Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line (12 page)

Chapter Twelve

A Holy Hush

God is a great choreographer, isn’t He? As I take a hard look now at the fateful day of the ultrasound-guided abortion—that horrible, crushing, startling, eye-opening day—I see how perfectly He had positioned me so that when my eyes were pried open by His fingers, I’d have the clearest possible view. And I don’t just mean the view of that precious unborn child violently sacrificed on the table that day. I mean the view of the Planned Parenthood trap into which I’d fallen.

You have now witnessed my journey from the Flag Room to the abortion room. You now understand that I saw the ultrasound-guided abortion within days of being mandated to increase the abortion revenue at my clinic, and this from the organization that had recruited me by telling me they wanted to make abortion rare.

Now that the scales had begun to fall from my eyes, the guilt of countless abortions, including my own two, came crashing down on my shoulders.

I walked slowly back to my office after checking on the patient for at least the fourth time. I’d made sure she was comfortable and warm enough, but I’d avoided making eye contact. Images of the abortion I’d just witnessed on the ultrasound monitor continued to play through my mind, and I felt eerily unfocused and dazed, almost as if I were caught in slow motion. There was no going back. No undoing what I’d just participated in.

I closed my office door behind me, something I rarely did. Then I lowered myself into my chair and just sat there, not really focusing on anything. Just staring. I wasn’t crying. I simply felt the enormity of the moment. I found it hard to get a deep breath. I’d just participated in a death. A
death
. Not a medical procedure. Not a surgical solution to a life problem. Not the valiant step of a woman exercising her right to make medical choices about her own body. The death of a helpless baby, a baby violently ripped away from the safety of the womb, sucked away to be discarded as biohazard waste.

Beam me up, Scotty.
The abortionist’s lighthearted quip echoed in my head.

And I was just as culpable as he. I’d scheduled countless babies for their deaths. I’d presented confused, anxious, and panicked women with their options—parent, abort, or adopt—as if we were discussing menu options. And when they chose to abort, I’d laid out their options again—surgical or medication—with their safety and comfort in mind, and all the while a tiny baby, tucked securely inside a womb, had been in the same room with us, with no one to speak on his or her behalf.

I can’t do this anymore. I’ve made my decision. I’ll never be part of another abortion in any way.
I’m giving up my career. That’s it—I’m out of here.
It hit me then, so clearly that I found myself shaking my head to somehow sort out the new thoughts suddenly flying at me from every direction.
This has been a long time coming. Everything that’s been happening for months has led me to this moment. How could I have missed seeing this for what it is?

Suddenly, I became aware of the time. How long had I been sitting here? Probably only about ten or fifteen minutes. A sudden fear shot through me—not an emotion I’m used to. What if the doctor called me back to help with the next abortion?
I am not going back in that room. They can find someone else. I need to get busy, fast.
So I stood, took a deep breath to gather my composure, opened my office door, and headed to the front desk to help with the billing. The sooner we got the billing done, the sooner we’d all get out of there. And I wanted out of there badly. With my head down and hands busy, no one interrupted me. The rest of the workday was a blur, but before long the place was closed up.

Driving home, I tried to imagine how I’d tell Doug.
What will I say? Where will I begin?

Doug was in the living room when I got home. “Hey, babe. How was your day?” he asked.

“I’ve got to tell you what I saw today,” I blurted, “but you’re not gonna want to hear it. I mean, it’s horrible—but I’ve got to describe it. I’ve got to tell somebody.” My words tumbled out so fast I couldn’t stop them.

He stood up, his alarm and concern clear. “What is it, Abby? What’s wrong?”

And I told him. I described every detail of the abortion I had witnessed. And I watched his face twist in disgust.

“You’re right. I don’t want to hear this,” he said, looking pained, stricken.

“I know,” I nearly shouted, “but I can’t get this out of my head. It keeps replaying over and over. That tiny little spine just crumpling into the tube, right before my eyes. Doug, if everyone who works there saw what I saw today, half of them would quit in an instant. I know it. They wouldn’t still be there. Eight years I’ve been there, and until today I never truly saw what we do. How could I have been so stupid, so blind?”

“I know,” he whispered. “I know.” We were sitting on the couch now, his left arm around my shoulders, his right hand caressing my own hands as I twisted them in my lap, these hands that had helped deprive a child of life. We sat until I could sit still no longer. I jumped up.

“I’ve got to call Valerie. I’ve got to tell her.” I dialed my closest friend’s number and described the entire scene again, as if by telling it aloud I could stop it playing in my mind.

“I can’t listen to this,” Valerie finally said. “Don’t talk about it. Please stop.” I understood, of course. If only I could make it stop in my mind.

Doug and I talked long into the night.

“What are we going to do?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. “Eight years of my life I’ve given to this cause. I don’t want to walk away. We do so much good at the clinic. How many lives do we save? Lots, I’m sure. All the community education I’ve done on STDs and protected sex. The testing, the Pap smears, the adoptions. And what if we hadn’t done those abortions? Do you know the lives some of those babies would be living? Abuse. Neglect. The never-ending cycle of poverty. I mean, I know what I saw today was horrible, was wrong. But choice still has to be right, doesn’t it? Lots of those women are desperate, Doug. If they can’t get a safe abortion from us, they are just going to get butchered. Isn’t it better to have an ugly but safe abortion than an ugly but dangerous one?”

The more I talked, the more confused I got. One thing I was sure of: I sure wasn’t “switching sides” to join those pro-lifers.

Was I?

No. I wasn’t. I couldn’t have been wrong about that for these last eight years. Whether I liked abortion or not, women still needed the right to make that decision for themselves and they still needed safe clinics where they could go to have the procedure done. And here in Texas they didn’t have many such places.

