Authors: Abby Johnson,Cindy Lambert
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Inspirational, #Biography, #Religion
In both instances I felt rejected. That’s why I appreciate the fence-prayers’ approach and encourage churches and other organizations to consider their example.
Doug and I made an appointment with our pastor to discuss the messages from fellow parishioners. Before the meeting I was in tears.
“Doug, it hurts so much to feel despised in my own church, and this time, for doing what I know God called me to do! Every week since we came here, the words of the confession worked their way into my heart—calling me to confess my sin and leave it behind. Finally I did, and now I no longer feel welcome to come. It’s all so backward and wrong.”
Clearly the conversation was difficult for our pastor as well. When, in the end, we decided that it was too painful to stay, the pastor made an interesting comment.
“I don’t think you realize how much your spiritual life has been shaped by this church,” he said. I understood him to mean that we should recognize the wisdom of the church’s prochoice stance.
“Oh, I do realize it,” I said. For I knew that God had met me there, had called to me directly, not through the agenda of the church, but through the power of the Spirit, as I had prayed, week after week, these words from
The Book of Common Prayer.
May we all pray these words, and live them.
Most merciful God,
we confess that we have sinned against you
in thought, word, and deed,
by what we have done,
and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart;
we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.
We are truly sorry and we humbly repent.
For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ,
have mercy on us and forgive us;
that we may delight in your will,
and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.
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Chapter Twenty-One
The Unexpected Gift
Among the media inquiries we received in those first few days was a big, scary one—an invitation to appear on
The O’Reilly Factor.
And what made it even more scary than the idea of appearing on such a widely viewed show was the tentative date they’d given us for my appearance—just before the hearing on the preliminary injunction from Planned Parenthood. Would I say something that would jeopardize our case? Would I give Planned Parenthood ammunition to use against me in court?
It didn’t take long to figure out that, if I was going to appear, I’d have to appear with Jeff Paradowski, my attorney, so that if Bill O’Reilly asked me something I shouldn’t answer, Jeff would be there to stop me.
So Shawn called Jeff to ask if he’d be willing to appear on the show with me, and he immediately answered yes. Later, though, he admitted, “To be honest with you, I was very nervous about it. This wasn’t just some local station. This was national. So I called Shawn and said, ‘I want to do it, but we’d better make sure we’re ready. We need to prepare for this.’”
Jeff and I met with Jeff Blaszak, a local cable company director who does a lot of multimedia work for the Coalition for Life. He ran us through a mock interview, firing questions at us as if he were Bill O’Reilly. After we’d done that three or four times, we felt ready.
But it wasn’t to be—at least not yet. On November 5, 2009, a gunman shot and killed twelve people and wounded another thirty-one at Fort Hood, Texas. Suddenly O’Reilly and others had something much more tragic and newsworthy to cover, and my appearance with Bill O’Reilly was postponed until November 11. Since the hearing was over by then, there was no need for Jeff Paradowski to appear with me to keep me from saying something that would hurt our case—but Shawn went on with me.
But our little story in Bryan, Texas, continued to attract significant media attention. Most of it seemed to come from the Christian media—magazines and radio and TV programs. But occasionally we’d be contacted by someone I thought might slant the article in a way that would distort my perspective. I was contacted, for instance, by a reporter from Salon.com, which describes itself as an “online arts and culture magazine” but is often criticized for its left-leaning viewpoint. I almost didn’t call the reporter back, but in the end I decided to do it. Their article wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. At the end, she called me the “next right-wing media darling.”
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And I thought,
I’ve been called much worse. If that’s the worst she can come up with, I’m okay.
The bloggers continued to slam me from all directions, and through it I was learning the valuable lesson of trusting God and God alone for my reputation.
I was also contacted by ABCNews.com. I did a telephone interview with them that appeared in an article on their Web site. It was actually very good—fair and complete.
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I had initially been pretty circumspect on my Facebook page—I mentioned that I was leaving Planned Parenthood, but not why, and I mentioned nothing at first about the Coalition for Life. But as the story came out, I started getting around 150 messages a day on my Facebook page—all of them supportive. I didn’t receive one negative message.
