Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line (16 page)
Authors: Abby Johnson,Cindy Lambert
Tags: #Non-Fiction, #Inspirational, #Biography, #Religion
Chapter Sixteen
Keeping Confidence
I drove into the parking lot at the Planned Parenthood clinic, pulled out my cell phone, and called Megan. I took a deep breath and tried to sound as normal as I could.
“Hey, Megan, let’s go out to lunch.”
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Where did you go?”
“I’m fine. Just come on out and let’s go.”
One minute later she was in my car. She took one look at my face and said, “Abby, what’s wrong?”
Megan and I had been friends for a long time. True, I was her supervisor at work, but we’d traveled together, gone to church together, hung out apart from work. I trusted Megan. So I said, “Megan, I’m going to tell you something, but you have to keep it quiet. Okay? You
have
to.” She nodded.
“I’m going to leave Planned Parenthood. I have to get out. I just can’t be part of this place anymore.” I told her why. Finally, I told her I’d just been over at the Coalition for Life.
To my surprise, she laughed. Not a mocking laugh, but as if she just couldn’t believe it. She didn’t sound or look nearly as blown away as I’d thought she’d be. She asked if they were going to help me.
“Yes, they are. They were . . . they were great. Really great. I mean, they were supportive and just happy that I came to them. No judgment, no condemnation. You know they’ve always said they’d help us. They’ve offered again and again. And they just seemed excited to be able to help. They were ready to make phone calls on my behalf today, to help me find another job. It was amazing.”
Megan nodded, thought for a moment, and then asked if I thought they would help her, too.
My heart leapt. “Absolutely! I know they would! It’s what they want.” I was amazed that she was showing this much interest so soon.
When she asked what she’d need to do, I told her just to get her résumé together. She said she thought she still had the résumé she’d submitted before joining Planned Parenthood the year before. She’d update it and then give it to me so I could pass it on to Shawn.
I was so excited for her! She was a nurse-practitioner, and I remembered a conversation we’d once had when she told me that she disliked the abortion part of our operation. She did Pap smears and ultrasounds and served as a clinician seeing patients, all of which she’d told me she enjoyed. But on abortion days, she started IVs and administered meds. She stayed in the room for abortion procedures until they were complete.
“Let’s go to lunch,” I said. “I’m starving.”
After we ate, we both came back to the office excited. She asked for a copy of her job description, which I gave her, and I decided to give her a copy of my evaluation of her work as well. It had been very positive, and maybe she could use some of my comments about her good work on an updated résumé. I handed it all to her, and she said she’d work on her résumé and e-mail it to me.
Then I thought of Taylor, for whom I’d always had a soft spot. Taylor was a terrific health care assistant, compassionate and caring. She mostly interviewed patients before they went to the examination room. She was valuable to the clinic, but for some reason I always felt that she needed me to take her under my wing. I would no longer be able to do that, of course, if I were leaving, so I decided she needed to know. I called her into my office.
I told her my story, told her what had happened to me earlier that day. Her response was similar to Megan’s. She was surprised, first of all, to hear that I’d gone to the Coalition for Life office, but she said she understood. She didn’t like abortions either, but she cared about our patients. She asked if I thought they’d help her find a new job. Now that I was leaving, she’d like to get out too.
When I said I knew they would, she asked if I’d help her with her résumé, since she’d never done one before.
I told her I’d be happy to. I asked if she’d like me to make a copy of her job description to help with her résumé. She said yes, so as I had for Megan, I copied Taylor’s job description and evaluations. She thanked me.
When I called Shawn to tell him about Megan and Taylor, he was surprised and happy. The Coalition for Life had been offering help through the fence for so long, and suddenly he had not just one but three people ready to take him up on his offer. That the three of us were coming to him during the 40 Days for Life campaign made it all the sweeter. He also reminded me he was going to set up a meeting to introduce me to Dr. Robinson.
I couldn’t believe how fast everything was happening. I looked at the clock. It had been only a few hours since I’d run out of the clinic in tears, and now Shawn and his gang were checking out jobs around town for three of us. On top of that, Shawn was making an appointment for me to meet, of all people, a well-known pro-life former abortionist. What a bizarre turn of events.
My homecoming to Doug was strangely wonderful that evening. I still couldn’t get over the fact that he’d guessed my whereabouts earlier in the day. We were both so lighthearted compared to that morning, when he’d almost needed to push me out the door with his assurances that God would show us the way. He just grinned as I recounted the conversations I’d had at the Coalition for Life and with Megan and Taylor. I was talking a mile a minute, exuberant with relief. Like me, he was blown away by how quickly everything had changed.
