Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 191 | Planned Parenthood Uncovered with Abby Johnson

Episode Date: November 27, 2019

Abby Johnson spent eight years working at Planned Parenthood, until one day in 2009 when she saw something that changed her world forever. Abby joins me to share her journey leaving Planned Parenthood and becoming an incredible advocate for the pro-life movement. Learn more about Abby and her work at: http://www.abbyjohnson.org/ https://abortionworker.com/ Follow Abby on social media:Twitter: @AbbyJohnsonInstagram: @ProLifeAbbyJohnson

Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Happy Wednesday. Hope that you guys are having a great week so far. Tomorrow was Thanksgiving. So this week we're doing something a little bit different. Typically on Wednesdays, we'd be talking about culture, what's going on in the news. But because we won't have an episode on Friday, today we are doing the interview that we would typically be posting on Friday. And I am talking to Abby Johnson. She used to work at Planned Parenthood. She left Planned Parenthood. And now she is a force to be reckoned with within the pro-life movie. So she's going to tell us a little bit about her story and what you and I can do to get involved in fighting what we know is one of the greatest atrocities of our age. Without further ado, here is Abby Johnson. Abby, thanks so much for joining me. Yeah, of course. I'm so glad to be here. So I think most people who are listening know who you are, maybe have read your book, probably have seen the movie unplanned. But just in case there's anyone out there listening who doesn't know, can you tell everyone a little bit about who you are? and what you do. Yep. So I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years. I was a clinic director at one of their abortion facilities out of the Houston affiliate

in Bryan, Texas. And I left in October of 2009 after witnessing a live ultrasound guided abortion procedure and seeing a 13-week-old baby fight and struggle for his life against the abortion instruments. And I knew then that there was life in the womb, that there was. that there was humanity in the womb and that I had been on the wrong side of this debate. So I ended up leaving and went to a pro-life organization in my area, just looking for help, looking for someone to sort of understand what I was going through at that time. And Planned Parenthood ended up suing me.

And they tried to get a permanent gag order against me. so I wouldn't be able to tell my story and talk about the things that I had seen inside of these clinics. That sort of catapulted my story then into the national spotlight. Then the media was saying, well, you know, what does she know that you don't want her to say? And so then there was this curiosity. And so ever since then, I've just been speaking publicly, sharing my story. I'm a CEO to two different nonprofits. I started my first nonprofit called in Then There Were None in 2012, and we seek to help

abortion clinic workers transition out of the abortion industry and into a life with Jesus Christ and into a permanent place of healing. And then I started my second nonprofit just this year called Pro-Lev Ministries, and we seek to fill gaps in the pro-life movement by providing support throughout the globe. So internationally, here at home, in a variety of different ways. What has this fight against Planned Parenthood? And I know you obviously, like you just articulated, your focus isn't exclusively on Planned Parenthood or even fighting against them. You're fighting for something much bigger and better than that. But they have targeted you. They have attacked you. They do call what you do, the Unplanned Movie

propaganda. What has that back and forth looked like since you walked out of that clinic? So, you know, after they took me to court and they lost and I think they were really embarrassed, I think that they had tried to make an example of me to other clinic workers. So, you know, if you leave us, if you defact from our organization, then this is what happens to you. then you have to sit in a courtroom and face us, this billion dollar organization, right? But they failed, and I think that really embarrassed them. And so, you know, they have done things before. I've come out with information before, like exposing abortion quotas,

the certain number of abortions that they had to sell, that these workers have to sell to women. And so one time I came out with this big, you know, expose sort of thing talking about abortion quotas and Planned Parenthood responded and said, that's ridiculous. We don't have abortion quotas. And then I provided evidence. I provided proof that they do indeed have quotas. And in fact, they give out awards if you meet that abortion quota. So I was able to provide that evidence. And then they had to backtrack and say, well, okay, yeah, we do have quotas.

but we're really proud of the abortion services we provide. Same thing happened with this whole mammogram scandal. You know, Cecil Richards is on Joy Behar show, talking about all these mammograms they provide. I did this big national call. It was just sort of funny. It was just meant to be funny. It was called called Planned Parenthood to Schedule Your Mammogram Day.