On Friday, November 6, I flew to New York to appear on
Huckabee
on Fox News. I had talked the day before to Wes Yoder, who runs the Ambassador Speakers Bureau and handles all of Shawn’s appearances. The advice Wes gave me about the interview with Mike Huckabee was, “Just be you. Tell your story. You don’t need talking points—this is just about being honest and genuine.” He was so right! How freeing to no longer be bound to the Planned Parenthood official talking points I’d had for so many years.
I flew out by myself; Doug stayed home, pulling babysitting duty with Grace but also showing up at work—after all, Doug’s salary was the only income we had at this point.
Sadly, the repercussions of speaking out took a further toll on some friendships. My friend Valerie had been, for a long time, my trusted right hand at the clinic. She’d left when she received a promotion to another clinic—but unfortunately that hadn’t worked out. A few months before I left Planned Parenthood, she’d left the organization and for a short time after that, she and her child had lived with Doug and me while she got back on her feet.
Valerie and I had now been very close for years. I wasn’t worried about losing my friendship with her. The thought of it had never occurred to me. Our friendship was too close for that. Or so I thought.
I hadn’t talked to her for several days. I’d texted her a couple of times and hadn’t heard anything back. But I didn’t think much of it.
It happens,
I told myself.
People get busy. She’s probably scolding herself right now for not getting back to me.
A few days after
Huckabee
, Doug said, “Have you heard anything from Valerie lately?”
“No,” I said. “I was just thinking about calling her.”
“Well, if you do, maybe you can clear up something strange. I was on Facebook today, and I noticed that apparently I’ve been removed from Valerie’s friends list.”
My heart sank. As soon as I could, I went onto Facebook myself, and sure enough, I’d been removed from Valerie’s friends list too. Since then, no communication whatsoever. Another close friendship bit the dust.
But the process of seeing previously close friends turn away from me because we now disagreed about the crucial issue of abortion reminds me of the very different brand of friendship I’m also seeing in action these days. I’m thinking of people like Elizabeth, Marilisa, some friends from church and even college days—people who befriended me and stood by me for years
even though they did not agree with what I did at Planned Parenthood, even though they do not believe in abortion.
Those people modeled for me something far deeper, far stronger than situational friendship: they loved and accepted me even when I was (or am) doing something they found morally objectionable. They didn’t just talk about love—they put flesh on that concept.
Many of those people are contacting me now, telling me how proud they are of me and how much they love me. That means a great deal to me—because of one thing. I know they loved me
then,
too.
One other thing happened about this time that reminded me that, while I was losing some things by the stand I was taking, I was gaining much more. My first husband, Mark, and I had divorced in 2003, and I had not seen his son, Justin, since then. Not that I hadn’t thought about him. I loved Justin as if he’d been my own birth son. For the two years Mark and I were married, Justin had called me his “other mom,” and we’d been as close as any other parent and child. To lose him through divorce was unbelievably hard, and I had grieved that loss ever since.
After one of my appearances on Fox, I got a Facebook message from Justin. He was now thirteen—and I’d had no contact with him since he was seven. The subject line on his message said, “Hey, miss me?”
His note began, “Hey, it’s me, Justin, from a long time ago.” At first, I couldn’t even read the rest. I read that far and just began to weep—from happiness that I was hearing from him again after so long, when I’d had no real hope of ever hearing from him again; from sorrow that we’d lost so much time together. Here he was, now thirteen, a young man. He’d been just a little boy when I’d seen him last.
I wrote back as soon as I had my emotions under control and said, “Oh, Justin—I think about you every day. And I have since the last time I saw you.”
Justin’s grandmother, Mark’s ex-mother-in-law, with whom I’d always had a really good relationship, also wrote me that night. She told me how proud she was of me for taking this stand. They’d seen me on TV that day, and it made them want to reach out to me. So they found me on Facebook. She told me that when Justin had received my response, telling him that I still thought about him every day, he got very emotional.
I wish he lived closer—Justin and his family live halfway across the country from me. But we now keep in touch by e-mail and have become close again. I hope to reconnect face-to-face one day. And as with so many other things, it would never have happened if I hadn’t been forced to face what I was engaged in at that clinic in Bryan, Texas—and if Planned Parenthood hadn’t decided to make it a public spectacle.