“I’m not switching sides, you know,” I told Doug. “But I’m not going to ever be part of an abortion again. I know it’s wrong. I see that now. It’s wrong for me, and it’s ugly. But I’m not joining up with people who think they have a right to impose their views on people who don’t agree with them. Those Coalition people are still wrong. It’s not right to impose one’s view on other people. I am still prochoice. But I, personally, am through with taking part in abortion.”

“So what you saw today, Abby, is okay as long as you are not personally involved?”

“No! It’s not okay. But . . . I . . . I think I’ve handled all I can for one day! I’m done.”

We were in agreement that I would leave Planned Parenthood. Beyond that, who knew?

We also agreed that I needed to find another job fast.

“Okay. So I’ve got two weeks to find a new job then,” I said as we wrapped up the conversation, both exhausted. “Two weeks. Because I will not be present for another Saturday abortion day, and the next one is two weeks from today.”

I can see now something I couldn’t see then: pride. I was worried. Worried that maybe I’d been wrong for eight years. Worried that I’d been fighting on the wrong side of the battle. I was afraid that night even to imagine how humiliating and embarrassing it would be to have to go public with the acknowledgment that I’d been wrong. After all, I hadn’t been a
private
advocate of choice; I’d been a highly vocal, public champion of choice. At that point I couldn’t imagine I’d been wrong on the importance of women having access to legal, safe abortions, even if I now despised the act of abortion.

Something else strikes me as I look back on that night. I am intensely aware that my kind husband never once said, “I tried to tell you.” Despite all the debates and arguments we’d had, despite all the times he’d challenged my faulty thinking and I’d refused to hear the truth—there he sat, comforting and loving me. What a picture of Ephesians 5:25: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church.” His compassion and support were the beginning of my healing that day. But I still had a long way to go.

The next day was Sunday. When I woke up, my right hand, the hand that had held the ultrasound probe the day before, was aching. I examined it and massaged it, and though I could find nothing obviously wrong, it was terribly sore. As I dressed and fixed my hair, it hurt so badly that I found it hard to hold anything. In my shock while watching the ultrasound-guided abortion, had I unknowingly gripped the probe too tightly? I don’t know. But all the way to church it hurt.

As Doug and I took our seats, we said hello to Megan, who sat directly in front of us. What would I say to her tomorrow at work? I didn’t have a clue, but I couldn’t bring it up to her here. Not today. I’d lose it, make a scene, and do more harm than good. My emotions were too raw.

When the service began, I took comfort in the familiar words of the liturgy, which had been haunting me in recent months.

Almighty God, to you all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your Name, through Christ our Lord.
11

Well, the secrets have never been hidden from You, God, and now they aren’t hidden from me anymore either. I’ve seen them. I repent. I turn away. Never again, never again, Lord.

The words of the liturgy were leaping from the page with power.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
12

Never in my life had words of confession spilled out of me with such fervor. And as they spilled out, I sensed God’s love and forgiveness pouring in. Yet my hand kept hurting.

As the pastor began reading the Gospel lesson for the day, I couldn’t believe my ears. He read from Mark 9:43: “If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.”

A holy hush fell over my soul.
If your hand causes you to sin . . .
God was speaking directly to me this morning. My hand hurt even as I heard those words!

None of this was coincidence. None of it was chance. It was confirmed to me in that moment that God had been working a long time to break through to me. He’d spoken through my husband, but I’d argued his voice away. He’d spoken through the peaceful and gentle ways of those who prayed at the fence, through flowers and a card from Elizabeth two years before (she had since moved to Austin), through Mr. Orozco’s warmth and joy and steadfast presence every Wednesday and Saturday morning of the year, through Bobby’s befriending every new Planned Parenthood volunteer, through a weeping nun. But I’d brushed off the whole Coalition for Life crowd as naive zealots with their heads buried in the sand.

God had spoken through my mother’s honest, firm, yet loving words, but I’d avoided and discounted them as old-fashioned and out of touch. He’d spoken through the agonized, pleading cries of the client’s mother I remembered, pleading for the life of her grandchild through the fence as her daughter entered our clinic to abort that child, but I had missed the message.

He’d even exposed Planned Parenthood’s motives and intentions to me as plain as day through their own words and mandates, and though I’d fumed and protested and complained and fought against them, I’d still not seen the truth. Maybe my coworkers and I were there to help women in crisis, but I no longer saw Planned Parenthood as a benevolent charitable organization with the goal of decreasing unwanted pregnancies. I was now convinced that it was an abortion machine in the business of killing unborn babies and meeting revenue goals. And my hands, my words, my energy, and my passion—all had been tools of this machine.

My eyes landed on Megan, directly in front of me. I hoped she was listening to that verse the same way that I was, but somehow I knew she wasn’t. I began praying for her, that God would speak to her in the same way.

Our hands are causing us to sin.

Our mouths are causing us to sin.

Open her eyes. Open her ears.

As Doug and I exited at the end of the service, I whispered to him about my hand and the verse. His eyes opened wide; we shared a moment of awe that God was communicating clearly and directly with me that morning. When we got home, I didn’t waste a minute. I jumped online and began filling out job applications, checking out job Web sites. I was determined to find a new job within two weeks and be out of Planned Parenthood before we performed surgical abortions again.

But I only had a few hours to devote to my hunt. Months before I’d committed to a KEOS radio interview with the host of the program
Fair and Feminist
. It was a program very sympathetic to Planned Parenthood, and I’d been a guest on the show before. We’d planned this one knowing that the 40 Days for Life campaign would be in full swing—the perfect opportunity to attract new supporters to the prochoice cause.