And so we had tens of thousands of people calling Planned Parenthood clinics all over the country asking to schedule their mammogram. And of course, Planned Parenthood doesn't operate any mammograms. They don't pay for mammograms. So that ended up getting picked up by drudge and went all over the media, forcing then Planned Parenthood to actually come out and say, actually, no, we've never provided a mammogram. We don't do them. We don't have licenses for that. So every time that I've claimed something and then they have come back and said that it was untrue, I've come back with further evidence.

So they're pretty quiet, honestly, when it comes to me. You know, even their response to unplanned was so weak, you know, saying, oh, this movie, they said one thing about it. They said, this movie is a misrepresentation of the services that we provided our health centers. Which is not true, obviously. Never once talking about, you know, what I actually saw on the ultrasound, not once talking about, you know, the fact that women are harmed, sometimes irreparably. So, I mean, it's just been a pretty weak attempt consistently by my parenthood to try to undermine my story or what I'm saying. And I think now they realize there's really, I think they're always scared to sort of refute what I'm saying because they

don't know what evidence I might have against them. And you've made them look foolish more than once, but definitely the two times about the mammograms and the quotas. And so. they probably want to avoid coming out and trying to concretely refute something that you say, knowing that you're going to be able to present evidence that they're going to then have to admit that they lied about. And I've actually, I've noticed that in their rhetoric that for something like unplanned, they might come out and say, this is a misrepresentation or Abby Johnson is a propagandist. She doesn't know what she's talking about. But they won't actually correct you. Like you could say, this is what happens in an abortion and they could say, no, no, no, you're misrepresenting.

it, the same thing has happened to me, but she'll notice that they won't actually say, what is correct? Okay, if that's not an abortion, what is an abortion? If that's not how Planned Parenthood operates, how do they operate? They won't refute it. They'll just say, no, that's wrong. And unfortunately, because they have so many henchmen in the media, they're able to get away with that kind of deceit and manipulation. How do you push back against their obviously falsifiable rhetoric? You know, that's sort of the thing with a lie, right? If you say a lie enough times, people will begin to believe it's true.

And that's what's happened with the majority of secular liberal media in our country. Planned Parenthood keeps saying a lie and they just keep believing it without even doing an investigation, without even looking into the claims that myself, or other former clinic workers or you or other people are saying, you know, honestly, it's it makes me mad. Yeah. And I think I think that that anger in a sense that they are lying to women, that they are lying to our society, that they are manipulating people, that they are exploiting women for money. That keeps me engaged.

and it keeps me wanting to come back and to continually refute what they're saying and to continually educate people. You know, they can say whatever they want. They can lie and say whatever they want. But those of us, particularly those of us who have worked inside of these clinics, we know the truth. And that's one of the beautiful things about it. And then there were none is that, you know, for a long time it was just,

sort of me. You know, it was like, oh, Abby Johnson, former clinic worker, she's, she's out there saying these things about Planned Parenthood. So I think it was easy for pro-choice people to dismiss what I was saying, right? Like, oh, she's just a rogue employee. Right. She's just disgruntled, you know, whatever. But now we have 550 other former abortion workers who have come forward. And they're all saying the same thing. Our message is the same. no matter which Planned Parenthood we worked at, no matter if it was a private clinic or Planned Parenthood, no matter what part of the state, no matter what the demographics look like, the systemic abuse of women inside of these facilities is the same.

That's so interesting. It's so interesting that you are able to get the testimony and the stories of people within these Planned Parenthoods because all we hear about, like we've already noted, all we hear about is that you are either for women or against women. And if you are for or if you are against abortion, then you are against women. And Planned Parenthood has this kind of media empowered monopoly on being for women's liberation, being for women's healthcare, being for women's compassion. And on the other side of that, or us, you know, brutal pro-lifers who want to take away women's choice, can you talk about specifically how you saw first,

hand that that's not true, that Planned Parenthood and abortion providers are not in the business of liberating and caring for women. You know, I subscribed to secular feminism for eight years of my life, right? I was like a flag-toting feminist, right? And I went to all the rallies and I did all the things and I wore all the pink and and I knew the mantra. I said the chance, right? There is not one time in my eight years immersed in that world, immersed in Planned Parenthood,

when a woman came to me vulnerable, broken, scared, alone, where I actually empowered her. So a woman would come to me and she would say, you know, my boyfriend just left me and I found that I'm pregnant. And my answer to her would be, oh, gosh, it would be really hard to be a single mom, right? And there's no way you can do that. I mean, essentially my message to her was, you can't do it. You're not strong enough. Mm-hmm. You're not empowered enough.

