Authors: Abby Johnson,Cindy Lambert
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Inspirational, #Biography, #Religion
“Why do you associate with people like Jim?” I demanded. “Don’t you know he hurts your cause? His crazy antics make the prochoice people furious with all of you. He solidifies your opposition against you. Get him out of here and keep him away! He dirties all your efforts!” I turned on my heel, jumped into my car, slammed the door again, and took off.
“Good morning, Abby! Beautiful day today, isn’t it? Isn’t the sunshine wonderful?”
“Hey there, Mr. Orozco. Yes, it is.”
Must be Wednesday,
I thought. Dear Mr. Orozco, did he
ever
miss a day? I couldn’t think of a Wednesday or Saturday morning since I’d arrived in 2001 that he hadn’t been there. I headed into the clinic ready for a typical day. It turned out not to be typical at all.
As director, I didn’t counsel patients except in unusual cases. This day, however, a staff member came into my office. “There’s a woman I think really needs you. All she’ll say is that she has to talk to someone. She’s deeply distraught.”
After I’d spent a few minutes with this woman, she began pouring out her story. Her sister, she said, had caught her trying to smother her own baby. As she talked, sobs wracked her body. Her shame, guilt, and hopelessness came pouring out—her emotional deadness toward her child, her sense of isolation and despair. I recognized nearly every emotion and twisted thought process that I’d suffered during my own postpartum depression. My heart broke for her and with her, and in that moment I knew that if there was a reason I’d had to go through the dark time, it was so that I could help this woman, this mother whose depression had deepened so badly that she’d become a danger to herself and her child.
When she finally quieted, I looked into her eyes. “There aren’t many times in life when someone can say to us, ‘I know exactly how you feel.’ But I’m telling you that I do know how you are feeling.”
“Really? Have you gone through this too?” She seemed to relax with relief.
“I have. We are going to help you. We can’t do it alone, but you need to trust me. Can you do that?”
She agreed. I made a few calls, then took her to the hospital where we met a crisis team. While they worked with her, I made out a report to Child Protective Services. I had already told her I would do this and that she’d be given the resources, training, and medication she needed to enable her to get her child back and be a strong parent. This is truly one of the most meaningful success stories of my lifetime. The woman was able to recover from her depression and parent her child. She thrived. And I knew that had I not walked through my own darkness, I would have been so appalled when I heard of her attempt to smother her child that I wouldn’t have been able to reach out, empathize, and help. I now treasure that time I spent in the darkness, and thank God for using it.
One friendly face at the fence, Elizabeth, was incredibly persistent in her efforts to befriend me. I realized that the Coalition for Life had “targeted” me as someone they hoped to win over to their side through kindness and friendship. I didn’t mind that. I believed they really cared about the women coming into the clinic, just as I did, and we had come to a place of mutual respect. I also believed they were wrong, of course—but well-meaning and sincere.
I pulled up to work one day and saw Elizabeth holding a bouquet of flowers. I was totally freaked out. I knew they were for me, but I could not bring myself to accept them over the fence. My coworkers would think that was crazy! I was totally nervous at the thought of pulling into my usual spot by the fence, as she’d hand me the flowers in plain sight of everyone. But I knew Elizabeth wasn’t going anywhere, so I pulled up right by the back door instead of my usual spot. I thought maybe I could quickly run in as if I had some urgent need to attend to and she wouldn’t be able to talk to me.
But she called out. I heard her say she had brought the flowers for me. I just sprinted in the door and acted as if I didn’t hear her. I felt really bad. We weren’t friends, but I felt like I had betrayed her. It was a strange feeling. I remember going to my office and watching her out the window. She looked so sad and disappointed. After about thirty minutes, she went to the center of the driveway and laid the flowers right in the middle. I couldn’t believe it! I had hoped she would just take them with her. Now there they sat.
I didn’t want them to get run over, so I made up the excuse that I needed to go empty the trash can. I hurriedly picked up the flowers—beautiful lilies—on my way to dump the trash. Tucked inside was a handwritten card:
The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with JOY. Psalm 126:3. I’m praying for you, Abby!
I could imagine Elizabeth picking out the bouquet and writing the note. I was deeply touched. I carried them gently inside, put them in water, and displayed them in the break room for about a week. I carried the card back into my office and tucked it in the front of my little desktop cardholder that held various other thank-you notes and articles to read.
Whether I was a “project” or not, I saw Elizabeth’s gift as a genuine act of friendship. I had no idea how her thoughtfulness and prayers would one day serve a far greater purpose than to brighten my day.
Another 40 Days for Life campaign began in September 2007. By now we’d become accustomed to them. The Coalition for Life held one every fall and every spring. But this fall the Coalition people were positively beaming with excitement. The reason? David Bereit was launching the same campaign they’d started here in eighty-nine cities simultaneously across the country.
