accessible to them. And so let's just prevent women from dying

00:56:26.980 and let's send them to these very, very safe, sterile facilities where they have painless,

00:56:35.320 bloodless, you know, healthy abortions. And I think that's what the bulk of Americans believe

00:56:43.380 abortion is. And it's just so not the case. And I think that we live in a time now with the younger

00:56:52.820 generation as it is, they are the most movable generation on abortion. But I'm not sure we're

00:57:01.040 doing a very good job of explaining what abortion is to them or making a really strong argument for

00:57:09.020 why they should be against abortion. And I think we have to do better at that. I think we must do better

00:57:19.120 because people that are, you know, in their 60s and 70s that are supporting abortion, they're

00:57:25.880 probably not going to change their minds on abortion. These are women, a lot of them who had

00:57:30.820 abortions back, you know, in the early days of Roe v. Wade. And they're sort of in that mindset that,

00:57:38.900 well, I have to have abortion or I had to have an abortion back then, or they were the fighters for,

00:57:43.660 you know, Roe. And so, you know, they have their own beliefs about it. And we're probably not going

00:57:51.720 to change their minds. And so that's really not who we're going for. That's not the generation that

00:57:57.140 we're looking to change. But this younger generation, these are people who, you know,

00:58:02.660 their first pictures of themselves, they have them. And it's their ultrasound picture of them in the

00:58:09.820 womb. This is a very movable generation on this issue. And so we need to be discussing this with

00:58:17.100 them in very honest detail. But I think the majority of Americans just, they just don't even know the

00:58:24.800 facts about abortion. I have so many people come on my social media pages and they say, well, you're

00:58:29.460 ridiculous because abortion isn't even, it's not even allowed after 12 weeks. And I'm like, come on.

00:58:35.780 Abortion is allowed in many states up until the date of birth for any reason. There's a doctor in

00:58:40.980 Colorado, Dr. Warren Hearn, who is performing abortions electively up until the date of birth

00:58:46.700 in Boulder, Colorado. People don't even know that. And many pro-choice supporters believe that abortion

00:58:53.220 is not allowed after the first trimester. I think if they knew that, I think if they knew the reality, I think

00:58:58.860 if they knew what abortion really was, what it was really doing to a child, they wouldn't support it.

00:59:03.760 And, you know, to that point, you know, if you were to tell a pro-choice person one thing,

00:59:10.300 what's the one thing that a pro-choice American should know?

00:59:15.340 If I had to tell one thing to an abortion supporter, I think I would talk to them about

00:59:22.400 the detrimental effects of abortion on women. Because if we're really, really honest, nobody wants to

00:59:31.480 talk about this. But if we're really, really honest about abortion and why women choose abortion,

00:59:37.520 women choose abortion out of selfishness. And the point could be made years ago that they were choosing

00:59:49.080 abortion primarily out of fear. And I believed that. But I chose abortion out of selfishness.

01:00:04.040 The majority of these women are choosing abortion because they don't want a baby to interrupt their

01:00:09.500 plans. And that's not fear. That's just convenience. And so when I talk to women, whether it's at a

01:00:22.120 pregnancy center, whether it's online, wherever it is, I have to talk to them about what abortion does to

01:00:30.220 them. Because if I talk to them about what it does to their baby, they don't care. I have to first start

01:00:38.520 off with what abortion does to them. How abortion affects women. I have to tell them that women who

01:00:48.160 have abortions are six times more likely to commit suicide. I have to tell them that women who have

01:00:55.140 abortions are more likely to have eating disorders, anxiety, depression. I have to talk to them about

01:01:01.180 the potential rate of infertility. I have to talk to them about the higher risk of breast cancer,

01:01:08.920 low birth weight in future pregnancies. That's what I have to go to them with first. Because

01:01:17.960 they don't care anything about taking the lives of their babies. And honestly, most of the women

01:01:26.960 that I'm talking to have already had multiple abortions. When we first started and then there

01:01:33.220 were none of our clinic worker ministry, clinic workers would come out of the industry generally

01:01:39.920 one of three reasons or a combination. They were either being treated really, really poorly

01:01:46.980 by their boss or somebody in the clinic. Two, something devastating had happened to a baby.

