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

Episode Date: August 6, 2022

Abby Johnson thought she was helping women as a director of a Planned Parenthood. Meeting monthly abortion quotas, targeting minority communities, telling women to deceive their families - she believed all of this was in the best interest of women. . . until the day she witnessed an abortion first hand. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

A quick note before the episode begins. This conversation involves graphic discussions related to abortion and the abortion industry. Please consider turning off the episode if children are present and continue listening with caution. You know, I think about just the eight years that I was at Planned Parenthood. And during that time, you know, I definitely would have called myself a, you know, feminist and, you know, a champion of women. There is not one time in that eight years where a woman came to me for help where I sat down across from her and I said, said, you know, I'm going to help you today. If a woman came to me and said, I'm pregnant, I essentially looked at her and said, that's tough, you know, you're really not strong enough to do

that. You're not strong enough to be a single mom. You're not strong enough to meet your educational goals. You're not strong enough to meet your career goals. So the only thing I have for you to do is I'm going to capitalize in your moment of weakness. And I'm going to take advantage of your vulnerability. and I'm going to convince you to give me money to kill your baby. That's not strength. That's not teaching her that she's strong. That's not giving her resources. That's really the opposite of what feminism is.

When Abby Johnson started working at Planned Parenthood, her facility performed blind abortions. That is, abortions without the help of an ultrasound. She worked as a director at the clinic, for several years before a doctor walked in and showed the staff a more efficient way of performing abortion. Holding the ultrasound probe, Abby watched for the first time at a baby being ripped limb from limb before the doctor uttered four words that sent a shiver up her spine and set her life on a new course. Right now, I would strongly recommend you go to hallo.com slash choose life because

today's world is a scary one. Too many people don't seem to care about the truth. And I would suggest that that's all rooted in people becoming less or really just anti-religious. That's why it's more important than ever to keep our relationship with God strong. Hallow is the number one Christian prayer app in the United States. It's like calm or headspace, but rooted in Catholic faith. It is the perfect resource to deepen your relationship with God and find peace through audio-guided prayer and meditation. Several of Hallow's meditations encourage you to choose life and to pray for others to choose life, such as their litany for life with Lila Rose.

Hallow is free to download. It will help you find peace and calm throughout your day. So do it. Do it right now. Download the app for free at hallow.com slash choose life. That is hallow.com slash choose life. Let's hear from Abby Johnson. I'm Abby Johnson.

I was a director of an abortion facility in Texas, which is now closed. That facility is closed. And I worked there for eight years, started as a volunteer, worked up the ranks, became the clinic director. And, you know, love my job, thought I was doing the right thing, got involved in college. And the last year of my work there started to get really uncomfortable with, The way things were going had to implement abortion quotas. Just the way that we were treating women I saw was really poor. And ultimately, though, ended up leaving after witnessing a live ultrasound-guided abortion procedure

and saw a 13-week-old baby fight and struggle for his life. And I knew then that there was humanity in the womb. I knew that there was life in the womb. And I knew if those two things were true, then I was on the wrong side of this debate. So I ended up leaving the clinic. And when I left the clinic, Planned Parenthood sued me. They tried to get a permanent gag order against me. And when they did that, the Associated Press picked up my story.

And I've been trying to expose the abortion industry for what they're doing to women, what they're doing to the preborn child. but also really trying to help people heal, help our society heal from the damage of abortion because abortion really does hurt everyone that it touches. So you mentioned you started becoming shocked or concerned maybe about how your clinic was treating women. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, what was Planned Parenthood encouraging you guys to do in terms of the treatment of women? There were a lot of things that were going on at my clinic that were concerning to me. You know, one was the abortion quotas. I had always believed that at Planned Parenthood, we were there to keep abortion safe, legal, and rare.

That was, you know, when I got involved, that was the talking point. That was what everyone said. But now all of a sudden, we have an abortion quota. We are to do anything to get women in the door, to, help sell them on an abortion. And so we were told that we were to turn every telephone call and every client visit into a revenue generating visit. Well, at Planned Parenthood, we didn't provide prenatal care. We don't get kickbacks if a woman chooses adoption. So the only way that we can make money on a pregnant woman is to sell her an abortion.

And so you basically get a woman into the facility and you wreck her plan. So if she comes in and she says, well, you know, I've been thinking about parenting or, you know, I've been thinking about adoption, then your job is to say to her, well, it's probably going to be really difficult to be a single mom. You know, daycare is really expensive. Or, you know, you already have other kids. So how are you going to do that if you don't have? have support or, you know, the dad already said he's not going to support you. So how do you plan on doing that? And that's your job, is to make it seem impossible for her to be a mom and to make it seem like abortion is the only option for her. And that's despicable. I mean, that is what we

were doing each and every day. And it happened so slow. slowly in my life. I didn't even really realize what we were doing. But that summer, when they were really, really saying to us, we've got to get these women in, we've got to meet these quotas, we've got to double our quota from the previous year. We lived in a college town. And so, you know, students would go away for the summer. And so it was harder for us to get women in the door for abortions. And that particular summer, we were told that we were to go into minority neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods. We were to put up flyers about the abortion services that we offered to essentially lure these minority women into our facilities to encourage them to abort their children.

and that was really gross to me, that we were targeting minority women, poor women, and saying, here, clearly you don't need to be a parent because you're poor. Clearly, you don't need to be a parent because you're black, because you're a minority. And it was at the same time that we were getting all of this money in from Warren Buffett, from the Buffett Foundation. And it was strictly for low-income women, primarily minority women, to kill their children through abortion. And he had been, of course, very vocally, a supporter of abortion because of population control. And so there were just a lot of things that were sort of coming together for me that were making me very uncomfortable. It was also that summer we had run out of our one of our title cash grant funding programs, which we always did.

Every summer you run out and it replenishes September 1st. And, you know, here we are this supposed women's health care provider. And, you know, we pay, this birth control is so minimal. It's such a low cost for us. And we have these women coming in, minority women coming in, low-income women, coming into our facilities. And I remember in a management meeting saying, you know, we pay $2 for a pack of birth control. Why can't we just give them the birth control at our cost?

cost. We were charging them $32 to $35 for a pack of birth control when we're literally paying $2 for it. Why can't we just give it to them at a discounted rate? And they just said, no, absolutely not. They're going to have to find a way to pay for it. It was at that same time that we were witnessing more and more complications of abortion. So uterine perforation, Doctors just poking a hole through a woman's uterus. We're, of course, not allowed to call an ambulance in those situations because we've got protesters outside and they will video an ambulance coming up to our facility. We had, I remember that last year, several instances where, you know, as the director,

I was handing basically hush money to women who we had left pieces of their baby in their womb. They had become sick. They had become septic. They had had to go to the emergency room. They had terrible infections, potentially fatal infections, because we had been negligent. And they had threatened us. They had threatened to sue us. They had threatened to go to the media.