I was beginning to discover that when we set our feet upon the red carpet that God rolls out before us, He surprises us with unexpected delights. The joy of my reconnection with Justin—the son of my heart whom I thought I’d forever lost—gave me the lift I needed to face my fear of the uncertain future.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The Hearing
Shawn told me later that when he left his house on the morning of November 10, the day of the hearing, Marilisa was nervous. “Don’t worry, babe,” he said, leaning down to kiss her. “It’s going to be fun.”
“Fun?” she asked skeptically.
“Sure,” he said, “and besides, I promise to use my one phone call to call you.”
Despite her nervousness, he managed to get a laugh out of her. And that reflects something for which I feel extremely fortunate. The same instinct that made him protect Marilisa from the tension of the court date by joking with her about it made him protect me. Between Shawn and Jeff, I must say that even if I didn’t always feel like it at the time, I was well protected. Not just from the injunction itself, or the tension of awaiting the hearing, but even from the intense preparation of the defense. I didn’t even have to ask myself,
How will I find a lawyer?
I was protected from all of that because Shawn and Jeff knew I wouldn’t be able, at that difficult point—having been betrayed by friends and threatened with legal action in the midst of wrenching personal changes both in vocation and in my entire value system—to maneuver through that minefield. So they negotiated it for me.
Even though Shawn was trying to set everyone else at ease, he was nervous. He, Doug, and I had agreed to meet at Jeff’s office so the four of us could drive to the courthouse together for the hearing. He wanted to get to Jeff’s office before me, and he did—by about forty-five minutes! And when he arrived, Jeff—who will be late to his own funeral—was already there, dressed for court. “How do you feel?” Shawn asked him.
“Good,” Jeff said. “I feel good.”
Right,
Shawn thought. Five minutes later, he asked again.
“Uh, pretty nervous,” Jeff admitted this time.
Jeff
was
nervous
? Jeff, who has won some pretty impressive cases against massive firms and their brilliant attorneys, Jeff who has sued the state of Texas, Jeff who exudes confidence—he was nervous about
my
case?
But by the time Doug and I arrived, any signs of that nervousness, for either of them, had disappeared, and they looked cool as could be. We got into Jeff’s car and headed to the courthouse—each of us looking pretty impressive, I must say, in our suits. We were all nervous, but none of us admitted it, trying as hard as we could to set the others at ease. Shawn and Jeff, as usual, laughed all the way.
We pulled up in front of the courthouse, and Jeff said, quietly, “My mom’s going to be here.” I was struck by the significance of this case to Jeff and his family. My lawyer’s mom was going to be here for my hearing. “There she is,” he said, pointing.
I couldn’t believe the timing as I said, “My mom’s here too. Look, there she is.”
And Shawn laughed and said, “Okay, the gang’s all here. Now let’s go beat this thing!” And then he grabbed my arm and whimpered, “Mom—hold my hand!” We all just lost it—total crack-up. Here we were, about to go in to face Planned Parenthood in a hearing we couldn’t afford to lose, scared out of our wits, and we were laughing like loons in front of the courthouse.
Some of this was probably just our way of releasing tension. Shawn and Jeff had been spending countless hours preparing for this hearing, trying to anticipate everything that might come up and then making sure they were prepared for it—even though most of it probably
wouldn’t
come up. “It was like preparing for a research paper that you’ll never write,” Shawn said later.
For Shawn, it was in many ways like a perfect storm of stress. Not only was there the legal stress of the hearing, he was traveling and speaking a lot.
And
he had just found out that the following summer he’d be uprooting his family to move to Virginia to work full-time on coordinating a national 40 Days for Life campaign. None of us had any idea how much stress he was under.
My mom and a friend of hers were walking toward us.
“Oh, you’ve got to meet my mom.” I was excited. In all the years I’d been with Planned Parenthood, my mom had never met a single person I’d worked with, and that had been more than fine with me. In contrast, I found myself wonderfully excited to connect Mom with the Coalition for Life people. Shawn told me later that he was nervous about meeting her. He had envisioned that my family—and my friends, for that matter—were probably all militantly prochoice. So imagine his surprise and relief when my mom came walking up to him, face glowing, threw her arms around him, kissed him on the cheek, and said, “Thank you for getting her out of there.”