01:02:00.300 So a baby had been born alive or we had a worker that left because quadruplets were aborted and these

01:02:07.860 babies were just falling out of the woman's body and it was very traumatic for the staff.

01:02:11.600 Or something devastating had happened to a woman. So a woman had almost died on the table. She had

01:02:19.120 bled out. A woman did die on the table. You know, something like that. Now we're actually seeing

01:02:27.180 a new reason that industry workers are coming through our ministry. And it's because the callous

01:02:37.280 nature of women coming into their clinic who are seeking abortions. You know, these industry workers

01:02:45.780 got into the industry like me, wanting to help women, right? And thinking, oh, I'm helping to prevent

01:02:52.680 women from going into these back alley abortion clinics. Or, you know, abortion is sort of a necessary

01:02:58.840 evil, right? It's like you're just sort of calling a mulligan, right? They messed up one time and I'm

01:03:05.160 going to help them get through this one time so they can finish their education. They can, you know,

01:03:10.940 finish college. They can finish, they can go on their career path. They can, you know, meet whatever

01:03:16.200 goal it is they want to meet. But now they're coming to us because they're like, these women are terrible.

01:03:22.700 These women are coming in and they have sat in front of me six other times.

01:03:28.600 These women are coming in and they're making jokes about having abortions. They're making jokes

01:03:36.480 about killing their babies. They are so callous about aborting their baby. And these workers are like,

01:03:49.380 that's not why I got into this. And they can't stand it. And that's why they're leaving.

01:03:55.440 And that is just the epitome of selfishness. That you're willing to take someone else's life

01:04:05.280 to better your own. That you're willing to mock the death of an innocent human being.

01:04:15.320 For what? For the betterment of yourself. And so it's been interesting. But even these industry

01:04:23.900 workers are seeing just the brazen condition of our society when it comes to abortion.

01:04:32.880 And how much do you think that callousness is due to the messaging of the pro-abortion movement

01:04:39.640 over the last 20 years? You know, with things like shout your abortion or celebrate your abortion.

01:04:44.700 If the abortion industry had not swung that pendulum so far, right? If the abortion industry,

01:04:56.160 you know, in 2007, 2008, if they had not changed their positioning where they made abortion sort of

01:05:04.300 like this sacrificial thing, which sort of then became like this domino effect where abortion is

01:05:12.100 sacrificial. And you're doing it for yourself, your current family, and your future family.

01:05:18.740 And then that led to, you know, opening these abortion-only centers. And then that was the

01:05:24.500 Shout Your Abortion movement. And I'm proud of my abortion. Gloria Steinem, you know, standing on the

01:05:29.420 front cover of a magazine wearing a shirt that said I had an abortion. And it was just this snowball,

01:05:35.340 right, that kept rolling down this hill where people were standing up at podiums saying I'm

01:05:41.860 really proud of the fact that I had my abortion. And then, you know, then the Women's March,

01:05:48.080 right? And then there was a group that trained women on how to proudly proclaim the fact that

01:05:55.280 they've had abortions. And so you sort of see this effect. And now it's like, oh no, abortion is

01:06:08.280 birth control. And be proud of that. Be proud if you've had 15, 16 abortions. There's nothing wrong

01:06:16.040 with that. And now Planned Parenthood does not want to say that only 3% of their services are abortion,

01:06:24.220 because that creates abortion stigma. And abortion stigma is a bad thing.

01:06:31.360 There's nothing wrong with having an abortion. So don't act like there's something wrong with

01:06:35.760 having an abortion. If they had not done that, if they had kept it to the talking point of let's keep

01:06:48.300 abortion safe, legal, and rare, I don't believe Roe would be hanging in the balance.