And we were handing them, these were poor women. And we were handing them hundreds of dollars, $800, $900, and making them sign a non-disclosure agreement. And it was sick. And I was the one that was having to hand it to them because I was the director. Knowing that we had put these women's lives in jeopardy, we had put their lives at risk, and we were literally giving them a check for $800. they could have taken us to court. They could have gotten hundreds of thousands of dollars from us.

But these women were poor. They were vulnerable. They didn't know any better. And our medical team had come up with some deal with them to keep them quiet. And for a poor woman, ate $900 a lot of money. So they were taking it. And there were so many times I wanted to be like, girl, don't take this check. Don't take this money.

Don't sign this. Non-disclosure. I mean, you're making a deal with the devil. But I didn't. And so just all of these things happening in that last year were causing me to say, what is going on? And then we were also building the largest abortion facility in the Western Hemisphere, second largest of China. And we were going to be aborting babies electively for any reason up to six months of pregnancy.

And that had been really. really that had been my line in the sand. You know, viability was my line in the sand. And here we were going to be killing viable babies. And so that was also something I was really struggling with. What, and this was what year? So this was in 2008 to 2009. So, you know, this is, in terms of the history of abortion, this is relatively recently. Is this sort of thing still going on in Planned Parenthood clinics? You're great at protecting your data, but lots of places could still expose you to identity theft. I thought it was safe.

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And they've been from all over the country. We've helped abortion clinic workers in almost every state in over 45 states. And we hear the same exact stories, the same things that I experienced. This is a systemic problem in the abortion industry. And even worse things. I mean, we're hearing even worse things than what I experienced. We're hearing stories from former abortion workers. who are saying that babies are being born alive in their facilities and the backs of their necks

are being slit. They are being drowned in buckets of water after being born alive. Their necks are being snapped. This sort of barbaric evil behavior, it's happening more often than people want to think about, I think it's happening more than they realize women are being harmed at an exponential rate. These abortion facilities, these abortion providers, these doctors, they don't care about these women. We have on record stories from former abortion workers saying, that they have walked in on these abortionists sexually assaulting some of the patients while

the patients were under sedation. We had a former worker who left, and when she left, the owner's son put a gun to her head and threatened her if she ever talked about her experiences there. It is one of the most corrupt industries in our country. And the... They are getting a pass from the federal government. They harm women each and every day. They kill our most innocent each and every day. And they are being funded with our tax dollars each and every day. And there's no industry on the planet that is receiving the same sort of grace,

the same sort of amnesty that Planned Parenthood and the abortion industry does on a daily basis. Why do you think that is? I think one of the reasons that they get away with it is because abortion is so incredibly rampant in our society. So many people have had abortions. I mean, depending on what statistics you look at, one in three women or one in four women have had abortions in our country. country, which means one in three or one in four men have participated in abortion. I think that their abortion covers up a multitude of sins. We know that I know from my own experience, that abortion is, it's a great cover up for abuse. And I know that that's happening. And I know that that's

on a daily basis inside of abortion facilities. You know, it's tied hand in hand with the trafficking industry. There are so many wounded people in our culture right now, wounded from abortion. And I'm not sure that people really in higher offices want to get to the bottom of it. I'm not really sure that they want to admit what's taking place inside of these abortion clinics because I think many of them have participated. I think many of them have been a part of it. And I think they're scared to take away the option, honestly.

Why is it, you know, why is all this being kind of swept under the rug and why are people ignoring it? You know, I think there's many reasons that we sort of cover up abortion, that we allow abortion to continue, you know, depending on the statistics you look at, one in four women have had abortions, one in three women have had abortions. And I think that abortion goes up to some of the highest levels in our government. I think that many, many people have participated in abortion. I think that they are fearful to not have abortion as an option available to them. But I think it's just by and large a very wounded culture that we're living in. And I think there's a lot of fear.

I think there's fear of being exposed, fear of not having the availability. I think just fear. I think too, I think there's also a fear of healing. What would it be like if I had to admit to what I've done? You know, if abortion goes away and we actually start calling abortion what it is. And we, and our laws now are formed around. what abortion is and that it's murder. And it's taking an innocent human life.

And we call it what it is. And our laws call it what it is. I think that's scary for a lot of people who have had abortions or who have participated in abortion because then they have to deal with that reality. That, oh my gosh, I had an abortion. So what does that make me? I've murdered my child. that's a very difficult reality to live with.

That's a very difficult reality to come to terms with. So it's easier or not to. And that's a very difficult, it's a very difficult label to live with. Can you tell me a little bit more about the quotas? You know, what, when you say quota, you know, what does that mean in the context of, your clinic and how widespread was that across Planned Parenthood at the time?

We had a quota at our clinic. I, you know, I would say it was just under 100 abortions every month that we had to perform. So, you know, you, we had, it was an annual quota that was essentially broken up into months. That is at every Planned Parenthood abortion facility. So it's how you come up with the budget, with your abortion budget. It's, you know, how they essentially keep the doors open. You know, Planned Parenthood parades around as this nonprofit organization, as this great benefactor to the masses, this charitable group. But honestly, they are profit-driven.

They are looking for the most effective ways to make money. They are trying to get the most women in their doors as they can to have abortions, because abortion is their highest revenue-generating product with the lowest cost. So it does not cost them very much to commit an abortion. but the payout is very, very high for them. And so they try to shove as many women as they can on the schedule. Women sometimes are waiting four, five, six hours to have an abortion because they overbook themselves.

It's such a high amount. But they don't care. And the women don't care because they see this as a service that they need and they're willing to be treated like trash in order to receive it. How were the quotas communicated to you, and when did you become aware of quotas when you joined Planned Parenthood? You know, I really didn't even understand that there was a quota until I became the director. And that was when I was given my budget, and my budget was broken down by quotas. and that was really eye-opening to me.

And then when I had my next budget meeting, that was when I was told, we're going to be ramping these up. We're going to be doubling quotas. And so much so that we're going to get you a whiteboard and we're going to put a whiteboard in the staff break room. And you are going to have to start writing down how many abortions are performed at your facility every week. and you're going to have to start counting down on this whiteboard, how many abortions still need

to be performed from week to week, how many abortions still need to be performed from month to month in order to meet your quota. And you've got to really motivate your staff. And on the months that we met our quota, then the staff would get free lunch. We would bring in lunch and my supervisor would put it on her company card and we would get lunch from, you know, a pizza place or sandwich place or something like that to celebrate meeting our quota and killing the number of babies that they wanted us to kill. I can say, regrettably, now that there was never a month when I was on staff that we did not meet our

quota. And that was, honestly, I was given. I was given Planned Parenthood's Employee of the Year award my last year that I was there. And that's why I got their employee of the year award. It wasn't because, you know, I was good at remembering birthdays or I was the friendliest at the affiliate or anything like that. I was the best at selling abortion. I was the best at motivating my staff to. sell abortion. So with what you know of Planned Parenthood, was Planned Parenthood interested in the well-being

of the woman who stepped through their doors? Planned Parenthood is not interested in protecting women. They're not interested in the well-being of women at all. They're interested in the bottom line. They're interested in generating a product and that product is abortion. And we're we see that. Right. We see that now. We see that across the country. The Planned Parenthood's talking points have changed. And they changed actually while I worked at Planned Parenthood. So when I started working at Planned Parenthood in 2001, the Planned Parenthood talking point, their media points, where we provide preventative health care services. Abortion is a very small percentage of what we do.