Unified, bound in spirit, we headed inside, Doug clasping my hand tightly. Other than our moms, we weren’t expecting much of a crowd. In fact, we’d sent an e-mail to our Coalition for Life supporters and staff asking them
not
to attend. Jeff knew enough about this judge, J. D. Langley, to know that having four hundred Coalition supporters on the sidewalks, holding up signs and chanting “Free Abby!” wouldn’t exactly endear us to him. And he’d banned cameras from the hearing—the media could attend, and did, but no cameras were allowed. So we knew the number of people in the courtroom would be small, and that was fine with us.
It was all very awkward, of course. The people I was facing in this hearing, the plaintiffs, were all people I’d worked with daily until a month before, people I considered friends. But their attitude now was anything but friendly. Walking into the courtroom, I found myself entering side by side with a Planned Parenthood board member and his wife. The board member’s expression seemed closed and cold, as if he felt I’d gone over to the enemy, and I understood that from his perspective, I had. He looked at me once and then just turned away.
Most of the Planned Parenthood people were already there when we entered. We’d subpoenaed Megan, Taylor, another staff member, and one of the abortion doctors (I’ll call him Dr. A). Along with the board member, Cheryl and several others from Planned Parenthood were there, including Planned Parenthood’s New York PR team.
Dr. A’s presence there had a power and influence all its own. He was there at
our
request—we’d subpoenaed him. The reason we wanted him there was to establish that his identity was not a secret, as Planned Parenthood alleged in their petition. They said that my knowledge of his identity was a threat to him and to their operation. But his presence there was a production. The courthouse had called Jeff ahead of time to let us know they would be bringing him in secretly through a back entrance. He was represented by an attorney of his own, and he even had a security detail—courtesy of the National Abortion Federation, all the way from D.C. It seemed, on one hand, completely unnecessary to provide that kind of security to protect Dr. A from a peace-loving organization like Coalition for Life. But it’s also true that it had been less than six months since Dr. George Tiller, the soft-spoken abortionist much vilified by antiabortionist groups, had been gunned down during a Sunday morning service at his church. The memory of that was fresh in everyone’s mind.
The courtroom setup resembled the typical courtroom I’d seen on TV, though it was smaller than I’d imagined. The judge’s bench was front and center with a witness stand to the right of it. Planned Parenthood and their legal team of two, along with the abortion doctor’s lawyer, sat at a long table on the right as we faced the bench, and we took our places at the table on the left. The room was surprisingly plain and worn, our table scratched from years of use.
Sitting behind us on our side was a select handful of supporters. Besides Doug, our moms, and just a few friends, there were some visiting pro-life attorneys. Though not handling our case, they had expressed their willingness to help us out later if necessary, depending on how the hearing went.
Jeff was still laughing and joking as we entered, trying to keep things light, maybe for his own sake as well as ours. But as Shawn and I took our seats, Jeff strode confidently to the two attorneys for Planned Parenthood and courteously introduced himself. A few moments later they followed suit, coming over to our side. Shadow Sloan, a tall, red-headed woman I knew from a number of meetings, and her cocounsel, Deborah Milner, introduced themselves to Shawn courteously. They’d ignored me up to this point, but then Shadow smiled tersely at me. “Hi, Abby,” she said.
“Hi, Shadow—how are you?” I said. I hated the awkwardness of it. It hurt that other than Shadow and Deborah, none of the others made any effort to greet me or even nod in my direction. I’m sure they’d been told not to, but still, these were longtime friends and former coworkers. I looked at Megan and Taylor. I couldn’t believe that, as much as we’d gone through together, especially in those final days at Planned Parenthood, they wouldn’t even look my way. I was trying to imagine what they could possibly say at this hearing, given the accusations in the court papers. Surely they weren’t going to take the stand and actually testify against me, were they? How could they? Why would they? They were my friends.