01:06:54.220 Like it is right now. Because keeping abortion safe, legal, and rare is something that most people

01:07:01.700 can rally around. Even people who are, you know, moderately pro-life will say, I mean, that makes

01:07:13.000 sense. Right? I mean, most people are like, okay, yeah. I mean, abortion rare, yeah, okay, that makes

01:07:20.320 sense. Right? Even Christians, even some Christians were like, well, okay, I mean, let's not ban

01:07:30.180 abortion. Let's just keep it safe, legal, and rare. I mean, there were many churches that supported

01:07:36.700 that mantra. It's wrong, but they supported that mantra. Now this pro-choice movement, they have lost

01:07:46.260 their minds. And they've lost their moderate base. And now, you know, they're for abortion all the way,

01:07:54.360 you know, through the date of birth. People can't get on board with that. People are not on board with

01:08:00.880 that. Every pro-choice person I knew when I worked at Planned Parenthood thought abortion passed the

01:08:07.120 point of viability was wrong. Now that suddenly the Democratic parties, they're okay with that.

01:08:15.460 Now suddenly, the pro-choice movement is okay with that. Pro-choice individuals are not okay with that.

01:08:23.680 Not the ones I know. But they are losing people right and left. And in fact, we have people who,

01:08:34.620 with our ministry, who now, who say they're pro-choice, but they're donors to our pro-life

01:08:42.120 ministry, Loveline, because we're actually helping moms. And they're like, we don't know where to go.

01:08:47.940 We don't feel like we fit in the pro-choice movement anymore. But you're out here actually

01:08:53.260 providing help for moms in need. And you're buying them car seats. And you're buying them cribs. And

01:08:58.220 you're, you know, helping them with housing. And so we're going to donate to you.

01:09:02.760 Because we don't have a home anymore. In the pro-choice movement, because we don't want to

01:09:07.960 support abortion up through the date of birth. And so they're now donors to us. Because they see

01:09:15.500 that we're actually being part of the solution. And so they have completely, they have completely

01:09:21.520 missed the mark. And they have flown right over the bulk of pro-choice supporters.

01:09:27.740 So to the thing you were just talking about, is there a disconnect between the pro-abortion lobby

01:09:36.980 or the industry and the average pro-choice person?

01:09:43.960 I think there, I think there is a disconnect in general between those who are pushing pro-choice

01:09:54.100 legislation, pro-choice politicians, and then the general pro-choicer. I think there's, yes,

01:10:03.380 I think there's a huge disconnect there.

01:10:05.260 And what's the, what's kind of the most crucial difference between those two individuals?

01:10:10.240 Well, the pro-choice politician and the pro-choice lobby, they are, they're really

01:10:17.480 trying to get the priority of the abortion industry out front and center, which is money focused.

01:10:28.020 It's, it's greed focused. So, you know, it's getting abortion clinics up all over the country.

01:10:37.700 It's a push for clients, getting clients in the door. It's a push for federal money.

01:10:44.820 Whereas I think the, you know, pro-choice person is looking and saying, well, I, I just want to,

01:10:55.460 I just want women to be safe. And that's oftentimes what I talk to people about. You know, I'll go and,

01:11:02.580 and when I talk to people, they're like, well, I just want women to be safe. I'm like, me too.

01:11:05.800 You know, we just have different opinions of what that looks like. And that's something that we can

01:11:11.060 actually have a dialogue about and, and talk about. But when I talk to pro-choice politicians,

01:11:17.960 they're not about safety at all. Um, they don't want to talk about women's safety one bit. They

01:11:25.360 used to, but their priorities have greatly changed.

01:11:29.000 And so you just segued perfectly for me, uh, into the next question, which is,

01:11:34.220 you know, is there any common ground between, you know, the common, you know, person who says,

01:11:41.520 oh yeah, I'm pro-choice and the pro-life movement. And if so, you know, what is that

01:11:46.660 common ground? And can we use that as a, as a starting point to the conversation?

