Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line (13 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Inside Out

I hope I won’t be coming through this gate too many more times,
I thought. And so began my first morning at the clinic since the ultrasound-guided abortion. Funny. For eight years I’d been pulling up this drive and though this gate, and each time I’d been certain that the fence was keeping “the enemy” out. Today, for the very first time, I wondered if my thinking had been inside out.

Outside the fence, Bobby, one of the regular Coalition for Life volunteer trainers, was already talking to some new sidewalk recruit. They were six days into their fall 40 Days for Life campaign, so during every hour of every twenty-four-hour day at least two people were praying, standing, kneeling, or strolling along the fence. Lots of them were familiar faces, like Bobby. But there were newcomers, too. I wondered what he was telling the new gal. And how did they recruit so many new volunteers every year? I’d just slammed these people on the radio the night before. Did negative publicity like that diminish their numbers or strengthen them?

As I pulled up the drive and parked, I was thinking that a lot had changed since my first days as a Planned Parenthood volunteer back in 2001. I thought about the Grim Reaper in full costume and the woman with the awful placard with the photo of the aborted fetus. It had been years since we’d seen their brand of protesting here at the Bryan clinic, thanks largely to the peaceful, respectful presence of the Coalition for Life. I’d thought of those two in particular as crazies. Now I wondered about their stories. What had driven them to such measures? What had they seen that had stirred them to such action? Whom had they lost? It was the first time these questions had ever occurred to me.

And I didn’t like the questions one bit. Good intentions or not, these zealots had to be wrong. Okay, sure; abortion is ugly. Now I’d finally seen that for myself. But life is ugly; ugly things happen. Women need access to safety and health care when they find themselves with an unwanted pregnancy, right? Right? I was asking myself the question, but was no longer sure of the answer. After years of fighting for this cause, I didn’t like the feeling that maybe I was wrong.

And if I was wrong, did that mean these pro-lifers were right? No. I couldn’t go there. I’d been fighting them too long. They had to be wrong.

To my relief, it was a quiet day at the clinic. I kept my head down and did my best to avoid conversation that day, and the next, and Wednesday and Thursday, too. I stayed focused on the administrative tasks at hand, avoided the clients, and just kept to myself. At least in person. E-mail was another story. Cheryl and I were exchanging a barrage of frustrating e-mails. Was it my imagination, or was she trying to micromanage my clinic? Ever since I’d challenged the mandates at the management meeting in Houston a few months ago, it seemed the tension between us had been growing. Now it appeared to be mounting exponentially.

I admit, I’m not much of a follower. Never have been. I like to lead. I speak my mind in a hurry and never hesitate to express disagreement. But that was nothing new to my boss, Cheryl. I’d worked with her since my start at Planned Parenthood, and we’d never had problems like this before. Why now?

Maybe the reason was that never before had we faced such a clear gap—no, more like a chasm, a gulf—over the very core, the values, the identity of Planned Parenthood. I’d been recruited to join an organization dedicated to helping women in crisis. I had always understood it to be charitable in nature, with the clear goal of decreasing the number of unwanted pregnancies and the number of abortions, to be a champion for struggling women, to put women’s needs first and finances second. I’d successfully run the clinic that way since 2007, and for that I’d won Employee of the Year. Now with finances tight, I felt I was being forced to redefine who we were, and I thought it was my place, my duty, to fight for our true identity. But so far, the harder I pushed, the more upset Cheryl seemed to get.

“This is a business, Abby. Get your priorities straight.”
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That was the clear message I’d picked up in Houston. And this week in particular I felt I was being pushed harder and harder to make changes I deemed detrimental to our clients. Was that just my imagination? Or had seeing the ultrasound-guided abortion changed my interpretation of the messages? My self-doubt and inner confusion were growing. And frankly, my sense of no longer being valued as a star employee was chafing.

Meanwhile, my job hunt seemed stalled out. I hadn’t received as much as a nibble on my online efforts at job hunting, and I couldn’t make calls during the workday. The sense of mounting pressure, of wanting out, of despising the place, of feeling trapped was growing, and by Friday morning it was haunting me.

Anxious to accomplish something toward ending my involvement at the clinic, I began sorting through my desk and files, removing personal items. I found my stash of greeting cards from Boss’s Day and special occasions, a few other odds and ends, and even my Employee of the Year award, and I stuffed them into a bag to take home. I didn’t want to be obvious in any way, so I left my wall pictures and desktop photos and keepsakes in place.

I felt sneaky—not a pleasant feeling. But I also knew I couldn’t let my colleagues know what was up yet. Given the tensions over the past few months, I knew there would be a scene, an uproar, if I told them I was job hunting—and I strongly suspected it would get back to Cheryl, and I was afraid she would find an unjust reason to fire me on the spot. Doug and I depended on my income, and I wanted to be able to seek out new employment on my own terms, as an employee in good standing. Besides, I had not yet been able to come up with the language for a rationale as to why I was leaving. How could I explain my change of heart without sounding like the very people I had always mocked—like some judgmental pro-life zealot, like the enemy on the other side of the fence?