“So what’s on tomorrow’s agenda?” he asked.
“Well, I’ll go into the office in the morning. I still have the rest of this week to work there. Shawn said he’d let me know when he nails down an appointment with Dr. Robinson.”
We were both nearly giddy. It looked like such smooth sailing from here. Of course, the question of income still hadn’t been solved, but we’d seen God at work in such obvious ways that we felt confident it was all in His hands.
And today that was true. It
was
in God’s hands. But Shawn, Bobby, Heather, and Karen had a more accurate picture of what was about to unfold. I didn’t know it until Shawn told me later, but their afternoon would end in a far different tone than mine.
I’d no sooner waved good-bye and driven out of the Coalition for Life parking lot than Shawn closed the door, turned to his team, and said, “Everything that just happened stays in this room, right? No one tells anybody. Understood?” Karen and Heather nodded. “Not even the board. We need to make sure she’s safely away from Planned Parenthood before this gets out.”
“She was so open with us, so trusting. You don’t think she’d trust the folks at Planned Parenthood like that, do you?” Karen asked.
“She probably will,” Heather said. “I mean, that’s Abby, isn’t it? We’ve watched her through the fence long enough to know that she just tells it like she sees it. What you see is what you get. Whatever she thinks, she says. It’s hard to picture her keeping this under wraps at her office.”
“This is so exciting! It’s unbelievable!” Karen said. “Of all people, Abby Johnson. The clinic director! Remember all those prayers? And Elizabeth, the burden she always felt for praying for Abby. She was always hopeful. She always said, ‘Abby’s there doing what she believes is right. One day she’ll see the truth.’ Remember?”
Shawn nodded. “I know. It’s incredible. And I really want to enjoy this moment and celebrate and offer thanks, but guess what? My mind’s going a mile a minute. Planned Parenthood is going to come after her, and us. I just know it.”
Bobby came in, back from his sidewalk training. “Is she gone?”
“Yeah, but you should have seen her face,” Karen said. “The joy. The transformation. Did you see it, Heather?”
“I feel kind of guilty,” Heather said. “I was really suspicious at first. I mean, I
wanted
to believe her, but I was just afraid to believe it was real.”
“I thought the same thing,” Bobby said. “Remember David Bereit a few years back telling us about that time one of the Planned Parenthood staff expressed to him that she was fearful of the pro-lifers, so David gave her his cell number so they could keep in touch—and then for weeks he got all those prank calls and finally had to change his number? And then that same woman
teased
him about it later, through the fence, and said he was so gullible. That’s what I was thinking about when Abby first started out. But the more she talked—well, I watched her face as she described the ultrasound-guided abortion. You could see the pain. The remorse. The guilt. It was all real. But I’ve got to be honest—I’m still on my guard.”
Shawn said, “When this gets out, and it will, people will ask us to vouch for her. Everyone in town knows she’s part of Planned Parenthood. Lots of people won’t consider her for a job unless we stand behind her. So we’d better all be on board in trusting her. But my biggest concern right now is for Abby. I have a feeling that you’re right, Heather. She’ll trust her friends in Planned Parenthood because she believes they
are
her friends. And she’ll get burned. They’ll come after her, I know they will. And us, too. I’m picking out my tie already, ’cause I know I’m going to end up in court over this.”
“Maybe it won’t get that far. This wouldn’t be the first time they served you with papers. There’ve been, what—three other times? All on trumped-up charges, and none of them made it to court.”
“True, but this time they’re going to believe some kind of conspiracy is at work. I mean, this time it’s
Abby Johnson
, for goodness’ sake. The director! And she isn’t just leaving. She came to
us
!” Shawn shook his head.
Bobby asked Heather, “Did you tell them about when Abby drove up?”
“No,” said Heather, laughing. “I haven’t had time. You guys won’t believe it. I was sitting in the back office and saw a little red car just like Abby’s pull up in the back, and, joking, I yelled, ‘Hey, Bobby, I think Abby just pulled in!’”
“Yeah,” Bobby said. “I wasn’t paying any attention. I just figured she was fooling around. So I said, ‘Mmm. Okay. Whatever.’”
“And thirty seconds later the phone rings, and it really is Abby, asking if she can come in. I about dropped the phone! I froze. I had no idea what to do. I put her on hold and walked into Bobby’s office, and said, ‘Bobby, Abby Johnson really
is
in our parking lot, and she wants to come in the back door.’”
“What did you say?” Shawn asked Bobby, laughing hard now.