01:11:50.660 I don't, I don't know if there's any common ground. Um, I mean, what about, like you just

01:11:59.460 said, women's safety, you know? Yeah. I mean, they'll, yeah, I mean, they're, they're, they will

01:12:05.060 say like, oh, I want women to be safe. And I'll say, well, I want women to be safe. And I'll say,

01:12:09.680 well, how, how do you want women to be safe? And they'll say, well, I want women to be able to,

01:12:14.620 you know, access abortion and not have to go to a back alley. And then I'll start telling them,

01:12:20.860 well, this is really what abortion clinics are like. The problem is that they don't want to

01:12:26.120 believe it. Even if you give them the evidence, even if you say, well, go to this website,

01:12:30.960 here's where all the inspection reports are. I can show you how dangerous abortion clinics are.

01:12:36.920 You know, many pro-choice people, particularly if they're older, if they're younger, they're pretty

01:12:41.520 movable. But if they're, if they're older, they just don't want to believe it. They, they are so

01:12:46.400 scared to have abortion access unavailable. And I think there's a general, they don't understand

01:12:59.780 what resources are available for women. So they think if women get pregnant and they don't have

01:13:06.560 abortion as an option, then women, every pregnant woman is going to end up homeless and on the street.

01:13:11.520 Instead of recognizing that there are actually a lot of resources available for women,

01:13:18.500 thousands of resources available for women. I think there's just a lack of information out there

01:13:28.700 that honestly, we probably need to do a better job of helping people become aware of the resources

01:13:37.180 that are out there. And what kind of resources are there available to women?

01:13:40.820 I mean, there's thousands of pregnancy resource centers available to women. They actually outnumber,

01:13:49.400 pregnancy resource centers outnumber abortion clinics now almost four to one. So these pregnancy

01:13:56.700 resource centers provide help for a mom while she's pregnant. And then years after she delivers her

01:14:05.800 baby with anything, I mean, support, emotional support, material support, so many resources for

01:14:16.100 if she needs insurance, they can help her file for insurance. If she needs WIC or whatever it may be,

01:14:22.620 Medicaid, they can help her file for all of those things. They're a great support to women.

01:14:26.420 My ministry, Loveline, people can find out about that at loveline.com. We are a 24-hour crisis case

01:14:33.860 management support. And we help anybody that's in need of crisis support. So whether they're pregnant

01:14:42.420 or whether they're not pregnant, single moms, single dads, people who are victims of domestic violence,

01:14:48.940 people who need, who are victims of sex trafficking, anybody that's in need of assistance, we help

01:14:56.020 with that financial piece. So whether they need, you know, rent paid or car payments made or whatever

01:15:03.140 that may be, that's sort of the, we do complement the services of pregnancy resource centers quite well.

01:15:11.960 They can provide a lot of the material resources and we can provide a lot of the financial resources.

01:15:16.880 Um, you know, there's a lot of government help out there for women that I think they don't even

01:15:21.960 know about. There's child care subsidy programs that help pay for daycare. Um, the WIC program,

01:15:27.440 Women, Infants, and Children's program is something that I think pretty much every pregnant woman

01:15:32.400 needs to be on. They can help with breastfeeding support. Uh, they provide groceries, uh, for women,

01:15:39.100 all kinds of things, uh, that they can help women with. A lot of educational resources for them.

01:15:44.700 There's just a lot of resources out there that women don't know about. They don't know how to take

01:15:49.760 care. They don't know how to, they don't know how to access these services. And that's why I think

01:15:57.200 pregnancy resource centers are so great. That's why I think Loveline is great because we can help women

01:16:01.500 tap in to those resources. And by the way, the abortion industry is doing none of that. They're not

01:16:08.320 helping women apply for WIC. They're not helping women apply for Medicaid. They're not have,

01:16:12.100 they don't have a, a stock load of diapers in, in their centers. So that if a woman chooses

01:16:17.800 parenting, they can, you know, send her off with a box of diapers when she leaves. They're not doing

01:16:23.220 anything like that for women. The only thing that they can offer a woman who is pregnant is to take

01:16:29.040 the life of her baby. And so, you know, that leads directly to the question, is the pro-choice

01:16:35.380 movement really the friend of women that they're messaging all centers around?