It's less than 3% of what we do. We are not an abortion provider. We are a health care provider. And they really, really focused on their family planning services. So, you know, STD testing, birth control, well-women exams, things like that. About, let's see, it was in about 2007. so it was right around the time that I became the director at Planned Parenthood, their talking points changed.

Everything changed. Their persona in the media changed. And they really became more brazen about their support of abortion. In my first few years at Planned Parenthood, we didn't even keep the pamphlets, our abortion pamphlets, out for the public. So if somebody wanted a pamphlet on abortion, they were actually kept behind the desk. They had to ask for one, and we would give it to them. Now all of a sudden, abortion information was out for people to see.

It was out in our waiting room. It was just out and open for people. And the talking points changed. So now it became abortion is essential. It's an essential part of the services that we provide. and having an abortion is sacrificial. So women who choose abortion are doing so for the well-being of themselves, their current families, and their future families.

That became Planned Parenthood's talking point. And that was when we saw the pendulum start to swing to the other side. And that was really when Planned Parenthood, I think, started to change overall. That was when we saw more of a push for abortion quotas. That was when they started backing off of all of these family planning services. And we've seen that. So in the past 10 years, these other family planning services have plummeted, most of them by over 65 to 70%. So, you know, birth control services are down by more than 65%.

STD testing down by more than 65%. Breast care, down by more than 65%. While women exams, down by more than 65%. Just in the past 10 years. The only thing that has continued to increase at Planned Parenthood in the past 10 years has been abortions and government funding. everything else has been on a sharp decline. And we also see something different at Planned Parenthood that we did not see, you know,

15, 20 years ago when I was there. And that is the opening of abortion-only facilities. So there are now facilities across the country, Planned Parenthood facilities, that only do abortions six days a week, 50 hours a week. So they do not provide well-women care. They do not provide STD testing. They do not provide birth control. These are abortion-only facilities. They have gotten rid of any other preventative care. And we saw that shift under Cecile Richards, their past president and Richard's daughter. We saw that shift coming under her. She said in a tweet one day, she said, abortion

care is as essential as cancer screenings. So we saw that shift coming under her. And they appointed a new president, Leanna Wynne, who was only there for nine months. She ended up leaving because she was not pushing abortion enough. She's a physician. And she wanted to get back on track with the whole prevention model. they said no. And she's been outspoken about how her ideals about, you know, what Planned Parenthood should be were at odds with what the Federation, what Planned Parenthood Federation wanted her to push. And that's

why she left. So let's go back in time a little bit, you know, why did you join Planned Parenthood originally? I joined Planned Parenthood completely ignorant about what they were, what they did, what they were about. I grew up in a Christian home, pro-life home. My parents, you know, I remember my parents saying abortion was wrong, but I can't say, you know, I grew up knowing about abortion or about the pro-life movement or pro-choice. We didn't really talk about that around the dinner table or anything like that. And so I went to college, met a woman on campus who was recruiting students to volunteer with Planned Parenthood. And their table was dripping with hot pink and that's what drew me over.

And she just started asking me about, you know, what I thought about women's rights and feminism. And I didn't know. I never really thought about it. and everything that she was saying made sense to me as someone who was just very naive. And I thought, okay, yeah, I mean, what does it hurt just to go volunteer and check it out? I knew it was wrong. I knew in the back of my head it was wrong because I did not tell my parents that I was at

Planned Parenthood. I had been there a year and a half before I told my parents what I was doing. And I knew they would not like it. I knew that they would say, this is wrong. you're at an abortion provider. This is not okay. But I thought, you know what, I'll get up enough stories. I'll come up with enough good things to convince them that what I'm doing is okay.

And, you know, then I just thought I'm in. I mean, once I was in, I just thought, no, this is the right thing to do. This is what I should be doing. And there was a contingency of pro-life people on the sidewalk. There were two groups. There was one group that was really loving and they were out there praying and they were praying the rosary and they were trying to reach out to women. There was another group out there. They were very aggressive. They were very hateful. They were calling women names. They had these big graphic signs and they were terrible. And I remember pulling up my first day to volunteer and I remember seeing that group of people out there and thinking, if that's the pro-life movement, I don't want to have anything to do with them. And I remember feeling very protective. over the women going in and just saying, I need to help them. This is, this is where I need to be. And that was it. And that really started my, my eight-year-long career. And then I, you know, I ended up having two abortions of my own. I ended up, you know, being a educator for Planned Parenthood.

I worked a little bit in political affairs for them. I mean, I sort of was very involved in every part of Planned Parenthood and really believed in our mission. So when did Planned Parenthood communicate to you and how did they communicate to you that you were to start targeting minority communities? We really started targeting minority communities. When I worked as one of the jobs I had before I was the director of the center, before I was the clinic director, I was the community services director. And I didn't realize it then, but, you know, part of my job then was to really help rally support for the clinic.

And so, you know, the regional director at the time would say to me, you know, oh, okay, you need to go out and you need to put out flyers about Planned Parenthood. And you need to, you know, get out there and, you know, garner support for us. And I was in charge of the fundraiser in the town for Planned Parenthood. And so, you know, we ran a fundraiser and all this kind of stuff. That was the first time in that community services director position that I was told you need to go into poor neighborhoods. and put out flyers and put out information about Planned Parenthood and the services that we provide. And they said, you know, you need to go and you need to try to do talks in these communities. You need to try to go into these HUD housing developments, these projects, and you need to try to.

A lot of times they'll have community meetings and you need to try to be the one to be the presenter. in these community meetings and let them know about our services and let them know that we provide abortions too and that we can help them with their family size. And at the time, I thought, oh, that's great. We really are helping them, you know. They don't have enough money to feed the mouse currently at their table. And so this is great. We're, you know, we're helping them. I was like so naive. It had been presented to me as this good. Like, look at the good that we're doing for these people, you know.

And I remember one time they really, for some reason, my boss was a falling away Catholic. And she had a real thing about trying to get Catholics. into the clinic. And she had said, you know, you need to try to reach out, as the educator, you need to try to reach out to Catholic churches. Just don't tell them that you're with Planned Parenthood. And just tell them your health educator and go to these Hispanic churches. And these women, they're going to tell you that they can't use birth control, that their husbands won't let them use birth control. tell them that's fine.