You are too weak to rise above your current circumstances. Mm-hmm. So instead, we're going to exploit you. we're going to take your money and we're going to take the life of your child. It was the same. A woman came to us and she's like, oh, I'm a student. You know, we were in a college town. So we had a lot of students.

I'm a student. I found out I'm pregnant. You know, what do I do? And we would say, how in the world would you ever go to school with a baby? I mean, you'd have to give up your career. You'd have to give up your education. You know, so here, there's no way you can possibly do that. give you an abortion. And that's such a, it's like really a false dichotomy. It's telling women

that they are too weak to overcome their current circumstances. And that's ridiculous. You know, people in general are made to be overcomers, right? We're made to be survivors. We're resilient. Yeah. Yes. There are consequences to our actions. But that doesn't mean that hope is lost just because we're dealing with a consequence. And so, you know, I think it's, I don't know, it's just always been interesting to me how they talk about women's liberation, they talk about women's empowerment, but they're actually not empowering women at all. They're actually oppressing them.

And then they're making women the oppressor. Did you? Oh, go ahead. Using them, using these women to then oppress the rights of their unborn child. child. Right. So then these women who are being oppressed by the abortion industry are now oppressing others. And that's just that continuation, you know, violence begets violence. Yes. Hate begets hate, right? And hurt people, hurt people is another kind of cyclical saying that we often hear. In your experience, did women come to you, come to the clinic,

already knowing most of the time that they wanted an abortion and they came in and said something like, you know, I'm a student, I cannot do this. I need to have an abortion. Or did they come for some kind of help in guidance and you guys kind of had to steer them in the direction of saying, you can't do this, you need an abortion? I would say it's about 50-50. So about half the women came in, they know that Planned Parenthood is an abortion clinic. Right. I mean, so they find out they're pregnant, that's the first call they make. That's the first door that they open. But about half of women came to us because they had had a positive pregnancy test at home. They wanted a pregnancy test at a clinic. It's positive at home. It's probably going to be

positive at the clinic. And so, you know, they would, they would come to us seeking help, seeking support and guidance. And here's the thing. If a woman decides to parent her child, child, we can't, that's where our assistant stops at Planned Parenthood because we don't provide any prenatal care. We don't have any resources for her, baby items, diapers, anything like that, right? So essentially, she becomes a person who is not revenue generating for us. Right. So we don't want her in our doors anymore.

So we send her on her way. If a woman chooses wife but then decides to place for adoption, it's the same situation. It's not like we worked with adoption agencies or we got some sort of kickback for adoption referral, right? So it's the same. She's now become a money drain on us, a time suck on us. And so we send her out the door. the only way that we could keep our patients as revenue generating clients was to sell them an abortion. And honestly, it's a pretty easy sell.

You know, convincing a woman who's already scared and vulnerable that she's too weak to be a parent, that's really easy. and the easiest client to sell on an abortion, unfortunately, was women who were Christians. Really? Why is that? Shame. They didn't want to disappoint their parents, didn't want to disappoint their church, didn't want to be an embarrassment. They had essentially gotten caught in their sin. and it's a sin that you have to basically wear for nine months, right? Not the baby's a sin, but, you know, the consequence of the sin. And it's a sin unlike any other, right?

Because you cheat on your spouse, you get away with it, nobody knows. Maybe your husband finds out, but nobody else knows, you know, whatever. I mean, sin generally is private. Right. It involves someone in their private life. Right. And even though it may affect multiple people, it's still private. Right.