01:16:41.260 The pro-choice movement is literally doing nothing to actually help women. And which is why I think

01:16:49.220 there are a lot of pro-choice people now who are helping Loveline. They're donating money to Loveline.

01:16:57.020 They're going on our Amazon registries, baby registries, and they're donating to the women

01:17:03.100 that we're helping because they don't, they don't know what else to do because there is no help like

01:17:09.220 that in the pro-choice movement for women. You know, I think about just the eight years that I

01:17:14.480 was at Planned Parenthood. And during that time, you know, I definitely would have called myself a,

01:17:18.520 you know, a feminist and, you know, a champion of women. There is not one time in that eight years

01:17:26.580 where a woman came to me for help, where I sat down across from her and I said,

01:17:31.340 you know, I'm going to help you today. If a woman came to me and said, I'm pregnant,

01:17:38.660 I essentially looked at her and said, that's tough. You know, you're really not strong enough

01:17:45.640 to do that. You're not strong enough to be a single mom. You're not strong enough to meet

01:17:49.660 your educational goals. You're not strong enough to meet your career goals. So the only thing I have

01:17:53.920 for you to do is I'm going to capitalize on your moment of weakness and I'm going to take advantage

01:18:01.420 of your vulnerability and I'm going to convince you to give me money to kill your baby. That's not

01:18:08.480 strength. That's not teaching her that she's strong. That's not giving her resources. That's

01:18:15.140 really the opposite of what feminism is. And we just exploited women day in and day out. We didn't teach

01:18:22.820 women they were strong. We exploited them at their moment of weakness. And is that still happening

01:18:27.980 today? It's happening every single day in every single abortion clinic across this country.

01:18:34.120 So, you know, a big talking point of the pro-abortion movement now is abortion has always

01:18:40.500 been accepted. It's always been societally fine. You know, look back to the 1600s, look back to,

01:18:45.420 you know, early societies, you know, even in the, in what would become the United States,

01:18:49.880 Native Americans, what have you. So has it, has it been the case or is it the case as Planned

01:18:57.940 Parenthood and other members of the abortion movement want people to believe that societally

01:19:04.460 it's always been, you know, acceptable to, to kill an unborn child? You know, one of the arguments

01:19:11.300 they make is, you know, well, look in the 1600s, it was fine before quickening, you know? Uh, so is,

01:19:17.400 is that argument kind of a good faith argument? Is that a true argument? Uh, or how do you respond

01:19:23.440 to that? I, I don't think that we can look at something and say, oh, well, you know, it was,

01:19:30.140 it was fine back then. So it must be fine now. I mean, we can't say that with slavery, like, well,

01:19:39.300 slavery was fine back then. So it must be fine now. Or, well, slavery was fine for hundreds of years.

01:19:45.600 So it's probably okay now too. I mean, when you know better, you do better. And it's, that's the

01:19:53.020 way it was with the Jewish Holocaust. That's the way it was with slavery. Now we know better with

01:20:01.260 abortion. We know what's happening in the womb. You know, medical technology, medical advancements

01:20:08.340 have come to the, to the point where we know exactly what's happening in the womb. We know

01:20:15.140 that this is a human being from the moment of conception. We, IVF labs have, have shown now

01:20:23.240 that when egg and sperm meet, there's actually a spark that takes place. It's called the spark of life.

01:20:29.720 There is something unique and incredible that happens at that moment of conception.

