Commendably, a walk for life is held locally at the end of October every year which I am sure is popular with, besides the participants, thousands more who like myself have not been able to participate but share in the same ideal. Another significant pro-life walk was that of Abby Johnson.
Ms Johnson was the director of an abortion facility in Texas, USA. However when she actually participated in her first abortion procedure, everything changed. For it is one thing studying about the ‘termination of pregnancy’ in a lecture room and another actually participating in the killing of the defenceless unborn. When Ms Johnson who was the director of the abortionist Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, after participating in her first actual abortion procedure, walked across the road, in a watershed moment, to join the anti-abortion volunteers of the coalition for life manning a picket line was akin to St Paul’s conversion.
When Ms Johnson quit her job in October 2009, as the director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas, lawsuits were filed while pro-life advocates rejoiced. This former clinic director revealed the details of her dramatic move from abortion rights advocate to “the right side of the fence” and the pro-life movement. Ms Johnson began as a volunteer, moving through the ranks until becoming director of the Bryan, Tex., abortion clinic. Ms Johnson’s story may remind one of a few characters from another book, Plague Ship espousing the dire effects of the abortion credo taken to extremes. However once this sincere woman full of ideas but initially misguided ones, witnessed an ultrasound guided abortion, she changed.
“I was taking a new stand, beginning a new life” she says of her move to the other side. This emotional account reveals Ms Johnson’s remarkable journey through pro-choice thinking, two abortions, her love/hate relationship with pro-life advocates outside the clinic, and her eventual understanding of abortion.
Unplanned is a heart-stopping personal drama of life-and-death encounters, a courtroom battle, and spiritual transformation that speaks hope and compassion into the political controversy that surrounds this issue. Telling Ms Johnson’s story from both sides of the abortion clinic property line, this book Unplanned (Tyndale House, 2010) is an inspiring personal story that instils hope and compassion into the abortion controversy, and should make a voice for the civilisation of life through the protection of the defenceless. Those who care about the life versus “rights” debates and helping women who face crisis pregnancies would surely profit from its insights.
Colin Debono
Għajnsielem