Here in Bryan I didn’t think I’d ever seen their numbers stronger. Elizabeth filled me in when I went out for lunch that day. “Have you heard we exceeded our goal of participating cities?” she asked. We had an audience; praying people lined the fence. The campaign was in full swing.
“How many?” I asked
“We were aiming for twenty. Abby, we’ve got eighty-nine cities! And this is just our first year to go national! We’ve been training the leaders through webcasts—how to deal with the media, how to befriend clinic workers and not see them as the enemy.” She paused a moment, realizing how I might take that.
I just laughed heartily. “Well, you could sure teach that well! Look at us, huh?” How could I feel threatened by that? I liked having her as my “fence friend.” In fact, I would have enjoyed a trip to the coffee shop—but I wasn’t sure my staff would understand.
Elizabeth and I had no idea that day of the victory she was about to enjoy—not a victory of friendship, but a victory of two lives saved.
A young woman came into the clinic that week, asking for a pregnancy test. But before she made it to the front door, Elizabeth caught her attention at the fence. They spoke for a while, then the girl came inside. Her test was positive, and she opted for abortion. She went into the back to have her ultrasound.
“Twins? Twins!” I was in the hallway passing the examination room when I heard the girl’s exclamation. “I’m gonna have twins? I can’t believe it. I can’t abort twins!”
That isn’t unusual. In my experience, many times when a woman discovers she is pregnant with twins, she decides not to abort. It’s fascinating how two heartbeats rather than one makes the human life within seem more real.
In no time at all, the girl was getting dressed. “I’ve got to go tell that lady at the fence! She won’t believe it. She said she was going to pray for me. I hope she’s still out there.”
She was. Elizabeth had been waiting, eyes glued to the front door, for the girl to return, wondering if the test would be positive and, if so, hoping she’d be able to persuade her not to abort. The girl burst out the front door and literally ran toward Elizabeth and threw her arms around her. “I’m having twins!” she called out. People at the fence clapped and cried out, “Praise God!” It turned into a party. Someone offered a camera, and soon the girl and Elizabeth were posing in front of the clinic. As it turned out, the girl was from another city, where her father was a pastor. She decided to tell her parents what had happened. I learned later, through the Coalition for Life, that before giving birth, she decided to allow her twins to be adopted by a loving family, and she and her parents formed a strong bond with the adoptive family.
I know how much it meant to the Coalition for Life that this event happened during a 40 Days for Life campaign. I celebrated it, too, because after all, I believed adoption was a wonderful option, and I had always preferred adoption over abortion. I saw this as a victory for the cause I believed in—reducing the number of abortions.
With all the prayers encircling us during that campaign, I couldn’t help but wonder how they might be affecting what was happening on our side of the fence.
Chapter Nine
Irreconcilable Differences
She was a tiny woman, so petite I wondered if she was a size 2. I don’t think I’d ever seen such a muscular abdomen. She had scheduled an abortion, so the clinician began with a routine pelvic exam. That’s when I got called back.
“I was doing her pelvic exam, and, Abby, something kicked me back.”
“I saw her come in. She’s not even showing. How can she be far enough along for you to feel a kick?”
“That’s why I called you back here. I want you to help with the ultrasound.”
And sure enough, this tiny little lady was not only pregnant, she was a full thirty-six weeks along! We were all amazed, but none more than she. She said she had no idea. She really thought she was only seven weeks, and, judging by her size, that would have been a reasonable guess. We explained to her that an abortion was out of the question. We did, however, call a Christian adoption agency I’d been in contact with previously. They were wonderful. This was a story with a happy ending. When she gave birth, the baby was placed in the arms of a loving family who’d been waiting many years for a child.
I wish all the late-term pregnancies we saw had happy endings. Sadly, they didn’t, and these were, for me, the most painful cases of all.
The first time I ever encountered a woman seeking a late-term abortion left me shaken. She, too, was petite, but with a big, full, pregnant belly. She looked like she could give birth at any time. I happened to be filling in at the front desk when she walked in.
“I’d like to schedule an abortion, please.”
I did a double-take. Her tone of voice was as nonchalant as if she’d just ordered a Big Mac. I ushered her to the back where we could talk privately and asked her to talk to me about why she’d come in.
“I just found out that I’m pregnant, and I’ve just got to get this thing out of me. I feel like I have an alien inside me.” I was so taken aback I was speechless. I spent some time listening and asking questions, doing an intake interview, and trying to get a handle on the real story. Though I found her perspective shocking, she seemed fully cognizant of the facts. Yet somehow she truly seemed not to have realized she was pregnant until quite recently, and no matter how far along she was, she wanted that baby aborted.