“You should have seen Heather’s face!” Bobby said. “She was white as a ghost, and I swear she was shaking. And I said, ‘Well, don’t just stand there—invite her in!’ And we both braced ourselves for some barrage of complaints. I was thinking,
Oh, great. What did some volunteer do now? Did Abby call the police? This has to be bad
. So by the time Heather unlocked the door, we were both just standing there, ready for anything, expecting really horrible news. And there was Abby, not on a rampage, but on her escape! Unbelievable.”
After the four of them had had a good laugh and shared their thoughts about what I’d done and said, Shawn sobered them all back up. “Look, guys, I know we’ve got a lot to celebrate, but we’ve got to be careful now. With the 40 Days for Life campaign going on, the media and police will both be on high alert. Once Planned Parenthood gets wind of Abby’s plans to leave—and knowing Abby, she’ll be the first to tell them, and it won’t take long—I think they’ll be looking for a fight. They’ll want to hurt her and us. So we don’t say a word. Don’t even tell any of our other volunteers.”
I wish Shawn had been wrong. But he couldn’t have been more right.
By the time the four of them had finished their conversation, I’d probably already told Megan, and maybe Taylor, too. After all, they were my friends. I trusted them.
Chapter Seventeen
The Right Thing to Do
Every Friday morning, Shawn met Dr. Haywood Robinson for breakfast. Their friendship had been built over years of working side by side in the pro-life movement. Haywood and his wife, Noreen, both African American physicians, had been abortion doctors before a dramatic conversion experience, after which they’d became fierce pro-life advocates. Shawn, who was Catholic, and Haywood, an evangelical Protestant, served as brothers in the cause for life.
I hadn’t been gone from the Coalition for Life house more than an hour before Shawn dialed Haywood at his office. “Hey, brother. I’ve got something for you. You’ll love this!” Shawn filled him in, then said, “I’d like to bring her to see you soon to talk about helping her find a job, and I know you’ll want to get to know her.”
Haywood was gracious and said he’d be delighted. They agreed to a meeting at 1:00 p.m. the very next day, Tuesday, October 6.
Tuesday morning I was dancing around the house as I got ready for work. I’d awakened feeling ten times lighter than the morning before. Light enough to float to work. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel the anxiety of being about to walk away from my career; I did. Doug and I were both a little anxious about my being jobless for a while. But that felt like a small burden compared to the huge burden I’d given up yesterday. My defining wrong-side-of-the-fence moment and my obedience to God in simply getting up and crossing that fence had broken through years of torment, guilt, ambivalence, and confusion. A high, thick wall that had been standing between me and God was obliterated. In its place, I felt a river of joy flooding in. I’d never felt this way in my life.
I drove to the office, waving at some who were praying at the fence as I went through the gate. I enjoyed their baffled looks as they tentatively waved back.
While I was doing paperwork at my desk about an hour later, my cell phone rang. Caller ID told me it was Shawn. That was a first—Shawn calling me at the clinic! I closed my office door and answered. Shawn whispered through the phone, “It’s Shawn. Can we talk?”
“Yeah, what’s going on?”
“You’re sure it’s okay? Nobody knows, right?” Shawn was still whispering.
I wasn’t. “Yeah, it’s fine. I really don’t care who knows!”
“Well, you need to care, Abby. Don’t go announcing, ‘I’m done with this place. I’m having a meeting with Haywood Robinson and Shawn Carney.’ Okay? You need to be careful. Don’t underestimate the repercussions of this. I want to make sure you hear me on this, Abby. Be careful.”
“Okay. I get it. Where should I meet you? And I’m in my scrubs. Is that okay for this meeting?”
“Yeah, that’s fine. It’s at a hospital. You’ll fit right in.” Shawn suggested a spot and confirmed 1:00 p.m. I giggled as I hung up. I felt like we were playing spies or something. I simply felt so lighthearted.
I quietly pulled Megan aside and told her about the planned meeting with Dr. Robinson. She asked me to find out if he had any openings for nurse-practitioners.
I left the office at lunchtime and met Shawn in the parking lot at the Med. It was a gorgeous fall day, clear blue sky, seventy degrees. Shawn was wearing his 40 Days for Life shirt. Some spy!
“Nice shirt. Very inconspicuous. So if we run into somebody who recognizes me and they see you with that shirt, you don’t think they might be suspicious?” We both laughed, and he agreed he was not cut out to be a spy. Not exactly CIA material.
“Nice name tag,” he shot back. And he was right! I had my Planned Parenthood name tag on my scrubs. I think we were both surprised at how comfortable we felt with each other, as if we were old friends.