And this, you know, getting caught having sex outside of marriage, that's a very public, you get pregnant. That's a very public sort of view of your sin. And so in order to not have to deal with that, women would come in and, you'd come in and, you and have abortions. And we would have women who would come in and they would call us and say, you know, do you have a back entrance to the clinic? And we would say, no, you know, we just want in, you know, one entrance what's going on. And they would say, oh, well, people from my church are outside praying.

And I don't want them to see me. Or we had women who said, I used to pray outside of your clinic. and I know the people who are out there and I don't want them to see me walk in. So it's interesting, but, you know, the church hasn't really done enough, in my opinion. I don't think the church has done enough to create a safe haven inside the church for sinners.

Yeah. And so instead of our arms being open to a woman who's in a crisis pregnancy, you know, we look down our noses at her and say, oh, how dare she? And then that sends her into the arms of the abortion clinic. Right. I was going to say that the fact that they're, I mean, obviously people who send and who know that sin is sin, they're going to deal with some level of guilt and shame and not all of

their responsibility is on the church. But there is no doubt in my mind that church. can do a better job of saying, you know, we can clearly say, this is sin, this is God's intention for sex and for marriage and for life and all of that, and still make clear that, hey, if you find yourself in this situation, you come here first. This is the first place that you go and you know that you can receive love and care and help and even funds and protection if you need it. That should be the first place of refuge that a young woman understands that she can go and be loved and cared for. And I think you're right. I think a lot of young or a lot of churches,

maybe they don't outright say from the pulpit, hey, if you get pregnant outside of marriage, you're not welcome here. But also the silence, I would say, the silence about this subject, I would say is also complicity that there's not an outright statement of saying this is the refuge that you can come to if you are in trouble. So I absolutely agree with that. And we look at, we look at what's happening. I mean, look, the highest-ordered bishop in the Episcopal Church is now the head of the National Abortion Federation. Wow.

You've got the United Methodist Church that has for years been accepting of abortion. There are many unorthodox Judaism accepting of abortion. You go to abortion clinics, and many times you see clergy as the volunteer escorts. You see clergy with their collars on escorting women from their cars to the abortion clinic for them to have an abortion. We were trained in the clinic how to overcome religious objections. So if a woman came to us and maybe she had been raised in a church and she knew, you know, abortion is wrong. she comes to us and she says, I don't know, I just feel like abortion is a sin. I feel like I don't know if God's going to forgive me.

Our scripted response to give back to her was, well, don't you think that God is a forgiving God? Wow. And she would say, yes. And we would say, don't you think that God understands your situation and that you're trying to make the best decision for your family? Well, yes. So even though people can be raised knowing that truth, when you have religious leaders, across the world, accepting of abortion, escorting women in to have abortions, heading up

abortion organizations, national abortion organizations, it is actually very easy to say, hey guys, we have a problem within the church. Absolutely. We haven't done enough. We haven't spoken up enough. You know, it's very easy to justify sin when you are in a moment of course. crisis. And, you know, it's interesting. I was reading about, I'm getting my doctorate right now, and I was reading about counseling through crisis. And it's said in this book, it said that

crisis is actually a term that means danger and opportunity. And I thought, you know, all of these women, they need to understand that, yes, they might be in a place. where they are concerned, they're scared. They don't know what to do. They don't know how they're going to make it from day to day, but that there's also a great opportunity that can come out of crisis. But they've got to find the right people, the right support system, the right community to surround them.

And I believe in most situations, the church should be that community. Right. It reminds me, it reminds me so much of what you were saying when you were explaining kind of like the lines that you would give people who have religious objections, your responses to them remind me so much of Satan in the Garden of Eden. And Satan has always historically had a special evil place for women in his mind and in his intentions for a temptation. Did God really say? Yes, you heard God say that this is a sin,

but did God really say that he wouldn't forgive you? And so he twists the truth just a little bit to put women in a situation to where they think they don't really have a choice, but to take a bite of the proverbial fruit or get an abortion or whatever it is. And it's frightening to know there are so many so-called religious leaders who have fallen into the trap of believing this only to extend and perpetuate these cycles of oppression that are hurting God's image bearers, not just in the womb, but outside of the womb. And I'm so glad. I am so thankful for the testimony that you have that your job is so hard. It's so difficult to be up against so much. Ephesion 6 talks about, you know, being against the prince of the power of the air and being