01:20:36.680 We know exactly what is taking place inside of the womb. We know that that's a human being. It's

01:20:43.720 never anything else. A woman has never had anything but a human being. We know that the heartbeat begins

01:20:50.600 at 21 days post-conception. We know that fingerprints are formed very early on in the

01:20:59.720 womb. We know that brain waves are active at just a few weeks along in the womb. We know so much

01:21:05.640 about the baby. Surgery is being performed, you know, in the womb now to correct multiple things

01:21:13.920 like spina bifida. Heart surgery is being performed on children in the womb still. How can we say

01:21:21.740 that's not a child? That child is not worthy of protection. How can we say that some children

01:21:30.860 are worthy of protection and we're willing to move heaven and earth to protect this child and perform

01:21:36.780 heart surgery on them to help them survive, but that that same gestation we're willing to kill them

01:21:44.120 in the name of choice? That makes no sense. Just because something has happened for many years doesn't

01:21:49.880 make it right. And when you know better, you do better. And we clearly know better now.

01:21:57.400 You know, sometimes we hear the pro-abortion movement say, well, something has happened for

01:22:02.500 a long time or, you know, it's always been this way or abortion has always been around. So,

01:22:08.640 you know, it can't be wrong or it's it's fine because it, you know, it happened back a long time

01:22:14.460 ago. And so, but that's, I mean, that argument doesn't make any logical sense. And, and honestly,

01:22:22.840 I think, I think more and more people are moving away from that argument because I think it's pretty

01:22:30.080 easy to debunk that argument when we look at time, when we look at history, when we look at historical

01:22:37.600 fact, when we look, uh, we see that there are many things in history that were done that were wrong

01:22:45.640 and we changed course. And abortion is one of those things that we should change course.

01:22:52.860 What is, you know, what is the purpose of healthcare, you know, going back even to the

01:22:57.520 earliest days of, you know, the origins of the Hippocratic Oath and, you know, so you have the

01:23:03.060 audience a sense for what the purpose of healthcare really is.

01:23:05.280 The purpose of healthcare has always been to heal and to do no harm. Right. And that's why abortion

01:23:17.240 cannot ever truly be considered healthcare because in order for an abortion to be successful,

01:23:26.560 then a unique and individual human being must be killed. And that number one violates the Hippocratic

01:23:34.840 Oath. But two, it also just inherently goes against what healthcare is supposed to be. Healthcare is

01:23:43.220 supposed to be about healing, about making people well. And if you're killing someone, intentionally killing

01:23:49.180 someone, you are, you are not making them well. Um, and so, you know, the fact that the pro-abortion

01:23:55.740 movement is constantly saying abortion is healthcare, abortion is healthcare. Um, it's really just a false

01:24:00.860 claim if you understand anything about what healthcare truly is. So, you know, going back to 1973, uh,

01:24:10.760 what were, what were the main kind of justifications for Roe? And can we, you know, now that we have a

01:24:19.600 better understanding, better technology, we've seen the impacts of abortion for the last 50 years,

01:24:25.520 you know, what, what, what if any of those arguments still stand or do any of them still stand?

01:24:37.460 Roe was essentially predicated on a lie. So when, when all of that was taking place in 1972 and 1973,

01:24:54.060 um, you know, there's a group of people that said, well, we need abortion because, um, you know,

01:25:03.840 look at everything that's happening in the world. Women are dying from all of these back alley

01:25:08.620 abortions. They're, um, you know, they're, they're, uh, dying from, you know, these dangerous doctors and,

01:25:18.240 and all of this kind of stuff and, and, and at home abortions, that's one of the things that they

01:25:24.380 were saying. Dr. Bernard Nathanson was one of the co-founders of NARAL. So an organization that still

01:25:32.320 exists today. And in the eighties, he ended up having a conversion and became pro-life and he has

01:25:39.960 a really incredible story. And he is the one who actually later on in his life, he actually is the

01:25:49.260 one that came, that says that he came up with all of the fake numbers surrounding the amount of deaths

01:25:56.500 of women who were, you know, supposedly dying from these back alley abortions. He says that all of the

01:26:02.040 numbers were completely made up, that there were not that many women dying from back alley abortions.

01:26:07.620 There were not that women, not that many women dying from these at home abortion procedures. Sure,

01:26:13.640 there were some, um, but the numbers that they made were made up were, they were just completely

01:26:19.040 fabricated. Um, but during his time as an abortionist, he helped to commit over 75,000 abortions.