“You are beaming. Just beaming, Abby.” And I knew I was. I could feel it.
Shawn didn’t usually meet Haywood at his office, and he didn’t seem sure of the way. Before long, we were totally lost. And we started to laugh. And the more we laughed, the harder we laughed, like a couple of kids on a lark. We went down one hallway, then another, reading signs and backtracking. We even stopped once to ask for directions. We thought we were following them until the hallway ended in a door marked, “Emergency exit. Alarm will sound.” We burst out laughing.
“Listen,” Shawn managed to say, “the two of us
cannot
get arrested together in this town! Here we are, the directors of these two vehemently opposed organizations. Can you imagine the headlines if we set off the fire alarm at the hospital?” We both cracked up. Sheer silliness.
Finally, we found the right elevator, and a woman entered with us. Shawn, Mr. CIA, was trying to stand in such a way that she couldn’t see the logo on his shirt, which, of course, drew her attention to it.
“What is 40 Days for Life?” she asked.
Shawn, without missing a beat, turned to me and said, “Would you like to answer that?” I burst out laughing again. I can’t imagine what the lady thought.
But Shawn said, “It’s a forty-day prayer and fasting campaign where we go to abortion clinics and pray for people, even those who work in the clinics.”
“Well, that’s a really good thing,” she replied. The elevator stopped at her floor and she walked out. Clearly she hadn’t noticed my name tag.
“Guess I’d better take this off, huh?” I laughed as I tucked my name tag into my pocket. The elevator stopped again, and we got out.
We finally got to Haywood’s office, and the receptionist led us back. When we walked into the handsomely appointed office, there was Morgan Freeman! Well, not really, but Haywood looked amazingly like him. I noticed right away that he was wearing the Precious Feet pin, a favorite among pro-lifers. I held out my hand for a handshake, and the next thing I knew this tall, distinguished man was saying, “Come here, dear,” and he wrapped me in a warm hug.
I felt an instant bond.
He’s been there,
I thought.
He’s been in my shoes.
He knows.
He invited Shawn and me to sit on the couch with him, and Haywood and I began sharing our stories. I can’t describe the hope that filled me during that visit. He, too, had done the unthinkable. He told me of the years he and his wife spent in the abortion industry, then how they’d had a personal encounter with Jesus, committed their lives to following Him, and subsequently abandoned their abortion business to join the pro-life movement. Now here he was, an advocate for life, helping others. Truly helping them. Moving them toward life, always life. Never death. Something stirred deeply inside of me. I wanted to do that too! I wanted to always be on the side of life. I wanted to bring that kind of hope and help to women in crisis. After a while he said, “Let’s pray together.”
He opened the door and beckoned a young woman in from another office. She may have been one of his nurses. To her he said, “This is Abby. I can’t tell you what’s going on with her, but she’s got issues, and she needs prayer right now.”
He turned to us and said nearly the same thing about the young woman. “This girl has been through a lot. I won’t go into details, but I’m so proud of her. She’s raising a young son. She just made the decision to go on to medical school, and Noreen and I have been encouraging her.”
Next thing I knew, we were praying. Haywood prayed with power and passion, and then the nurse prayed, and Shawn prayed. I wanted to pray but couldn’t speak. I was crying again.
When we opened our eyes, everyone looked at me.
“Every time we pray, I cry,” I said. And everyone laughed a warm, understanding laugh.
Then Haywood gave us a note to take down to HR. I told him about Megan.
“Have her send me her résumé.”
At HR, I handed the note to the woman there, who said, “Oh yes, Dr. Robinson called down and said you’d be coming.” She handed me an application, which I filled out.
We made our way back to the parking lot, making only a few detours this time, and stood there in the brilliant sunshine.
“I’ve got to go out of town tonight,” Shawn said. “I’m speaking at a 40 Days for Life event in Dallas. But you know my cell. Call 24/7, for any reason. Anything, okay? The team is still making calls. A job will open up. I’ll be back in a few days.”
I knew what he was wondering. Finally he asked, “So what are you going to do?”
“Do you think I should just go ahead and resign?” I asked him. The answer was obvious. Timing was really my only question at this point. But I wanted to know how he’d respond.
“Look who you’re talking to,” he said, pointing at the logo on his shirt and smiling. “Of course you need to resign. I know you don’t have another job yet, but God will provide. He provides for these situations. And you will not have to worry. It will all get taken care of. He is faithful.”
“I
am
going to resign. Today. Because it is the right thing to do.”
He threw his head back and laughed, nearly shouting, “Because it’s the right thing to do! Yes! Because it is the right thing to do!”