Tell them we'll put in a type of birth control that their husband won't know about and that they could come here for free. That we have funding, we can put them on. And we can do an IUD or we can do an implant in their arm. And their husbands will never know. And it was like she had this joy about getting women into the clinic to stray from their faith. And she was like, won't that be great?

That'll be great. We'll get them in. They don't have to be just these baby-making machines, you know, for their husbands. Their husbands are just trying to, you know, trying to just make them submissive. And I was so young and just so easily almost brainwashed. I was like, yeah, yeah, okay. You know, I'll do that. And she was so much older than me.

She was like a, she was older than my mom. You know, she had been with a facility forever. And I wanted to take over her job. So I was trying to do everything I could to please her. I mean, I'm not making excuses. I did terrible things. But, I mean, I was trying to do everything I could to please her and do what she told me to do. And so I was like, okay, yeah.

I mean, I'll, you know, I can do that. Yeah, I'll do that. And at the time, I really thought it was. was a good idea. And, but that was also the time that we started really going into minority neighborhoods. That was the time that, that year was really the time that we started going into these HUD housing developments. And really at her request, I mean, she was like, these are the clients that we want. these are the clients that we need. And I mean, I can't say at the time that I had any qualms about it. I can't say at the time that I thought, oh, this is wrong. Because I was still at the time very, I was still

very much thinking, oh, yeah, we'll get them on birth control. We'll help them. That's, that was sort of my mindset, but I know that's not, I know that's not where her head was. Because we weren't making money on birth control. We, a lot of times we actually lost money on birth control. We were making money on abortion. And I know that's where her head was. So how, how widespread is this targeting of minorities? Was it just your clinic? Or is there reason to believe that this is something systemic in the whole organization. Targeting minorities is a systemic problem inside of the abortion industry period. We have former workers that talk about giving discounts to minority patients for abortions

and not giving discounts to white patients. So let's talk about the hush money that your clinic was giving patients. same question you know was that just your clinic or you know where did this idea of giving hush money to patients come from was that handed down from you know higher up in the organization or what were the origins of that unfortunately we hear stories about this hush money situation we hear that from many different workers particularly former clinic directors like myself who have had to hand over the same sort of checks that I did. You know, it happens.

The problem is that there are so many women who are harmed by abortion, but the shame keeps them from coming forward and going to a medical malpractice attorney, going to a personal injury attorney and saying something bad happened to me. You know, part of my baby was left inside of me. Or I was left laying on an abortion clinic table for five hours while they were trying to pack my uterus full of gauze. When did you realize the truth about the organization you were working for and the reality of, you know, what abortion was? I think for a long time I had done a pretty good job of, or particularly in the last two years, I had done a good job of justifying all the things that

were bothering me. And I had done a good job of just sort of saying, well, it'll get better or, you know, this is for a reason or, you know, whatever. But when I saw the ultrasound guided abortion. I did try. I mean, I did, I did try to make sense of it. I tried to make it okay in my head, what I had seen. But I just, I knew that it was, it was too much. It was too far. I knew I knew I could not make sense of what I had just seen. I knew that that was not supposed to happen, that there had been women throughout that past eight years that had come to me who had asked me. Probably the most frequently asked question I had gotten was, is my baby going to feel this? And I had said, no, of course not. No. It's not even a baby. It's nothing. It's just...

It's just tissue. It's just cells. It's just nothing. And yet, here I was watching this baby, you know, fighting for his life. And I thought, oh my gosh. I had lied to them, not intentionally, but I had lied to them. And because of that, I, I mean, I had been lying. lie to, but I lied to them. And I thought, I can't make this right. I hate liars. I hate lying.

And I just thought, I'm the biggest liar I know right now. And there was nothing I could do to justify that. I feel like, you know, over my life, over that eight years, I kept coming to crossroads. And I think that's always in all of our lives. You know, we come to a crossroad and we can either choose righteousness. or we can choose sin. And over and over in the abortion industry, I would choose sin over and over. And every time I would choose sin, my heart would become a little more callous, a little more hardened. But in that moment when I saw that, you know, I did have a choice to make. But it was like God was not allowing me to choose that other road.

God was only going to allow me to choose righteousness. It was like that, you know, the Bible says that, you know, their hearts of stone would be turned into hearts of flesh. And I felt like that is what had happened to me. And it took seeing that child die. You know, it wasn't, it wasn't the mangled body parts that did it. It wasn't the blood. It wasn't the gore. It wasn't It wasn't the death, actually. It was seeing the life of that child and seeing that life disappear. You know, it was seeing that heartbeat stop in real time right in front of my face. That's what caused me to say, this is wrong.

I cannot do this anymore. We have more of our conversation with Abby coming up in just a second. first, though, be sure to text pro-life to 47581. Because as the country grapples with the aftermath of overturning Roe v. Wade, the pro-life movement has come under fire from far-left pro-abortion extremists. Not only have leftists firebombed and vandalized pro-life clinics in multiple states, but online pro-life groups have experienced mass censorship by Google, Facebook, TikTok, you name it. That's why live action has been working tireless. to find ways to spread the truth about abortion and share resources with those who need it most

without relying on biased big tech. If you want to join Live Action's Fight for Life, text ProLife to 47581 and opt in to receive updates from Live Action about their ongoing work to end abortion. Texting Pro Life to 47581 means you won't be at the mercy of the big tech sensors in the ongoing fight for life. Exema is unpredictable. but you can flare less with ebbglis, a once-monthly treatment for moderate to severe eczema.

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also called atopic dermatitis, is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to ebbglis. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebbglis. Before starting Epgless, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Ask your doctor about Ebglis and visit ebglis.lis.lily.com or call 1800 LilyRX or 1,800 545-979. Can you give audiences who aren't necessarily familiar with your story, kind of set

the scene for us, maybe just take us on that journey, like put us in your shoes, you know, the moments leading up to you walking into the room, you walking into the room, what's the abortionist ask you to do? Why are you there? And what do you start seeing? You know, what are you seeing? What are you hearing? Yeah. As a clinic director of the facility, I'm not a nurse.

I'm not a doctor. I'm a therapist by education, but I don't have any medical credentials whatsoever. So I was an administrator. You know, I made sure that medical protocols were being followed, but I was not the one to be the medical person. I was not typically in the room for abortions. I handled staff. I handled clinic flow, things like that. And we had a visiting physician in that day from another facility.

And he owned his own private abortion facility. And he had told me one time in the car when I was actually, driving him to the clinic, that at his facility, he performed something called an ultrasound guided abortion. And that was new to me. That was something that we did not do at our facility. Our facility, we only did sort of these blind abortion procedures. So the doctor has a suction instrument. He puts that into the woman's uterus, and he just blindly pokes around inside of the woman's uterus until he thinks he has enough blood and tissue in a glass jar. That glass jar then goes into a lab called the POC lab. POC stands for products of conception. That's, of course, the baby.