01:26:27.640 And he talked about four steps that he and his partners used to help America see abortion as a

01:26:36.560 societal norm. Um, but, you know, Roe had made all of these promises that, you know, if you allow

01:26:44.740 abortion, if you legalize abortion, then, you know, domestic violence is going to decrease, that, uh,

01:26:51.160 poverty is going to decrease, that, you know, all of these societal ills are going to essentially go

01:26:56.740 away if you allow women to kill their children. And that has actually not happened. Um, none of those

01:27:04.840 things have gotten any better. In fact, they've gotten worse over the years. And that makes sense

01:27:10.260 because when you allow a society to perpetuate violence against your most innocent citizens,

01:27:22.080 it makes sense that violence would become rampant against everyone in your society. And, um,

01:27:32.180 you know, they used a woman named Norma McCorvey, um, and, you know, said, oh, you know, Norma needed to

01:27:42.500 have an abortion and used her. She was an impoverished, uneducated woman. Um, Norma, you know, um,

01:27:51.760 was not a woman who had an abortion, but, um, it was, it was all just a big facade. It was just this big

01:28:01.320 trap. And it made all of these promises to our society. And it made all of these promises to

01:28:07.620 women. And it has essentially been a huge setup for our society. And people say, you know, oh, well,

01:28:17.660 if we don't have abortion, then, um, you know, banning abortion does not

01:28:22.480 lessen the likelihood of abortion. And that's ridiculous. Of course it does. Um, the law is a

01:28:31.780 teacher. And if we ban abortion, then of course, abortion numbers would go down. Um, I can't,

01:28:41.560 I can't think of any other scenario. I mean, if you said to people, uh, for the next 48 hours,

01:28:48.340 um, murder is going to be legal in the United States. Well, I can guarantee you the murder rate

01:28:59.080 would significantly go up in our country. If you said to people, uh, in the next 48 hours,

01:29:07.000 breaking into cars, completely legal. A lot of cars would be broken into. It's just,

01:29:16.100 that is our society. The law helps to instruct our culture. And that is why we need laws to help

01:29:27.420 ban abortion in our nation, to help instruct people to say, this is wrong. Taking the life

01:29:36.140 of an innocent human being is wrong. And life inside the womb is human.

01:29:42.460 Does the, does the argument of kind of bodily autonomy or kind of my body, my choice,

01:29:51.520 does that really benefit women or does it just let men off the hook?

01:29:58.120 I think abortion by and large lets men off the hook. Um, we saw this so many times in the abortion

01:30:11.160 industry, women who felt greatly failed by the men in their lives. Um, women almost always came in alone

01:30:26.600 and, you know, we would say, well, you know, is, is the father of the baby, you know, what's his

01:30:34.880 thought about this? Oh, he doesn't care. He, you know, he wants me to have an abortion. He doesn't

01:30:40.140 want to deal with the baby. Abortion is a, uh, it's a great escape for men. And we know that the man

01:30:54.120 involved is the single greatest influence on whether a woman will choose life for her child.

01:31:02.180 And abortion allows men to, um, um, escape the consequences of their actions. It allows

01:31:19.000 everyone to escape the consequences of their actions. Um, unfortunately now we are seeing a

01:31:29.840 growing population of men who are recognizing what they have done and they are coming to terms with

01:31:40.580 their lost fatherhood.

01:31:46.220 Can we, can we briefly, uh, you know, talk about what people think, you know, is happening with an

01:31:53.640 abortion compared to, you know, what a baby actually looks like and how big it is and how fully formed it

01:31:59.400 is at, you know, even just 12 weeks. Yeah. Um, there are hands and feet and a head and eyes.

01:32:08.880 I think a lot of people don't understand that there is a fully formed baby in the womb at just 12 weeks

01:32:14.840 gestation. Um, I think the pro-abortion lobby has done a really good job of convincing women that

01:32:21.040 inside of their womb is just tissue. It's just cells. It's just a nothing. It's just waste.

