Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line (7 page)

Chapter Seven

The Code of Conduct

When I returned to the Bryan clinic, the face-off at the fence appeared far more peaceful than it had been at any time since I’d been involved with the clinic.

Unlike my early days as a volunteer escort, when the Grim Reaper raised his scythe and crudely lettered, accusatory signs bobbed up and down, the scene at the fence now reflected the prayerful, peaceful presence of the Coalition for Life. Through gentle yet persistent efforts, the Coalition had established a code of conduct for pro-life advocates coming to the fence that, with only rare exceptions, everyone honored. I respected this huge accomplishment on the part of the Coalition and felt that everyone—pro-life and prochoice—had benefited. I knew that David Bereit and Shawn and Marilisa Carney had led that effort. And for that, they’d earned my respect. I still thought they were dead wrong ideologically, but I respected their good intentions.

Due to the nationwide interest in the Coalition’s 40 Days for Life campaign, David had moved to Washington, D.C., the year before my return to take on a national pro-life leadership role. Marilisa had become the director after David’s departure. When she became a mother in January of 2006, just six months before my return, Shawn, her husband, assumed the role of director. I couldn’t help but notice the parallels in Shawn’s and my own track—in life as well as within our respective organizations. We’d both started as volunteers on opposite sides of the fence surrounding the Bryan clinic within thirty days of each other. He’d moved into a paid position around the same time I had, and now he had assumed the director’s role a few months before I returned to the Bryan clinic as director of community outreach and health education.

I was now well into my second trimester, a fact that did not go unnoticed by the regulars at the fence upon my return. “Abby, you’re expecting!” Marilisa called out when our paths first crossed after my return. “When are you due?” Even though I’d been at the Bryan clinic on abortion days for the previous six months, Marilisa hadn’t seen me because when I’d visited the clinic on those days, she’d been home with her new baby.

When I saw her, my heart leapt. Marilisa had befriended me on my very first day as a volunteer. I’d believed her kindness and concern for me were genuine from the beginning, and everything I’d experienced since reinforced my instincts. Knowing she was a new mom gave me a common bond with her, since I was expecting too.

“Hey, Marilisa. It’s good to see you.” I strolled over to meet her at the driveway where the gate stood wide open. “I’m due in November, right around Thanksgiving.”

“What a Thanksgiving you’ll have! There is no greater gift than a child.” From some other pro-lifer, that statement might have come off as a dig, but I knew that her comment was clearly an expression of her own joy in motherhood.

“I understand you had a little girl around Christmas. How is she?”

“Perfect! You should see Shawn with her. She’s got him wrapped around her tiny little fingers already. He just beams when he holds her—like he glows in the dark!”

“I can imagine. I understand he’s director of the Coalition now. How are things going? Any sign of the Grim Reaper?” I asked teasingly.

Marilisa grinned and rolled her eyes. “No, thankfully. Most everyone is very cooperative. We have the occasional new face who needs some coaching. There is one renegade named Jim—good intentions but bad methods. He’s caused a lot of tension on both sides, even causing the police to get involved a few times. We’ve tried to reason with him, but we can’t seem to control him.” Marilisa shook her head.

I figured Cheryl would give me an earful about this Jim, and I was right. She told me she was particularly annoyed that some of the pro-lifers had been taking photographs of our younger clients and mailing them to their parents. Some of those parents then called the clinic, demanding to know what their daughters were doing there and threatening to sue.

When I told her that tactic didn’t sound like something the Coalition for Life would do, I could tell she thought I was being naive. The pro-life rhetoric was heating up, she said, and so were the calls for violence. Then she pointed out our newly installed, upgraded cameras, which gave a 360-degree view of the clinic’s driveway, parking lot, fence, and sidewalk.