He looked like a little boy, caught up in the total joy of the moment. He grabbed me and hugged me, nearly dancing with excitement. If I’d known then what Shawn knew, if I’d had any idea of all that had gone on behind the scenes since 1998 at Coalition for Life, or even in the past twenty-four hours, I imagine I would have exploded with joy right there on the spot. It would be a while before I would discover the rest of the story. But I knew this much: I knew that somehow, as great as my joy was, Shawn’s seemed even greater. I could see right down to his heart, and it was marvelous to see.
I did know what that moment meant for me. I was taking a new stand, beginning a new life.
Eight years before, I’d stood at a volunteer fair, a naive and impressionable college girl, and I’d heard a plea to join a cause to help women in crisis and decrease the number of abortions. I’d taken a stand that day, one I’d thought was the right one, and signed up for Planned Parenthood. I clearly remember thinking,
This is where I am planting my feet!
I had decided on the spot, in the Texas A&M Flag Room,
I can make a difference here. I can help prevent unwanted pregnancies, make abortion rarer, and help women who need help. This is good for women, good for the community, and perfect for me.
It had taken me eight years to discover that by aligning myself with an organization that performed abortions, I had condemned myself to be part of the very thing I’d said I wanted to decrease. Since that decision, it had been a long, slow slide into darkness. It was all so clear to me now. I’d lived in that darkness for eight years, and in it I’d lost my day vision. I had harbored my own dark secrets. I had built fences that separated me from my parents, my husband, my friends. I’d fenced myself off from my own conscience, leaving me adrift and confused in shadowy places. And I had fenced myself off from the connection to God that I longed for. Today peace was flooding in, washing away the rubble of that shattered fence.
That day, October 6, 2009, I planted my feet on the right side of the fence—the side of life. Standing in the parking lot of the hospital that afternoon, I knew I was doing more than just leaving Planned Parenthood. I was joining the pro-life movement.
Shawn and I hugged good-bye. “I’ll text Bobby that you’re leaving today so that he’ll watch out for you. What time do you think you’ll tell them?”
“I’ll wait until the end of the day, around 4:30. That will be the least disruptive for everyone. In the meantime, I’ll type up my resignation.”
“The team will be there for you, Abby. And we’ll all be praying.”
As I floated back through the clinic gate at about 2:30 p.m.—and I truly felt like I was floating—I knew it was my last time through the gate. This time, instead of feeling darkness descend upon me, I was carrying light inside the place with me. What a difference.
I was grateful for the light, because as I walked into the clinic, the reality, the implications of what I was about to do hit me with full force. I saw the women in the waiting room and wondered what would become of them. Without me here, would the abortion numbers at this clinic skyrocket? The patients were so vulnerable, so easily swayed. To me they had always been individuals. But now I believed that to the organization they were dollar signs. Some clients came back periodically—I’d gotten to know them, shared life-altering moments with many of them. I’d miss them. I’d worry for them.
I saw my colleagues. These were women I loved. Almost every one of them was here out of compassion and the desire to make the world a better place by helping women in crisis. We had shared so much together.
They will never understand,
I thought.
They will feel betrayed. There may never be a way to reconcile with them once this is over. I won’t be welcome here ever again.
But the light was in me, carrying me. I knew I was following God, that He was calling me to follow Him, and it was the right thing to do. I would just have to trust God to take care of what was beyond my control.
I had about two hours and lots to do. I made a mental checklist.
I’ve got to pack up everything that’s mine. I’ve got to write my resignation letter, gather everything that belongs to the clinic—keys, access cards, everything—and leave it all for Cheryl. I don’t want to walk out of here with anything of theirs, and I don’t want to leave anything that’s mine because I know I’ll never come through these doors again. But first, I have to do the hardest thing of all. I have to tell some of my colleagues in person.
I started with Megan, then Taylor, telling them both of my meeting with Dr. Robinson and Shawn and my decision to resign immediately.
Megan was sad, surprised at how quickly I was leaving, but she understood.
Taylor seemed more distressed. “Don’t leave us here, Abby, please,” she said. “Wait until we all have another job lined up.” But I assured her we’d all be job hunting together, and I’d do all I could to help her find a new job fast.
The others I told one by one, a few by phone, with no mention of my contact with the Coalition for Life. I explained that Cheryl and I had been increasingly at odds because she wanted to take the clinic in a different direction than I did, that Cheryl had instructed me to increase the abortion numbers and I was not willing to make that a goal, and that she told me abortion was to be my priority—and it never would be. I explained that I just couldn’t stay any longer under those circumstances.