Notice I said
baby
, not fetus. If there were any absolutes in my perspective on abortion, this was one: I was vehemently opposed to late-term abortions when the baby was viable outside the womb. On that point I had been immovable from the start. A baby is currently considered viable at twenty-one to twenty-four weeks. At the Bryan clinic we did abortions up to fourteen weeks, and at the time, our Houston office did them up to sixteen weeks. An ultrasound revealed this woman’s baby was at twenty-three weeks. I explained to her that abortion was not an option for her at Planned Parenthood.
She would not be thwarted in her goal. “Then where can I get this thing taken out of me?”
I was in what felt an impossible situation at that moment. At our clinic, when a client wanted a late-term abortion, we referred them to a medical clinic where that could be done. I knew I had to give her the referral information, but I didn’t want to. I knew her baby was viable outside the womb—where I drew the line for abortions—and I wanted to find a way to break through to her, hoping she would reconsider. So first, I told her about how wonderfully adoption works out for many families. I described the process and the agencies we worked with. She made it clear she was not interested. Finally, I very clearly described a late-term abortion procedure, doing my best to help her see it was a horrible procedure, but she was unmoved.
“Yeah. I know how it’s done. I don’t care. I’ve just got to have this abortion.”
“Do you understand,” I continued, “that at your point of twenty-three weeks, your baby is actually viable outside your womb?”
“I figure it’s all the same, you know? Six weeks or twenty-three weeks, it’s all the same.”
But it’s not,
I wanted to say
. It’s not the same at all. This is a baby now!
But all I could do was give her the referral information.
That night I ranted about it to Doug. “I just couldn’t believe how casual she was about it! I feel sick about it. Just sick. How can she say it’s the same whether the pregnancy is six weeks along or twenty-three? That’s just ludicrous!”
I couldn’t have given Doug a bigger opportunity to challenge my thinking, and he did! We argued at length that night, Doug trying to open my eyes to the fact that a human life, whether only six weeks along or not, was just as worthy of life as the twenty-three-week-old baby I now wanted to protect. I, on the other hand, was incensed that he’d lump me in with late-term abortionists, as if what we did at our clinic was comparable to what they did.
But I wouldn’t budge. Neither could I let go of the sense of being an unwilling party in her decision.
If the scenario over my response to the late-term abortion isn’t evidence enough of my deep-seated inconsistency, my relationship with Dr. George Tiller paints an even clearer picture. Dr. Tiller was a well-known abortionist in Wichita, Kansas. I’d met him several times at National Abortion Federation meetings and liked him immensely. I found him to be a warm, caring man. Very friendly. I had a number of conversations with him and truly enjoyed his company. At conventions I’d see him give friends great big bear hugs, listen to others intently, and offer encouragement and support.
But he was well-known for performing late-term abortions. I remember watching him interact with others at a conference one time, and wondering how such a kind man, such a good man, could kill a twenty-four-week-old baby. He was a grandfather. How could he stand the ugliness of the procedure, and how did he justify it to himself? It troubled me.
As I look back at myself at this point in my journey, I am baffled as to how I could wonder about his ability to justify himself when I felt no need to justify myself for working in an abortion clinic while telling myself I was a champion of decreasing abortions. I see the frustration and anger I felt over the woman who decided to abort at twenty-three weeks—a decision I abhorred because her child was viable—yet I also see myself chatting comfortably with a man who performed that procedure countless times. Somehow I managed to hold these irreconcilable perspectives with no need to resolve them.
Self-deception is a powerful force.
So is confession.
In early 2008 Doug and I began attending an Episcopal church. I’d grown weary of trying to avoid discussions of my job at our Baptist church, and my longed-for sense of connection to God was still eluding me. In fact, it seemed to me that the distance between me and God was growing. I knew the Episcopal church was prochoice, and I welcomed the idea of no longer hiding my career on Sunday mornings. Doug and I, having never been part of a liturgical church, were both intrigued by the beauty and practice of the worship service.
From our very first visit I was particularly moved by reciting the confession of sin. “Most merciful God, we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed,” we would pray, followed by a moment of silence. There was only one problem. Every week, when we came to that part of the service, I felt a battle within. I found myself wanting to confess my part in abortion, yet I also argued against it.
The internal wrestling match I’d tried to avoid for years had, since becoming the clinic director, been intensifying. And yet, rather than wanting to flee the liturgy with its public confession of sin, I was drawn to it. I sensed that I was nearing God, and I wanted that, even though I squirmed in discomfort for fear that God disapproved of my job. Week after week I’d struggle, believing on the one hand that I was doing God’s work by helping women in need and yet fearful of discovering that God might want me to leave a career I was enjoying—a career I saw as a meaningful way to make a difference in the world for good.
I recall one evening in 2008 when that argument with myself startled me. Our Planned Parenthood affiliate employed a security director who kept all our clinics informed about security threats in Texas as well as nationwide clinic security issues, pro-life events, and the like. She’d managed to get herself on the e-mail list for Coalition for Life and always forwarded the messages to Cheryl and me.