against the spiritual realm of darkness. And that is what you are up against every day. But your job is also really simple in that all you have to do is tell the truth. Telling the truth is a lot easier than being Planned Parenthood, who constantly has to come up with a new lie. And one truth that you talk about that struck me the most when I watched Planet when I saw unplanned was the truth of humanity inside the womb, the truth of this little child, even in the first trimester, fighting for his or her life. And my question for you and that, when you saw that and it changed everything, have you found that that that simple truth, that life inside the womb is a human, it's a baby made in the image of God, that that has been

an effective catalyst to changing women's minds about abortion in the same way. way that it did for you? So I think it can be really successful. So I think a lot of young people are looking for the scientific reason for the why. You know, why would we be pro-life? Where's the science behind it? Now, for us, for believers, we know that science comes from our creator, right? But if you just for a second, sort of separate that and you say, okay, let's talk about the science here, you know inside of the womb is a human being it's it's nothing else it's it's DNA is human and and you can get people to say yes very easily to that yes of course it's you know it's not a dog it's not a cat of course it's human and they'll say but it's not alive I'll say okay well then is it dead

no okay well there are only scientifically two states of being alive or dead So if it's not dead, then what is it? Well, it's alive. Okay. So, you know, you can sort of start deconstructing their arguments one at a time. And, and then you finally get to the point where you say, you know, one of the things I'll tell them is like, you know, everyone has a life continuum, right? And so any artificial disruption in that life continuum is death. It's killing. And so if it's intentional, it's killing. And so are you okay then? If I can get them to agree to that, which usually I can, I'll say, okay, so then you are telling me that you are okay with someone killing, taking the life, because you've agreed that it's a life, taking the life of a human being,

because you've agreed that it's a human being, as long as it's in a specific place. So as long as it's in the womb, you're okay with it. Right. And a lot of times they'll say, yeah, I guess I am. That is really powerful to get them to actually say it, to have them listen to their words over and over again, right? It's sort of like, I hope that that rings in their head for the rest of their life, that they admitted that morally they are okay.

with killing an innocent human being. Because once you can get them to that place, that's really when hearts can start to be changed. Right. Because then they start thinking, am I really? I mean, I just said that. Am I really okay with that? Yeah.

I mean, and I've had success with that before. I was out in front of a clinic one time. Actually, I was talking to a guy that came out. to protest as in front of the, he was protesting us, those of us who were out there praying. And he said, you know, he was out there. He had a sign that said, you know, pro-choice is pro-life. And so I engaged him, you know, all the other sidewalk counselors, they were like, oh, don't talk to that guy.

I think his name was Tom or something. They're like, oh, that's just Tom. He comes out all the time. So I engaged him. And so I actually got him to say he said the word. words, yes, killing an innocent human being is okay with me. And he never came back. Interesting.

He had been coming out week after week after week. And he never came back. And I don't know if it was that conversation that did it. But I believe that the Holy Spirit, in that moment, hearing himself say those words had to do some sort of convicting in his conscience. Because no civilized human being says that out loud and then walks away and is okay with it. Right. Right. Because they can't answer the question of why. Whenever I talk to people about this, about a lot of the things that you just said, I think sometimes, which you've articulated perfectly,

sometimes the best argument that we can have are really just questions. Okay. What about this. Why do you believe this? How did you come to that perspective? And if you push them to the moral limit, which is to say that you're okay with killing an innocent child and then ask, why, are there any other situations in which you believe it's okay to kill someone who's innocent and defenseless? Well, no. Well, then why inside the womb? Is it location? Is it size? Is it age? Is it dependence on the mother? Can you explain that justification? Even in a non-attacking, way and they really start thinking about it for the first time because I think you're right a lot of people are pro-choice by default because they have bought into so much of what the media has told them

and when they really start thinking about the scientific truth and the moral truth that's associated with it it's very difficult because whether or not someone is a Christian we are all made in the image of God and because of that there is this internal moral compass in all of us and there is something that appeals to the image barrier inside all of us that says, killing an innocent person just because of their age or size or dependence or whatever doesn't sit well with most people like you said. And so I found the same thing that sometimes the most effective thing you can do is not to point fingers and say, you know, this is the truth, but to say why?