Other security measures were in full force as well. At first, the precautions seemed excessive to me, but I had to admit that the pro-life movement had a lunatic fringe. Abortion doctors in several cities across the nation had been targeted, harassed, shot at, and had their homes and offices vandalized. The Internet chatter in support of such attacks was alarming. I didn’t believe our clinic or doctors were at risk, but the idea that someone was taking photos of our clients’ license plates was disturbing.

Cheryl, I thought at times, seemed to exaggerate the drama. I sometimes wondered if she did so because she really feared for our safety or because she wanted to rally support and camaraderie among our staff and volunteers, painting the picture of us as always under attack. But then we’d learn on the Internet of some new attack on an abortion clinic, and we’d all have a sense of heightened danger.

Our security practices reinforced the sense of being under attack. For instance (though this was nothing new), most of our abortion doctors arrived at the clinic with high drama. They would park in secret locations and be picked up by Planned Parenthood staff. On the ride to the clinic, they would hunker down in the backseat with a sheet over them. When the escort car arrived behind a privacy fence at our side entrance, often in the predawn darkness, the doctors would keep the sheet over their heads and scurry into the clinic as if they were being targeted by a sharpshooter.

Not all of our doctors went to these extremes. A few simply drove into our lot in their own cars and walked in the front door in broad daylight. I’d always found the high drama over the top, since anyone on the planet could go to the city hall of Bryan, do an open-records request, and find out the names of our doctors. But the drama fed the sense of siege inside our walls, which strengthened loyalty and support. There’s nothing like opposition to solidify the troops.

I found it curious that paranoia was escalating, even though the scene at the fence had become considerably more peaceful.

In my new role I was trained as one of the few media relations contacts for our affiliate of twelve clinics in southeast Texas and Louisiana. Nothing seemed more important to the affiliate than preparing and sticking to our media talking points. I, in turn, trained our staff on the points to make when clients asked questions. During my training, I became aware not only of the importance of semantics but of the heavy influence the Planned Parenthood jargon had already had on my own thinking. I recall a slight feeling of having been . . . not duped, since I believed in the organization . . . but at least manipulated as a young recruit.

For example, it would have been accurate to refer to the pro-lifers at the fence on abortion days as advocates praying for an end to abortion while offering information to women on the brink of making a life-altering decision. That was not, however, the Planned Parenthood line. We were taught to refer to them—and think of them—as anti-choice extremists who would do and say anything to take away the rights of women and harass our clients. I find it disturbing now to look back and see how easily I adopted and used the talking points I was given. But, I reasoned, I was not there to represent myself. I represented Planned Parenthood. Besides, just as I was saying as spokesperson, we were a highly respected women’s health organization dedicated to the education and reproductive health of women. We stood for women’s rights and their free exercise of those rights—a cause I was proud to champion.

And I still deeply believed in the vision of the organization, perhaps more than ever before. I loved being back at the Bryan clinic and threw myself into my new role with a passion. I felt a greater sense of ownership for the clinic as a whole.

Meanwhile, Doug was enjoying his first months teaching, and we were preparing for the birth of our baby. The months seemed to fly by.

On November 16, 2006, I gave birth to a precious, healthy little girl. Doug and I named her Grace. The delivery was extremely difficult, resulting in some severe medical complications for me. I was forced to remain flat on my back in the days that followed and was unable to breastfeed or even pump breast milk. I had so anticipated the bonding experience of breastfeeding and was bitterly disappointed. Now my husband, family, and nurses took care of my baby’s every need while I lay immobilized and helpless. A sense of loss and failure overtook me, leaving me filled with sadness and frustration rather than joy. Everyone assured me the feelings would pass, but even on the day we took Grace home from the hospital, a dark cloud hovered in my heart. I felt guilty for feeling that darkness. My mom came to stay with me, though, and I treasured her closeness.

I’d been working in a world of women for five years at this point. I believed I understood the bond that women shared with one another. But I was about to be initiated into a far deeper fellowship than I’d ever known. Motherhood is a powerful bonding force, and before I knew it, I was mysteriously woven into the fabric of this bond.