That POC tack dumps everything into a glass baking dish. She reassembles the parts of the baby to make sure that everything is accounted for and nothing is left in the uterus. And then all the parts the baby go into a red biohazard waste bag, and then someone comes to pick that up every week or every other week, and it's taken and incinerated. And that was the only way I knew abortion to occur. This doctor said he did it differently. He came to our facility that day, and he said that he wanted to show us what this type of abortion procedure look like. And I thought, okay, well, you know, this will be a good learning experience for me. I was called in to assist. And my job was to hold the ultrasound probe on the woman's abdomen during the abortion so that the doctor would

be able to, in his words, visualize his target. And we do the ultrasound, the baby's 13 weeks, slow over 13 weeks. And at this point, at 13 weeks, everything on the baby is, I mean, completely formed. Arms, legs, fingers, toes, hearts been beating since 21 days post-conception. Brain waves are functioning. Every internal organ that we sit here with today is completely formed on a baby by that point. And so I stood there looking at the ultrasound screen just honestly feeling very apprehensive about what I was about to see because I recognize that this really looks like a baby. But, you know, I was saying in my head, oh, well, it can't be because I have been taught abortion science. And abortion science says that a pregnancy

only turns into a baby when the mother decides this pregnancy is wanted. And if a mother decides that this pregnancy is not wanted, then that pregnancy never turns into a baby. And this woman is here having an abortion so clearly, even though this really looks like a baby, it's really not. It's just tissue, it's just waste. It's just something to be discarded. But I was feeling very nervous. about what I was going to potentially see. And I saw the, I could see, I could see on the, the ultrasound. I could see the suction tube. The suction wasn't yet turned on. And I could see that going into the woman's uterus. And I saw it getting closer and closer to the side of the baby. And then when it finally touched his side, he jumped like he had been woken up or something.

And he started just flailing his arms and legs as if he was trying to move away from the suction tube. And then when the doctor got everything in the right position, he said to the tech to turn on the suction machine. And he said, beam me up, Scotty. and the suction was turned on and I watched as this tiny baby was just torn apart in his mother's womb by the power of the suction. And, you know, I just, when it was over, I remember just dropping the ultrasound probe. And I remember looking down at my hands. And I remember just thinking, oh, my gosh, you know, our hands and what we do with them, it's just so powerful. At that time, my daughter, Grace, was three.

And she was just about to turn three. And, you know, my hands were the first one to hold her. after I gave birth to her. And, you know, they were the hands that nursed her and rocked her back to sleep when she was upset and all these things. But in that moment, it was these hands that helped to take a life from another mother. And I just thought, you know, what we do with our life, what we do with our hands, what we do with our bodies, it's so powerful. And I just thought, I don't ever want to cause destruction again with these hands, with my life. And I walked out of that room knowing that my life was going to be different,

knowing that I could never participate in abortion again. I didn't know what it was going to look like, but I knew that it was going to be different somehow. Do you think most pro-choice supporters are, like you were just, you know, thinking, oh, I want to support women's rights. I want to do what's right for, you know, for women. And just not thinking about or just, you know, being, whether ignorantly or intentionally, you know, just not thinking about the truth of what abortion is. And we're not, and I'm not talking about like the pro-choice movement or the industry.

Yeah, yeah. But just the average American, yeah. I think the average American doesn't really know a lot about abortion, honestly. I think a lot of people just think about the women. I think a lot of people have been sort of led to believe that abortions are happening on these poor pathetic women who have been victimized by someone. And, you know, by gosh, what would they do if they didn't have the option of abortion? They would go to these very, very dangerous back alley clinics, and, well, they would die if they didn't have abortion accessible to them. And so let's just prevent women from dying and let's send them to these very, very safe, sterile facilities where they have painless, bloodless, you know, healthy abortions.

And I think that's what the bulk of Americans believe abortion is. and it's just so not the case. And I think that we live in a time now with the younger generation as it is, they are the most movable generation on abortion. But I'm not sure we're doing a very good job of explaining what abortion is to them or making a really strong argument for why they should be against abortion. and I think we have to do better at that. I think we must do better because people that are, you know, in their 60s and 70s that are

supporting abortion, they're probably not going to change their minds on abortion. These are women, a lot of them who had abortions back, you know, in the early days of Roe v. Wade, and they're sort of in that mindset that, well, I have to have abortion or I had to have an abortion back then. they were the fighters for, you know, Ro. And so, you know, they have their own beliefs about it and we're probably not going to change their minds. And so that's really not who we're going for. That's not the generation that we're looking to change. But this younger generation, these are people who, you know, their first pictures of themselves,

they have them. And it's their ultrasound picture of them in the womb. This is a very movable generation on this issue. And so we need to be discussing this with them in very honest detail. But I think the majority of Americans just, they just don't even know the facts about abortion. I have so many people come on my social media pages and they say, well, you're ridiculous because abortion isn't even, that is not even allowed after 12 weeks. And I'm like, come on. abortion is allowed in many states up until the date of birth for any reason.

There's a doctor in Colorado, Dr. Warren Hearn, who is performing abortions electively up until the date of birth in Boulder, Colorado. People don't even know that. And many pro-choice supporters believe that abortion is not allowed after the first trimester. I think if they knew that, I think if they knew the reality, I think if they knew what abortion really was, what it was really doing to a child, they wouldn't support it. And, you know, to that point, you know, if you were to tell a pro-choice person one thing, what's the one thing that approach choice American should know?

If I had to tell one thing to an abortion supporter, I think I would talk to them about the detrimental effects of abortion on women. Because if we're really, really honest, nobody wants to talk about this, but if we're really, really honest about abortion and why women choose abortion, women choose abortion out of selfishness. And the point could be made years ago that they were choosing abortion primarily out of fear. And I believed that. But I chose abortion out of selfishness.

the majority of these women are choosing abortion because they don't want a baby to interrupt their plans. And that's not fear. That's just convenience. And so when I talk to women, whether it's at a pregnancy center, whether it's online, wherever it is, I have to talk to them about what abortion does to them. because if I talk to them about what it does to their baby, they don't care. I have to first start off with what abortion does to them, how abortion affects women. I have to tell them that women who have abortions are six times more likely to commit suicide. I have to tell them that women who have abortions are more likely to have eating disorders, anxiety, depression. I have to talk to them about the potential rate of infertility. I have to talk to them about the higher risk of breast cancer, low birth weight in future pregnancies.

That's what I have to go to them with first because they don't care anything about taking the lives of their babies. and honestly, most of the women that I'm talking to have already had multiple abortions. When we first started and then there were none of our clinic worker ministry, clinic workers would come out of the industry generally one of three reasons or a combination. They were either being treated really, really poorly by their boss or somebody in the clinic. Two, something devastating had happened to a baby. So a baby had been born alive or we had a worker that left because quadruplets were aborted and these babies were just falling out of the woman's body and it was very traumatic for the staff.