01:32:27.020 But there is a child with a heartbeat. There is a child with distinguishable fingerprints. There, um,

01:32:36.700 there's a baby in their womb. And I think if more people understood the humanity of their child,

01:32:42.460 I think fewer people would choose abortion. I think if more people could see their child and,

01:32:48.060 and understand what's actually developing in their womb, I think more people would choose

01:32:53.320 life for their baby. What percentage of abortions that happen in the United States

01:32:59.140 are performed on babies at this size and age?

01:33:05.220 So the overwhelming majority of abortions in the country, over 80% are taking place in the first

01:33:11.740 trimester. So, I mean, babies at just 12 weeks gestation are, um, are being killed in their mother's

01:33:20.900 wombs. And now with the availability of medication abortion, there are babies that are being killed by

01:33:30.080 medication abortion. Babies are being deposited into toilets across our nation. And their mothers are

01:33:42.700 having to make the decision of what to do with their child in the toilet. Do they scoop them out? Do they

01:33:51.160 bury them? Or do they flush them? And we don't even know what that's doing to these women. We don't know

01:34:02.160 what that's doing mentally to these women. That they are looking at children. They are looking at their

01:34:08.100 babies at 12 weeks in the toilet. And they're choosing to flush their babies down the toilet.

01:34:14.280 And then they're going back to the scene of that crime over and over and over again. And they're

01:34:21.700 remembering their babies in that bathroom every single day. We know what the suicide rates are for

01:34:31.180 surgical abortion. We know what the depression rates are. We know what the anxiety rates are. We know

01:34:35.200 what the eating disorder rates are. We don't even know what the emotional effects are of medication

01:34:42.800 abortion. And now over 50% of abortions are being done in women's bathrooms to babies this size.

01:34:54.640 We don't even know what the effects of that are. And nobody's talking about it. Nobody's talking about

01:35:01.340 what it's like to flush their 12-week-old baby down the toilet. And, you know, many times they see

01:35:10.020 these babies. We have seen videos of women from those praying on the sidewalk of these women coming

01:35:16.820 back up to the facilities with their babies in Ziploc bags saying, I don't know what to do with them.

01:35:23.080 I don't know what to do with these babies. You didn't tell me that I was going to see my baby.

01:35:29.440 You didn't tell me my baby was going to be this developed. These women are really suffering.

01:35:38.220 And we don't even know what this is going to do to them. I mean, what does it do to you to

01:35:43.140 flush your baby down the toilet knowing that you caused its death? And that's a discussion that we

01:35:51.440 need to be having. The abortion industry uses women for their own profit. These lies are pervasive.

01:36:12.280 They're not difficult to refute, but it can be difficult to penetrate that culture of lies to

01:36:18.540 get the truth out there. We have to do it. We have to do it because it's right. We have to do it for

01:36:27.220 the victims of abortion. We have to do it for the women who are taken in by this industry, who are used

01:36:34.540 for dollars, even to their own detriment.

01:36:37.320 If you enjoyed this conversation with Abby Johnson, you'll want to check out our Daily Wire original

01:36:44.600 documentary, Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe. In it, we take a wrecking ball to the four fallacies

01:36:51.520 keeping the abortion industry alive. To watch it right now, go to dailywireplus.com.

01:36:58.220 Today, if you join, you will see not only this full movie, Choosing Death, The Legacy of Roe,

01:37:05.040 but you will have access to The Daily Wire's entire catalog of content, which we can only produce

01:37:10.400 and distribute because of you, with your support. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Choosing Life

01:37:18.380 podcast. We'll see you next time. The Choosing Life podcast is a Daily Wire production produced in

01:37:28.440 association with Outer Limits. Our technical and support team includes Ian Reed, Jesse Eastman,

01:37:34.180 Ryan Moore, Mariah Cormier, and Jim Wirt. Copyright Daily Wire 2022. Thanks for listening.

The Michael Knowles Show - August 06, 2022

Choosing Life： Confessions of a Planned Parenthood Director - Abby Johnson

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