How? How do you lean on that perspective? Yeah. And if you look at Jesus during his years of ministry on earth, most of the time when the apostles ask him a question he answered with a question and so I think that obviously it was very effective for Jesus right so what works for him should work for us too right so I found that asking the why asking the questions makes a lot of sense so a lot of times you know they'll say well you know and I get this with people who say you know well I mean I'm against abortion except you know in cases of rape And so I'll say, oh, wow, okay.

So, you know, and so I'll go down that road and then, and then getting them to, to the place where I say, huh. So making a decision who lives and dies based on their, their circumstances, that, I mean, that sounds a little like eugenics, doesn't it? Yeah. Like that's not, you know, and then they're like, ooh. Yeah. Because eugenics, I mean, that's tied with, you know, Nazis and Hitler. And so then they're like, oh, well, yeah, I guess it does. Yeah.

So, I mean, it's asking those questions, though, and getting them to really think about this for themselves, because you're right, they're just parrots. They're parroting what they have been told. Right. And they're being told that to support abortion is the compassionate choice. Yeah. And I understand that a lot of times they are coming out from a place of compassion, but it's misguided compassion. Right. So that's where we need to help them correct their thinking, but it's a lot more effective if they are able to correct their thinking on their own.

Right. Because they are able to kind of work through the fallacies that they might be thinking that we don't even know. Because all they've done is listen to. I was sitting two seats down from an abortion provider, an abortionist when I was at the congressional hearing a couple of weeks ago. and she is the head of the Planned Parenthood Clinic in St. Louis, and she was asked by Republicans very specific questions, you know, what is viability? Have you ever aborted, you know, a full-term baby? And just a bunch of questions about what an abortion is, what circumstances she thinks justifies an abortion.

And she would not answer, she wouldn't answer a single question. She wouldn't acknowledge what she actually does, what an abortion is, if it's actually a life inside the womb, I actually heard her say the phrase pregnancy remains instead of even a fetus or anything like that. And so in order, I think if any of us in any situation are on the side that is in the business of obscuring truth in order to stay afloat, obscuring truth in order to make a profit, we should all ask ourselves, why is it? Why is it the side that I'm on won't actually say what's real, won't actually say. say what's what's true. It's very hard for me, honestly, to understand how more people aren't just

asking those very basic questions. Hang on. If abortion is moral, as this abortion doctor said in the hearing, why won't you just say what it is? But why not? Yeah. And that's, you know, they've done a really good, you bring up a good point, they've done a really good job of sort of using this this lexicon of language right so you know first it was you know abortion of a fetus then it was termination of a fetus termination yeah yeah um then they realized that fetus actually means little one or offspring so then they're like that's a little too much humanity there right right so now it's you know, maybe they use termination.

They say termination of pregnancy. Of a pregnancy. Right. And then they won't say pregnant woman anymore. Now it's pregnant persons. And so they really are directing the narrative in our society surrounding so many issues. Right. You know, the LGBT agenda.

I mean, so many different things. Right. But definitely abortion as well. And so, you know, one of the things that. that I always tell poor lifers is not to fall for that, right? So if somebody comes to me and says, you know, oh, yeah, I'm okay with, with abortion, I'm like, oh, really? So, okay.

So killing human beings in the womb, that's okay with you, you know. And they're like, well, no, I said abortion. Yeah. And I'm like, do you know what an abortion is? What is an abortion? Right? Let's talk about it. And that opens the door, right?