After the two attorneys went back to their side of the room, Jeff continued with his clever comments to ease my tension, and I was glad he was doing it, but a storm of thoughts kept running through my mind. I was worried, obviously, about how this would turn out—what the judge would decide. But I knew, at least, that the burden of proof didn’t lie with us. Jeff had assured me that, since Planned Parenthood had filed the petition, the burden of proof rested with them to prove that I had done something wrong, to prove that I was a threat to them, and he was convinced that they didn’t have a case. I just hoped he was right.
One thing gave me real confidence: Jeff was a seasoned trial lawyer, and he’d handled some big cases. The Planned Parenthood team had far less courtroom experience than Jeff. But they certainly must have prepared for this within an inch of their lives because they had brought
boxes and boxes
of material—they were surrounded by the boxes of what I imagined must have been supporting material, if they needed it. Either that or they were moving out of their apartment. Jeff wasn’t impressed, though. “Just pomp,” he told me later. “Trying to intimidate us. It didn’t work.” Well, maybe it didn’t work on him.
I didn’t know whether I’d get up on the stand or not that morning. Jeff was prepared to call me if needed, though he seemed confident it wouldn’t come to that. And in one way, I
wanted
to be called—I wanted to tell my story in my own words. I hoped I would get that chance. I was fired up! But more than that, I wanted to hear what Planned Parenthood had to say. What on earth was their case going to be? I couldn’t imagine.
I looked at Taylor and Megan and Cheryl and my stomach did flip-flops. I knew they would put those three on the stand, and I was ready—ready to face them, to hear their testimony with my own ears. But on the other hand, I was nervous about what they would say. How would it feel to hear a friend contradict what I knew to be true?
Mostly, though, I was pumped. Feeling up to the challenge. Yes, I’d initially felt bewildered and hurt by Megan and Taylor’s statements, but now the adrenaline was flowing. I was ready for them to say directly to my face what they’d said in the petition. I knew I was telling the truth and so had nothing to worry about.
Both Jeff and I had a nagging fear, though, that Planned Parenthood had something up its sleeve—some bomb to drop into the hearing that we hadn’t anticipated. They were supposed to have revealed everything to us, of course, but we’ve all watched enough courtroom dramas to know there can be last-minute surprises. We simply kept wondering, given how weak their case appeared to be, if there could be something of which we were unaware that made them willing to take this case to the courtroom.
Everyone rose; the judge entered and asked us all to be seated. The attorneys introduced themselves, including Dr. A’s attorney. The plaintiffs, Planned Parenthood, got the opportunity to present their case first, since the burden of proof lay with them. If they couldn’t prove their case, then there
was
no case, and that’s what Jeff was hoping for. Early on, Jeff wisely requested that the judge have all witnesses removed from the courtroom so they could not hear one another’s testimony. The judge agreed.
Shadow Sloan called Cheryl to the stand first.
Starting with Cheryl was, I suspected, not going to be a good strategy for Planned Parenthood. In my opinion, Cheryl tended to be ill at ease in front of groups of people, so I didn’t think she’d be a convincing or eloquent witness. I believe I was right.
After Cheryl testified that Planned Parenthood had confidential information, Shadow asked, “Can you describe, please, what that confidential information consists of?”
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“Patient records, which we protect at all costs,” Cheryl said, “HR personnel records, our security procedures, and our policies and procedures regarding how we operate in the clinic.”
“Now, ma’am, you told us about confidential information regarding patients, staff, and service providers. Is the identity of the service providers also subject to confidentiality at Planned Parenthood?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Why is that, please?”
“Because we’re concerned for our providers’ safety and we don’t want anything to happen to them.”
This, of course, was a crucial issue: did I possess knowledge that, if I decided to divulge it, would endanger the lives of Planned Parenthood’s “service providers”—in other words, the abortion doctors?
Shadow questioned Cheryl about these records at some length—was this information known outside Planned Parenthood, was it known by all employees, would Abby Johnson have had access to this information, and so on. Then she concluded her questioning of Cheryl, and Jeff began his cross-examination.
“You’ve identified information that you and counsel claim to be confidential. Let’s start with the patient records. Specifically I presume you’re talking about patients who come to the Bryan clinic for services, be they family planning, contraception, or abortion services; is that correct?”