A few days after being released from the hospital, I received a call from a friend at the clinic. One of our colleagues had just lost her daughter in a car accident. I gasped in horror at the thought of losing a child. I empathized with her loss in a way I’d never have been able to empathize before.

As my friends from the clinic and I gathered over the next few days at the viewing and graveside, I sensed a bond, a sisterhood unlike anything I’d known before. We were like family, rallying around our friend who’d lost her child, supporting one another, contributing to help her meet the expenses she faced. We cried together and found a way to smile together as well. My colleagues shared in my joy of new motherhood and understood my tumultuous emotions in the aftermath of the birth. Never had I experienced such a deep level of connection with my coworkers. The simultaneous blending of my experience of becoming a mother, sharing the suffering of another mother in the death of her child, and witnessing the compassion of my coworkers for one another penetrated my heart. I carried these memories back with me to the clinic after my eight-week maternity leave, my sense of purpose at our clinic enhanced with deeper meaning.

Even so, I felt a deepening sadness. I was hopeful that plugging back into a church would jump-start my rebound from what I now assumed was a case of postpartum depression. We’d not yet found a church since returning to Bryan from Huntsville, and we both missed worshiping with fellow believers. This time we found a Baptist church that seemed to be a good fit. I avoided mentioning where I worked, hoping we wouldn’t have a repeat of the rejection we’d experienced a few years before. It was good to be back in church, but God had never seemed more distant—a distance I longed to close.

In the months that followed I was aware that the deep sadness in my heart was not lifting. Perhaps the most alarming aspect of my dysfunction was that my emotional bond with Grace wasn’t growing as I knew it should. And I felt helpless to change this. Logic would indicate that, as a trained therapist with a master’s degree in counseling, I’d have known I needed medical attention for my worsening depression. Logic, however, seldom partners with depression. In my mind, I was a therapist and therefore
not
a patient.

Four people played a vital role in supporting me through this dark time and moving me toward the help I needed—Doug, my mom, and two very dear friends. One was a close friend from school, also a therapist, who was pregnant herself. The other friend was a coworker and trusted confidante, Valerie. I’d been there for her when her child had been seriously ill. Now she was there for me. It took months of urging from these four loved ones before I finally sought help from my doctor. I was fortunate—within thirty days of beginning to take an antidepressant, I was out of my depression and functioning fully once again. I couldn’t believe I’d suffered so long so needlessly. Most important, my attachment to Grace quickly grew and deepened.

This personal experience with postpartum depression, though painful, would prove to be invaluable in the not-too-distant future.

My first words with Shawn Carney of Coalition for Life were probably just an exchange of hellos out by the fence over our first few years. But the first conversation I fully recall happened not terribly long after I’d given birth to Grace. The encounter left a strong impression.

Shawn was hosting a TV show for EWTN called
beingHUMAN,
a documentary series that chronicles the efforts of everyday people who are working to end abortion. The opening sequence of the series was filmed in the library of the Baptist church Doug and I were attending at the time. Most Baptist churches take a pretty strong stand against abortion, and yet there I was, working with Planned Parenthood and attending a Baptist church. I worried that Shawn knew I was attending this church, and I was afraid he would send a message to our pastor, something along the lines of, “Do you know that you have an abortionist attending your church?”

Considering what I knew of Shawn, just the fact that I felt such a fear shows that I had bought into some of the paranoia Planned Parenthood seemed to encourage. But it was also true that, since being back at the Bryan clinic, I’d already experienced a few frightening incidents. Some of my neighbors and people in our community had gotten letters from a man who identified me by name and likened what I was doing at Planned Parenthood to molesting a child. The same man had sent out similar letters about other Planned Parenthood staffers and the doctors who performed abortions at our clinics. Several of us suspected that it was Jim, the pro-lifer the Coalition had been unsuccessfully struggling to influence toward constructive rather than destructive methods.