So I think that we have to stick to language. it's not inflammatory. I'm not saying go around and, you know, say weird stuff that sometimes pro-life or say like abortory or abortion mill or whatever. Just use the correct terms to sort of take that language back to help them understand what they actually support. And to stop, they're trying to whitewash it. Right. And they're trying to take all the humanity out of the unborn. And we can't allow that to happen. Right. Can you tell everyone about your two nonprofit companies or the two nonprofit organizations, what they do and if people want to get involved, how they can do that? Yeah. And then there were none. We get abortion clinic workers out of the industry. We get them into a place of healing, into hope, get them into new lines of employment. We provide legal help for them if that's necessary.

How do you get them? They come to us. But we're pretty proactive about it. So we send mailers into clinics. You know, I remember when we would get mail from pro-lifers inside of Planned Parenthood. And what would happen is we'd get it. And then we would be like, oh, look what they send us today. Look what they sent us today.

And it would make its rounds across the clinic. So that's what we're sort of hoping happens with the mail that they send in, is that it's sort of sent around the clinic. And it does. I mean, it is happening. Every time we send a mailer, we usually get about 10 workers that come out because they saw the mailer. So we are reaching out to them. We're also training. We work with sidewalk advocates for life.

And so we work, we train those sidewalk advocates the best way to reach out to abortion clinic workers and abortion doctors as they're walking in and out of the facilities on a daily basis. But a lot of it's word of mouth. You know, if we can get one worker out of a clinic, we can usually get several because nobody likes working in an abortion clinic. And so they're always looking for a way out. So if we can get one to take that step of faith and to leave and then we can provide help for them, a lot of times they will reach back in to the people at the clinic who are still there and say, hey, remember how we always talked about getting out of this place? You can do it. These people can help. So we've actually, because of the.

workers who have left, we've actually been able to permanently close 21 abortion facilities. Wow. Amazing. Because they haven't been able to get workers to work at the clinic because we've been able to drain clinics entirely of all their staff. Wow. Or because these workers came forward to different legislative bodies, different officials, licensing agencies, and we've been able to help them with legal representation, get these clinics shut down because of regulation issues or health and safety issues, whatever it may be. And why are these workers afraid to leave? So why is it like unlike any other, you know, place of work that you don't want to work at anymore? Why can't they just quit and go work somewhere else? Yeah. So it's, you know, working in the abortion

industry, it's not like working anywhere else. So there's going to be a lot of spiritual warfare. that come with these workers when they're even thinking about leaving and then when they do leave. But, you know, they are basically told, if you leave, we'll sue you. If you leave, we'll give you a bad reference. You'll never work in the medical field again. Wow. Even just for any reason, if anyone leaves for any reason, it's that kind of bullying? Yes.

Oh, yes. Wow. Absolutely. I remember one time there was a gal that worked with us. I was sitting having a meeting with my supervisor about something. And her dream had been to be a teacher. And she was she had gotten her, she was finishing up her bachelor's degree in education.

She wanted to be a teacher. And she had worked with us for about a year just to make money until she was finished working, until she was finished with school. She came in to the office one day and she told my supervisor, You know, I just want to let you know, I'm going to start, you know, applying for jobs over the summer to be a teacher. And she said, my supervisor said, you really think that any school system is going to want you after they know you've worked in the abortion clinic? We're going to make sure that anybody that calls us knows that.

Wow. We're going to give you a bad reference. And she was a great employee. but it's this i mean they're definitely bullying workers inside of there and convincing them that they can't leave that they're stuck um so there's definitely that but you know it is true i mean once somebody works in the abortion clinic it is very hard for them to get a job in another medical clinic um it's hard for nurses it's it's it's just hard so even though the medical community by and large supports abortion, these doctors don't work, they don't want people who used to work in the

abortion clinic in their clinics because they know that it's not sanitary. They know that they cut corners. They know that they participate in Medicaid fraud. They know that they are, they could be potentially dangerous to their own lines of work. And so they don't want them in their clinics. They're willing to support them from afar. Okay, tell me about your other nonprofit. it. Okay. So, oh, if people want information about it and then there were none, they can go to abortion worker.com. Okay. We've got videos here. We'll put it in the bio for this. We'll put it in the info for this episode so people can just click on it. Okay, perfect. And then, so yeah, so I started seeing, after 10 years of being out of the abortion industry, I started seeing just, I don't know,

just some gaps in the movement. You know, we're doing so many things right. I mean, amazing. well. We've got, you know, over 2,500 pregnancy resource centers that are reaching out to moms in crisis, providing resources, providing limited medical care. I mean, those centers are just doing an amazing service. We've got, you know, post-abortion recovery groups, hundreds of them, all across the country for women, men, you know, people who have experienced abortion in their lives. So we've got, you know, we've got educators, absence only educators in our schools, you know, trying to make a difference with our children. So we've got all these different ministries.