Or something devastating had happened to a woman. So a woman had almost died on the table. She had bled out. A woman did die on the table. You know, something like that. Now we're actually seeing a new reason that industry workers are coming through our ministry. And it's because the callous nature of women coming into their clinic who are seeking abortions. You know, these industry workers got into the industry like me, wanting to help women, right?

and thinking, oh, I'm helping to prevent women from going into these back alley abortion clinics or, you know, abortion is sort of a necessary evil, right? It's like a, like, you're just sort of calling a mulligan, right? They messed up one time and I'm going to help them get through this one, this one time so they can finish their education. They can, you know, finish college. They can finish, they can go on their career path. They can, you know, meet whatever goal it is they want to meet. But now they're coming to us because they're like, these women are terrible. These women are coming in and they have sat in front of me six other times. These women are coming in and they're making jokes about having abortions. They're making jokes about killing their babies. They are so

callous about aborting their baby. And these workers are like, that's not why I got into this. And they can't stand it. And that's why they're leaving. And that is just the epitome of selfishness. That you're willing to take someone else's life to better your own, that you're willing to mock the death of an innocent human being for what for the for the for the betterment of yourself and so it's it's been interesting but even these industry workers are seeing just the brazen condition of our society when it comes to abortion and how much do you think that callousness is due to the messaging of the of the pro abortion movement over the last 20 years, you know, with things like shout your abortion or celebrate your abortion.

If the abortion industry had not swung that pendulum so far, right? If the abortion industry, you know, in 2007, 2008, if they had not changed their positioning where they made abortion sort of like this sacrificial thing, which sort of then became like this domino effect where abortion is sacrificial and you're doing it for your yourself, your current family and your future family. And then that led to, you know, opening these abortion only centers. And then that was the Shout Your Abortion Movement. And I'm proud of my abortion. Gloria Steinem, you know, standing on the front cover of a magazine wearing a shirt that said, I had an abortion. And it was just this snowball, right, that kept rolling down this hill where people were standing up at a, at

podium saying I'm really proud of the fact that I had my abortion. And then, you know, then the women's march, right? And then there was a group that trained women on how to proudly proclaim the fact that they've had abortions. And so you sort of see this effect. And now it's like, oh, no, abortion is birth control. And be proud of that. Be proud of that. proud if you've had 15, 16 abortions. There's nothing wrong with that. And now Planned Parenthood does not want to say that only 3% of their services are abortion because that creates abortion stigma. And abortion stigma is a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with having an abortion. So don't act like there's something wrong with having an abortion. If they had not done that, if they had kept it,

to the talking point of let's keep abortion safe, legal, and rare, I don't believe Roe would be hanging in the balance like it is right now. Because keeping abortion safe, legal, and rare is something that most people can rally around. Even people who are, you know, moderately pro-life will say, I mean, that makes sense, right? I mean, most people are like, okay, yeah. I mean, not, no, abortion rare, yeah, okay, that makes sense, right? Even Christians, even some Christians were like, well, okay, I mean, let's not ban abortion. Let's just keep it safely gone rare.

I mean, there were many churches that supported that mantra. It's wrong, but they supported that mantra. now this pro-choice movement, they have lost their minds and they've lost their moderate base. And now, you know, therefore abortion all the way, you know, through the date of birth, people can't get on board with that. People are not on board with that. Every pro-choice person I knew when I worked at Planned Parenthood thought abortion passed, the point of viability was wrong.

now that suddenly the Democratic parties, they're okay with that. Now suddenly the pro-choice movement is okay with that. Pro-choice individuals are not okay with that. Not the ones I know. But they are losing people right and left. And in fact, we have people with our ministry who now, who say they're pro-choice. but they're donors to our pro-life ministry love line because we're actually helping moms and they're like, we don't know where to go. We don't feel like we fit in the pro-choice movement anymore,

but you're out here actually providing help for moms in need and you're buying them car seats and you're buying them cribs and you're helping them with housing. And so we're going to donate to you because we don't have a home anymore in the pro-choice movement because we don't want to support abortion up through the date of birth. And so they're now donors to us because they see that we're actually being part of the solution. And so they have completely, they have completely missed the mark and they have flown right over the bulk of pro-choice supporters.

So to the thing you were just talking about, is there a disconnect between the pro-abortion lobby or the industry and the average pro-choice person? I think there is a disconnect in general between those who are pushing pro-choice legislation, pro-choice politicians, and then the general pro-choicer. I think there's, yes, I think there's a huge disconnect there. And what's the, what's kind of the most crucial difference between those two individuals? Well, the pro-choice politician and the pro-choice lobby, they are, they're really trying to get the priority of the abortion industry out front and center, which is money focused. It's, it's greed focused.

So, you know, it's getting abortion clinics up all over the country. It's a push for clients, getting clients in the door. It's a push for federal money. Whereas I think the, you know, pro-choice person is looking and saying, well, I just want to, I just want women to be safe. And that's oftentimes what I talk to people about. I'll go and when I talk to people, they're like, well, I just want women to be safe. I'm like, me too.

You know, we just have different opinions of what that looks like. And that's something that we can actually have a dialogue about and talk about. But when I talk to pro-choice politicians, they're not about safety at all. They don't want to talk about women's safety one bit. They used to, but their priorities have greatly changed. And so you just segueed perfectly for me into the next question, which is, you know, is there any common ground between, you know, the common, you know, person who says, oh, yeah, I'm pro-choice and the pro-life movement. And if so, you know, what is that common ground? And can we use that as a starting point to the conversation? I don't know if there's any common ground. I mean. What about, like you just said, women's safety, you know? Yeah, I mean, they'll, yeah, I mean, they will say, like, oh, I want women to be safe. And I'll say, well, I want women to be safe.

And I'll say, well, how do you want women to be safe? And they'll say, well, I want women to be able to, you know, access abortion and not have to go to a back alley. And then I'll start telling them, well, this is really what abortion clinics are like. The problem is that they don't want to believe it. Even if you give them the evidence, even if you say, well, go to this website. here's where all the inspection reports are. I can show you how dangerous abortion clinics are. You know, many pro-choice people, particularly if they're older.

If they're younger, they're pretty movable. But if they're older, they just don't want to believe it. They are so scared to have abortion access unavailable. And I think there's a general, they don't understand what resources are available for So they think if women get pregnant and they don't have abortion as an option, then women, every pregnant woman is going to end up homeless and on the street. Instead of recognizing that there are actually a lot of resources available for women, thousands of resources available for women.

I think there's just a lack of information out there that honestly we probably need to do a better job of helping people become aware of the resources that are out there. And what kind of resources are there available to women? I mean, there's thousands of pregnancy resource centers available to women. They actually outnumber pregnancy resource centers outnumber abortion clinics now almost four to one. So these pregnancy resource centers provide help for a mom while she's pregnant. and then years after she delivers her baby with anything.