I looked out my office window. There they were. The enemy. Three of them at the moment. Two middle-aged women and one twentysomething guy. Walking the fence. Praying. Speaking words of kindness to a client—a potential victim of Planned Parenthood—just parking her car to come into the facility. I knew their lines so well, having heard them now for years; I could repeat them in my sleep. Some enemy. Some weapons.

I squirmed at the memory of mocking them during Sunday’s radio interview; of accusing them of harassing our clients; of my snide comments over the years, meant to intimidate their fresh recruits. It had been a very long time since I’d witnessed anyone on the other side of the fence say something that could really be called harassment, and I’d always known those tactics weren’t approved by Shawn Carney and the Coalition for Life. I knew for a fact how hard he and his volunteers worked to train their “stand and pray” volunteers to be respectful, gentle, and pleasant. I’d watched them correct those who didn’t show those qualities and diffuse tensions at the fence.

But our Planned Parenthood media talking points lumped all pro-lifers together rather than acknowledging that the movement is composed of many different individuals with very distinct goals and methods. Anything we could do to vilify the entire movement and paint ourselves as the victims of these antiabortion zealots accomplished our goals—it won donations and support, brought in fresh volunteers, and kept up the them-against-us, war-zone mentality.
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Those were our goals. I’d been good at promoting them.

Victims. Now I was so confused about who the victims really were. Had I been a victim back when I’d been recruited at the volunteer fair? Fresh meat for the volunteer staff? Were my staff and I victims, thinking we were helping women while working so hard on behalf of our clients, when our efforts seemed to be used only to move budget numbers from red columns to black?

Another patient pulled up and parked. She hesitated before getting out of her car. Was she pregnant? If so, there were two new victims in that car. It was an ugly thought.

Everything seemed inside out.

And then the phone rang.

“Abby, this is Susan from HR in Houston. Could you come to Houston today? Cheryl and I would like to meet with you.”

“Today? You need me to drive to Houston today? Why?” I couldn’t imagine what this was about, but there was something odd about Susan’s voice. An undercurrent of formality, of tension. I felt a wave of uneasiness. Were they on to me? Did they know I was planning to leave? How could they? Had one of my online applications been brought to their attention?

But Susan wouldn’t tell. She simply insisted I drive to Houston. I hung up and called Doug right away. As I told him what Susan had said, I found myself getting more and more worked up.

“Are they going to fire me? If so, I have no idea what for.”

“Fire you? Abby, how could they fire you? You just got the Employee of the Year award, for goodness’ sake. You ace all the inspections. You’re a star employee. How many times has Cheryl told you, ‘One day my job will be yours, Abby’? They’re not going to fire you. You’re being paranoid. Just go to the meeting—you’ll see.”

The drive to Houston took about ninety minutes, but it felt like hours. I kept replaying recent management meetings over and over in my head. I had been very outspoken. I had protested the new cost-cutting measures, the increased costs to our clients, and especially the mandate to increase abortions. But surely speaking my mind at a meeting wasn’t grounds for dismissal, was it? By the time I got to the Houston office I was both scared and angry, but I was ready to hear it. I wanted the truth out on the table.

“Abby,” Susan explained, “we’ve called you here to let you know that you are being formally reprimanded. A reprimand is being placed in your employee file.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“And what is it I’m being reprimanded for?” I looked straight at Cheryl, not at Susan. I wanted to hear it from her. And she spoke right up. She told me I’d been directly challenging her and her authority. I had become combative, disputing her directives, arguing and pushing back instead of doing what I was told.

I was dumbfounded. I’d always spoken my mind. I asked her if asking questions and pushing back on new policies was no longer allowed. Was I being told I wasn’t permitted to ask questions or disagree?

She told me it was my place to do what I was told, just as it was her place to do what she was told. She was my supervisor, and it was my job to follow her instructions.

In my eight years with Planned Parenthood, I’d never received anything but praise. Never a single black mark, never a warning. I’d never received so much as a correction, much less a reprimand. My evaluations were great. It had been only a few months since they’d honored me publicly as Employee of the Year. I had a stellar record, and all three of us in that room knew it.

But it was what it was. Over the next hour or so, Susan led us through a discussion supposedly intended to resolve our differences. Finally she summed it up by pointing out that both Cheryl and I had very strong personalities. Susan said she hoped that, now that we’d had this talk, we could put this behind us. She concluded, “Abby, I need you to sign this acknowledgment that we’ve had this talk and informed you of the reprimand.”

What could I do? I signed the paper. Cheryl looked smug and satisfied. I felt like a whipped dog—and, I confess, a resentful one. Cheryl had won. As I drove home, I kept wondering how a model employee whose performance was exceptional and whose clinic was known for excellence could have fallen from grace so quickly.

Doug had an interesting take on it that night as I debriefed with him: “Maybe God is telling you, plain and simple, that this is not where you should be.”

I had to admit, that made more sense to me than any other explanation. I’d loved this job with a passion. I really didn’t want to leave it, and I’d been struggling over that all week. The timing of all these factors—the mandate to increase abortions, my participation in the ultrasound-guided abortion, and now the reprimand—had to be more than coincidence. If God were going to choreograph my dance out of Planned Parenthood, He’d certainly chosen all the right moves. I just wished He’d show me the next step.