But I felt like there were still some gaps, some places that needed to be filled. And it's one of those things where I kept praying. I kept saying, God, you know, if you could just tap somebody on the shoulder and say, you know, hey, could you go start this organization? That would be awesome, right? And then I realized after praying that for over a year, he's like, hey, Johnny, it's you. You know, so we started pro-love ministries, and it's an umbrella group, essentially, and we have several ministries underneath pro-love ministries.

So one that's probably the one that people know the most about is called Love Line. It's a crisis line for moms. So maybe moms that don't have a pregnancy resource center in their area. Maybe moms who have older children that can't be serviced by a pregnancy. center, but they need help with their rent, with getting food on the table. There's just a lot of different circumstances. Right now, we're working with four different victims of domestic violence, getting them into safe housing. So, you know, there's a lot of issues that come up that can't be filled by pregnancy resource centers, and that's not their calling. That's not what they're meant to do,

right? And so we wanted to, and yeah, there's domestic violence places out there. There's rape crisis centers out there, but a lot of those support abortion. And so we wanted to have a pro-life alternative for these women. And so that's one of the things that we're doing. We also operate the pro-life women's conference, which is the largest gathering of pro-life women in the nation. We have over 800 every year that come together. You know, one of the things that pro-choice groups are really good at is conferencing, networking together, just being together, strategizing, strategizing together. And we really failed to do that in the pro-life movement because we're all very busy doing

our own things, right? Our own ministries. So five years ago, I started the pro-life women's conference. And that first year we had 400 people. The second year, we had 500 people. And it just continues to go up. And now we're selling out every year, 850 people. Awesome.

And it's just, it's such a time of like just refreshment and healing, really. because doing this work is hard, as you know, you know, battling against this morally decaying society and being countercultural. It's hard. Slimming up strength is tiring. Coming together to energize is, I mean, it's just really an amazing experience. So we've got a bunch of different organizations there and people can look at all of them on our website. Okay, cool.

That's great. Are there any other resources? Like tell people where they can buy your book, where they can watch unplanned. Any other resources you want to direct people to? Yeah. So unplanned, the film is it's streaming on Amazon. And you can buy it at Walmart, at Target. It's on the shelves.

You can get it online. You can, of course, get it on Amazon online if you want the actual physical disc and DVD and Blu-ray. And then also, if you want an autograph copy, you can go to our website, abortionworker.com. and on the store, link, you can actually get autographed copies of unplanned the movie. You can get autographed copies of unplanned the book. You can also get autographed copies of my second book called The Walls Are Talking. So we've got a lot of really great items there that people can check out.

That is so great. And people can follow you on Twitter, correct? And on Instagram? Twitter. I'm on Instagram. I'm on Facebook. I try to be social media savvy. I'm not very great at it.

I think it's pro-life. Abby Johnson is your handle. But we'll double check and we'll put that in the description as well. Thank you so much. I really encourage everyone out there to go watch and plan to someone who is pro-life. The scene of what Abby saw that really changed her life and changed the direction of where she was going. It totally broke me in a very hard, difficult way, but in a very good way. And even for those of us who know that it's life inside the womb, we need to be reminded of that. And sometimes we just need to see the stark reality of what abortion is to kind of get a kick in the seat that tells us, oh, we need to be doing something about this. This isn't something that we just think about and

we cry about. This is something that we do something about. And Abby, you are such a perfect example of putting action to your beliefs and your convictions, and I'm just so thankful to God for you. So thank you. Thank you so much for what you do. And thank you for joining us. Yeah. Thank you so much, Allie.