I mean, support, emotional support, material support, so many resources for. If she needs insurance, they can help her file for insurance. If she needs WIC or whatever it may be, Medicaid, they can help her file for all of those things. They're great support to women. My ministry, Loveline, people can find out about that at Lovelin.com. We are a 24-hour crisis case management support. And we help anybody that's in need of crisis support. So whether they're pregnant or whether they're not pregnant, single moms, single dads,

people who are victims of domestic violence, people who need, who are victims of sex trafficking, anybody that's in need of assistance, we help with that financial piece. So whether they need rent paid or car payments made or whatever that may be. That's sort of the, we do complement the services of pregnancy resource centers quite well. They can provide a lot of the material resources and we can provide a lot of the financial resources. You know, there's a lot of government help out there for women that I think they don't even know about. There's child care subsidy programs that help pay for daycare, the WIC program, Women and Children's Program is something that I think pretty much every pregnant woman needs to be on.

They can help with breastfeeding support. They provide groceries for women, all kinds of things, that they can help women with. A lot of educational resources for them. There's just a lot of resources out there that women don't know about. They don't know how to take care. They don't know how to, they don't know how to access these services. And that's why I think pregnancy resource centers are so great. That's why I think Loveline is great, because we can help women tap in to those resources.

And by the way, the abortion industry is doing none of that. They're not helping women apply for WIC. They're not helping women apply for Medicaid. They don't have a stockload of diapers in their centers so that if a woman chooses parenting, they can, you know, send her off with a box of diapers when she leaves. They're not doing anything like that for women. The only thing that they can offer a woman who is pregnant is to take the life of her baby. And so, you know, that leads directly to the question, is the pro-choice movement really the friend of women that they're messaging all centers around?

The pro-choice movement is literally doing nothing to actually help women, and which is why I think there are a lot of pro-choice people now who are helping love line. They're donating money to Love Line. They're going on our Amazon registries, baby registries, and they're donating to the women that we're helping because they don't know what else to do because there is no help like that in the pro-choice movement for women. You know, I think about just the eight years that I was at Planned Parenthood. And during that time, you know, I definitely would have called myself a, you know, a feminist and, you know, a champion of women. There is, is not one time in that eight years where a woman came to me for help, where I sat down across from her and I said, you know, I'm going to help you today. If a woman came to me and said,

I'm pregnant, I essentially looked at her and said, that's tough, you know, you're really not strong enough to do that. You're not strong enough to be a single mom. You're not strong enough to meet your educational goals. You're not strong enough to meet your career goals. So the only thing I have for you to do is I'm going to capitalize in your moment of weakness and I'm going to take advantage of your vulnerability and I'm going to convince you to give me money to kill your baby. That's not strength. That's not teaching her that she's strong. That's not giving her resources. That's really the opposite of what feminism is. And we just exploited women day in and day out. We didn't teach women they were strong. We exploited them at their moment of weakness.

And is that still happening today? It's happening every single day in every single abortion clinic across this country. So, you know, a big talking point of the pro-abortion movement now is abortion has always been accepted. It's always been societally fine. You know, look back to the 1600s, look back to, you know, early societies, you know, even in what would become the United States, you know, Native Americans, what have you. So has it been the case or is it the case as Planned Parenthood and other members of the abortion movement want people to believe that societally it's always been, you know, acceptable to kill an unborn child. You know, one of the arguments they make is, you know, well, look, in the 1600s, it was fine before quickening, you know. So is that argument kind of a good faith argument? Is that a true argument? or how do you respond to that? I don't think that we can look at something and say, oh, well, you know, it was fine back then,

so it must be fine now. I mean, we can't say that with slavery. Like, well, oh, well, slavery was fine back then, so it must be fine now. Or, well, slavery was fine for hundreds of years, so it's probably okay now, too. I mean, when you know better, you do better. And that's the way it was with the Jewish Holocaust. That's the way it was with slavery. Now we know better with abortion.

We know what's happening in the womb. You know, medical technology, medical advancements have come to the point where we know exactly what's happening in the womb. We know that this is a human being from the moment of conception. We IVF labs have shown now that when egg and sperm meat, there's actually a spark that takes place. It's called the spark of life. There is something unique and incredible that happens at that moment of conception. We know exactly what is taking place inside of the womb. We know that that's a human being.

It's never anything else. A woman has never had anything but a human being. We know that the heartbeat begins at 21 days post-conception. We know that fingerprints are formed very early on in the womb. We know that brain waves are active at just a few weeks along in the womb. We know so much about the baby. Surgery is being performed in the womb now to correct multiple things like spina bifida. heart surgery is being performed on children in the womb still.

How can we say that's not a child? That child is not worthy of protection. How can we say that some children are worthy of protection and we're willing to move heaven and earth to protect this child and perform heart surgery on them to help them survive? But that that same gestation we're willing to kill them in the name. of choice. That makes no sense. Just because something has happened for many years doesn't make it right. And when you know better, you do better. And we clearly know better now. You know, sometimes we hear

the pro-abortion movement say, well, something has happened for a long time, or, you know, it's always been this way, or abortion has always been around. So, you know, it can't be wrong, or it's fine because it, you know, it happened back a long time ago. And so, but that's, I mean, that argument doesn't make any logical sense. And, and honestly, I think, I think more and more people are moving away from that argument, because I think it's pretty easy to debunk that argument when we look at time, when we look at history, when we look at historical fact, when we look, we see that there are many things in history that were done, that were wrong. And we changed course. And abortion is one of those things that we should change course. What is, you know, what is the purpose

of health care, you know, going back even to the earliest days of, you know, the origins of the Hippocratic Oath. And, you know, so you have the audience a sense for what the purpose of health care really is. The purpose of health care has always been to heal. and to do no harm, right? And that's why abortion cannot ever truly be considered health care. Because in order for an abortion to be successful, then a unique and individual human being must be killed. And that, number one, violates the Hippocratic Oath,

but two, it also just inherently goes against what health care is supposed to be. Health care is supposed to be about healing, about making people well. And if you're killing someone, intentionally killing someone, you are not making them well. And so, you know, the fact that the pro-abortion movement is constantly saying abortion is health care, abortion is health care. It's really just a false claim if you understand anything about what health care truly is. So, you know, going back to 1973, what were the main kind of justifications for Roe? And can we, you know, now that we have a better understanding, better technology,

we've seen the impacts of abortion for the last 50 years, you know, what if any of those arguments still stand or do any of them still stand? Roe was essentially predicated on a lie. So when all of that was taking place in 1972 and 1973, you know, there's a group of people that said, well, we need abortion because, you know, look at everything that's happening in the world. Women are dying from all of these back-alley abortions. They're, you know, they're dying from, you know, these dangerous doctors and all this kind of stuff. And at home abortions.

