From a FoxNews.com article posted Monday:
Abby Johnson, 29, used to escort women from their cars to the clinic in the eight years she volunteered and worked for Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. But she says she knew it was time to leave after she watched a fetus “crumple” as it was vacuumed out of a patient’s uterus in September.
“When I was working at Planned Parenthood I was extremely pro-choice,” Johnson told FoxNews.com. But after seeing the internal workings of the procedure for the first time on an ultrasound monitor, “I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart … a spiritual conversion.”
She quit her job and joined the pro-life advocacy group praying outside the building!
The article doesn’t say how long she worked for Planned Parenthood, or how long she had described herself as “pro-choice,” but we could conservatively assume it was a least a couple years. She wasn’t the receptionist, after all, she was the Director. If watching an abortion via ultrasound can have this effect on someone so staunchly “pro-choice,” maybe it should raise some other questions.
What would you have to show someone who has lead a Planned Parenthood team/facility to convince her that her life’s work is morally wrong? Abby was not passive about her conviction; she did more than just vote for “pro-choice” candidates. Abby worked in an abortion facility. She knew the mechanics of the procedure. She saw women before and after. And yet day after day she continued to help women get past the pro-life line outside, and comfortably into the clinic.
But the ultrasound changed everything. When she actually saw it happen, she knew that years of work and who knows what else (newsletters? debates? casual conversations?), was misplaced, mistaken and wrong. It’s difficult to admit you’ve been wrong on something so serious for so long. But the ultrasound made it happen.
If an ultrasound is revealing something that all the medical evidence, debate, discussion, prayer, etc. are not, then why is it that so many clinics refuse to show women an ultrasound before they have an abortion? If Planned Parenthood really is “an informed educator,” why withhold part of the truth? Can you even say you’re “pro-choice,” or that you “want” an abortion if you can’t face the whole truth about it? If you – or if doctors allow you to – remain willfully ignorant about it?
Was there a time when you left the “pro-choice” camp and became pro-life? What changed your mind? Do you know someone who did? What was the deciding factor? I was “pro-choice” before I met the Lord, and hearing Lou Engle talk about Bound4Life at a OneThing event broke my heart open. You?
(HT: Nate)
Why is this article only on Fox news? Is this another one of those not exactly as ity seems stories where FOX has tried to make something out of nothing. How could it be that a supposed director of Planned Parenthood had never seen any pictures or videos of an abortion? How could it be the a planned Parenthood “director” had a job that involved volunteer work and escorting women from their cars to the center? I don’t mean to be sceptical but something doesn’t jibe in this article.
I am not suggesting that it wouldn’t be difficult to watch and consider the repercussions of an abortion, but something just doesn’t ring true here. Even the fact that no reputable news organization is taking up the story seems strange.
Here’s a video interview on local TV station KBTX: http://i234.photobucket.com/albums/ee92/lexi_kate/atthelake.jpg
This is a video of The View covering the story: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/colleen-raezler/2009/11/04/joy-behar-profits-are-real-immorality-abortion
This is the article on ABC News: http://abcnews.go.com/Health/MindMoodNews/planned-parenthood-clinic-director-joins-anti-abortion-group/story?id=8999720
She’s worked at the Planned Parenthood facility for eight years, and been Director for two. She probably started in an escorting capacity.
But you raise a good point – why didn’t more major news networks cover the story? At all? It’s no secret that FOX is a relatively conservative news outlet, and they catch a lot of garbage from people who lean more to the left for it. But if the reverse is also true, CNN and NBC and the rest should maybe be on the receiving end of the garbage this time for NOT covering a story presumably because of it’s conservative over-tones.
You raise a good point, and as far as not completely understanding what happens, well it’s a gruesome procedure that is profitable, why have people watch/understand what goes on to risk having them turned off on the procedure, makes sense to
Now, this is all conjecture, I’m just throwing this theory out there, you may be right, I may be right…neither of us may be right, but just because only FOX has been reporting it doesn’t really mean much…they were the only ones reporting on Van Jones for a long time before other networks finally picked it up and then Mr. Jones got tossed under the bus.
I completely agree with you Shawn. I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to think that clinics are deliberately not showing women ultrasounds because it would likely cause them to change their minds about an abortion – and abortions have a high profit margin. I don’t think it takes a great economist, or a crazed conspiracy theorist, to see that.
Also agree that just because FOX is one of the few major news networks to cover the story doesn’t mean it’s somehow not valid. But even there a simple Google search found three other networks that covered the story on the first page of results.