This particular evening I was checking e-mail at home while Doug and I were each sitting at our computers. I opened their newsletter and found myself a bit put out. The Coalition for Life had just had their big annual spring banquet. I couldn’t believe it. They’d not only filled 1,500 seats, they had turned people away because of an overflow crowd. According to their newsletter, they’d raised $300,000 that night.
“Doug, do you believe this? Fifteen hundred people! And last February I couldn’t even pull in two hundred to
our
donor banquet. When I asked the affiliate headquarters to allow me to try again this year, they refused to finance it at all.”
“That’s quite a turnout, all right,” he answered, not looking up from his computer.
A disturbing thought surfaced and I couldn’t help but voice it. “Doug, do you think it’s likely that 1,500 people could be wrong?”
Doug looked up and grinned at me. “Probably not about this. Not too likely.” And he returned to his work. I squirmed a bit as I thought about the community rallying around Coalition for Life and distancing itself from Planned Parenthood. It wasn’t a good feeling.
Despite bouts of conscience and guilt, I saw a steady stream of women in need of compassionate assistance, and I was proud of working with a staff who cared about them. I wanted to do all I could to enhance the services we offered. I learned of a rape crisis center not far away and decided to attend one of their training sessions. I was impressed, particularly with how they counseled women who’d become pregnant through rape, so I invited one of their trainers to come to our clinic to provide training for us.
We closed our clinic for half a day, and the trainer offered our staff great insights into the perspectives and needs of women who’d been brutalized in this way. She was a huge proponent of adoption and discussed how giving a child to a waiting, loving family often brought deep healing to women who’d been raped. I resonated so deeply with her advice because of some of the women I’d encountered. When that day ended, I felt I’d made an important and life-giving contribution to our clinic’s impact on our community.
There were two coworkers with whom my working relationship was quickly developing into meaningful friendship. One was Megan. She was a nurse-practitioner who consistently demonstrated deep compassion and gentleness toward our clients. We began having lunch together and soon were close friends. Another was Taylor. She was a teenager, a bit timid, and I soon found myself feeling a bit like a mother hen, working to build her confidence. I appreciated what Cheryl had done to coach and encourage me, and I wanted to follow in those steps and do the same kind of mentoring.
My love for my work, my appreciation for the staff, and my belief in our good purpose spilled over one day into a decision to add some beauty to our building. I had never forgotten how, on my very first day as a volunteer, our fence had reminded me of a prison. So one day I showed up at the office with some gardening tools and flowers and planted flowers along the fence. The Coalition for Life volunteers seemed to appreciate them as well, and over the next few weeks quite a few of them complimented us.
One day while tending the flowers I overheard one of the young volunteers who had become a regular. His name was Bobby.
“That’s Abby,” I heard him quietly explain to one of their new recruits. “I call her the Motivator. She’s the clinic director, but you’ll notice that she really is sincere and cares about everybody. I’ve seen her offering her volunteers umbrellas to keep the sun off and making sure everyone is drinking water on hot days. And she’s usually friendly to us, too. But don’t cross her!” I couldn’t help but smile.
Bobby quickly became a favorite among our staff, especially our newly recruited volunteer escorts. He could strike up conversations with anyone, and no sooner would he show up at the fence than I’d spot one of our volunteers hanging out over there, just shooting the breeze with him. He had one of those open faces that just welcomes you in.
“Oh my word!” I heard a coworker gasp. She was standing by one of the front windows facing the fence.
“What is it?” I asked her.
“A nun. There is a nun in full habit standing in the driveway.”
I walked over to the window to look, and soon several of us were gawking out the window. The temperature was near 100 degrees that day, yet there in the hot sun was a nun dressed in a heavy, dark brown habit that swept the ground. Her head and hair were completely covered so that only her face showed, a face lifted toward heaven, eyes closed, clearly praying. Believe it or not, I’d never seen a nun in full habit before—at least not in person. I couldn’t help but think of the Reverend Mother in
The Sound of Music,
though this nun was clearly far younger, probably about forty.
“Her face looks so sweet,” said one of our clinic workers. “But anguished.”
There was an awkward silence. Then one of our clients, who had just had an abortion, was escorted out the door and to her car by one of volunteers. Our eyes were glued to the nun as, her eyes fixed on the client, she moved from the center of the driveway to the side, making room for the client to pull out of the drive. And then she began to weep. She fell to her knees and wept with such grief, such genuine personal pain, that I couldn’t help but think to myself,
She feels something far deeper than I ever will. She is honestly pained. This is real to her—this grief at knowing that client had an abortion.
A sense of shame washed over me. I tried to shake it off but couldn’t get past the fact that a nun was grieving over what was happening inside my clinic.