That's one of the things that they were saying. Dr. Bernard Nathanson was one of the co-founders of Nairau, so an organization that still exists today. And in the 80s, he ended up having a conversion and became pro-life. He has a really incredible story. And he is the one who actually, later on in his life, he actually is the one that says that he came up with all of the fake numbers surrounding the amount of deaths of women who were supposedly dying from these back alley abortions. He says that all of the numbers were completely made up, that there were not that many women dying from back alley abortions. There were not that many women dying from these at-home abortion procedures. Sure, there were some, but the numbers that they made were made up were, they were just completely

fabricated. But during his time as an abortionist, he helped to commit over 75,000 abortions. And he talked about four steps that he and his partners used to help America see abortion as a societal norm. But, you know, Roe had made all of these promises that, you know, if you allow abortion, if you legalize abortion, then, you know, domestic violence is going to decrease. That poverty is going to decrease. That, you know, all of these societal ills are going to essentially go away if you allow

women to kill their children. And that has actually not happened. none of those things have gotten any better. In fact, they've gotten worse over the years. And that makes sense because when you allow a society to perpetuate violence against your most innocent citizens, it makes sense that violence would become rampant against everyone in your society. And, you know, they used a woman named Norma McCorby and, you know, said, oh, you know, Norma needed to have an abortion and used her. She was an impoverished, uneducated woman. Norma, you know, was not a woman who had an abortion, but it was all just a big facade. It was just this big trap. And it made all of these promises to our society, and it made all of these promises to women.

And it has essentially been a huge setup for our society. And people say, you know, oh, well, if we don't have abortion, then, you know, banning abortion does not lessen the likelihood of abortion. And that's ridiculous. Of course it does. the law is a teacher. And if we ban abortion, then of course abortion numbers would go down. I can't think of any other scenario. I mean, if you said to people, for the next 48 hours, murder is going to be legal in the United States. Well, I can guarantee you the murder rate would significantly go up in our country. If you said to people in the next 48 hours, breaking into cars, completely legal, a lot of cars would be broken into.

It's just that is our society. The law helps to instruct our culture. And that is why we need laws to help ban abortion in our nation to help instruct. people to say, this is wrong. Taking the life of an innocent human being is wrong. And life inside the womb is human. As the crispy chicken sandwich from 7-Eleven, people always call me loud. And I'm like, yeah, I know. I'm crispy. Did you expect me to whisper? If you want quiet, go eat some soup and reflect. Like, I know I'm a handful. I'm bold, I'm juicy. Throw some pickles and barbecue sauce on me, and baby, I'm a whole meal. And with seven rewards, I'm a,

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Does the argument of kind of bodily autonomy or kind of my body, my choice, does that really benefit women or does it just let men off the hook? I think abortion by and large lets men off the hook. We saw this so many times in the abortion industry. Women who felt greatly failed by the men in their lives. Women almost always came in alone. And we would say, well, you know, is the father of the baby, you know, what's his thought about this? oh, he doesn't care. He, you know, he wants me to have an abortion.

He doesn't want to deal with the baby. Abortion is a, it's a great escape for men. And we know that the man involved is the single greatest influence on whether a woman will choose life for her child. And abortion allows men to. escape the consequences of their actions. It allows everyone to escape the consequences of their actions. Unfortunately, now we are seeing a growing population of men who are recognizing what they have done. and they are coming to terms with their lost fatherhood. Can we briefly, you know, talk about what people think, you know, is happening with an abortion

compared to, you know, what a baby actually looks like and how big it is and how fully formed it is at, you know, even just 12 weeks? Yeah. There are hands and feet and a head and eyes. I think a lot of people don't understand that there is a fully formed baby in the womb at just 12 weeks, gestation. I think the pro-abortion lobby has done a really good job of convincing women that inside of their womb is just tissue. It's just cells. It's just a nothing.

It's just waste. But there is a child with a heartbeat. There is a child with distinguishable fingerprints. There's a baby in their womb. And I think if more people understood the humanity of their child, I think fewer people would choose abortion. I think if more people could see their child and understand what's actually developing in their womb,

I think more people would choose life for their baby. What percentage of abortions that happen in the United States are performed on babies at this size and age? So the overwhelming majority of abortions in the country, over 80% are taking place in the first trimester. So, I mean, babies at just 12 weeks, gestation are being killed in their mother's wounds. And now, with the availability of medication abortion,

there are babies that are being, killed by medication abortion. Babies are being deposited into toilets across our nation, and their mothers are having to make the decision of what to do with their child in the toilet. Do they scoop them out? Do they bury them or do they flush them? and we don't even know what that's doing to these women. We don't know what that's doing mentally to these women, that they are looking at children. They are looking at their babies at 12 weeks in the toilet

and they're choosing to flush their babies down the toilet. And then they're going back to the scene of that crime over and over and over again. And they're remembering their babies. in that bathroom every single day. We know what the suicide rates are for surgical abortion. We know what the depression rates are. We know what the anxiety rates are.

We know what the eating disorder rates are. We don't even know what the emotional effects are of medication abortion. And now over 50% of abortions are being done in women's bathrooms to babies this size. We don't even know what the effects of that are. And nobody's talking about it. Nobody's talking about what it's like to flush their 12-week-old baby down the toilet. And, you know, many times they see these babies. We have seen videos of women from those praying on the sidewalk of these women coming back up to their facilities with their babies and Ziploc bags saying, I don't know what to do with them.

I don't know what to do with these babies. you didn't tell me that I was going to see my baby. You didn't tell me my baby was going to be this developed. These women are really suffering. And we don't even know what this is going to do to them. I mean, what does it do to you to flush your baby down the toilet, knowing that you caused its death? And that's a discussion that we need to be having.

The abortion industry uses women for their own profit. These lies are pervasive. They're not difficult to refute, but it can be difficult to penetrate that culture of lies to 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 the victims of abortion. We have to do it for the women who are taken in by this industry, who are used for dollars, even to their own detriment.

If you enjoyed this conversation with Abby Johnson, you'll want to check out our Daily Wire original documentary, Choosing Death, The Legacy of Row. In it, we take a wrecking ball to the four fallacies keeping the abortion industry alive. To watch it right now, go to DailyWireplus.com. Today, if you join, you will see not only this full movie, Choosing Death, the Legacy of Row,

But you will have access to the Daily Wire's entire catalog of content, which we can only produce and distribute because of you with your support. I'm Michael Knowles. This is the Choosing Life Podcast. We'll see you next time. The Choosing Life Podcast is a Daily Wire production, produced in association with Outer Limits. Our technical and support team includes Ian Reed, Jesse Eastman, Ryan Moore, Mariah Cormier, and Jim Word. Copyright, Daily Wire. 2022. Thanks for listening.