Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader's Eye-Opening Journey Across the Life Line by Abby Johnson, Cindy Lambert Page B
Authors: Abby Johnson, Cindy Lambert
Ads: Link
window and saw Shawn. Guess I’ll just tackle this head-on. I went outside and walked over to Shawn, who was standing out by the fence.
“Shawn, some of our clients find your camera intimidating. Is there some way you could move it out of sight?”
He seemed sympathetic. “I can understand that. But unfortunately, it’s necessary. It’s not just for our protection; it’s for yours as well. If anything were to happen, there’s a photographic record.”
I shook my head. “Shawn, you don’t need to protect us . We have our own cameras. Look—can you at least move your camera to the other side of the driveway so it’s a little farther away? It wouldn’t be as obvious that way, and maybe our clients wouldn’t be so afraid they could be identified. That’s their fear. They’re concerned someone is filming for the purpose of revealing their identities.”
He shook his head. “Can’t do it. We need a good angle on what’s actually happening here at the fence. If there were ever any questions, we’d need it to be clear.”
“It’s just such a personal and vulnerable decision for many of our clients to come here—they have parents or husbands or boyfriends or coworkers or friends who have no idea they are pregnant or need medical attention or contraceptives. So the last thing they want to worry about is the fear of a video in someone’s hands that shows them walking into our clinic.”
My patience was getting a little thin at this point. I was trying hard to find some compromise, to work with them, to keep things positive and conciliatory, and it seemed to me that Shawn wasn’t working with me.
When it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere, I turned to head back into the clinic. But I’d only taken a step or two when I turned back to him and said, “You know—” He looked taken aback, as if he thought I was going to get nasty. But I just thought he should see our point of view. “There have always been people like us—like Planned Parenthood—defending the rights of women and human rights in general. Isn’t that what the emancipation movement was about in the 1800s, and then in the early 1900s, the suffrage movement? In World War II, people tried to stand up for the Jews. And now there are people like us, standing up for the reproductive rights of women, just as the suffrage movement stood up for their voting rights.”
He listened respectfully, and then he simply said, “Abby, you don’t have to justify your job to me.”
What? Justify my job? “I’m not justifying, ” I said. “I just want to explain—”
“And you don’t have to explain what you’re doing either. The truth is, you just cited two instances of injustice—the slaves and the Jews—that could only exist because a whole segment of our population was dehumanized. Society’s acceptance of that is what allowed injustice to continue. And that’s exactly what Planned Parenthood does to the unborn.”
I was speechless. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have come back with a thoughtful response. I could have. But there was such a simple, straightforward logic to what he said. I looked away from him for a moment or two to process his words.
Then I looked back at him. Shawn would tell me a few years later that he remembered that I put my hand on my hip, and he wasn’t sure what I would say—he thought I looked as if I were about to light into him. But all I said was, “You aren’t going to convert me.” And I turned and went back into the clinic.
Shawn says he chuckled as I walked away, amused by my defiance. But he also began praying for me immediately. He believed I would not have said what I said about his converting me if I hadn’t, at some level, considered it a possibility.
It wasn’t quite the new start with the Coalition for Life I had in mind.
In my first weeks as director I wanted to set some new best practices. One of the first was to emphasize to my staff that the reason we were here was to help our
“Shawn, some of our clients find your camera intimidating. Is there some way you could move it out of sight?”
He seemed sympathetic. “I can understand that. But unfortunately, it’s necessary. It’s not just for our protection; it’s for yours as well. If anything were to happen, there’s a photographic record.”
I shook my head. “Shawn, you don’t need to protect us . We have our own cameras. Look—can you at least move your camera to the other side of the driveway so it’s a little farther away? It wouldn’t be as obvious that way, and maybe our clients wouldn’t be so afraid they could be identified. That’s their fear. They’re concerned someone is filming for the purpose of revealing their identities.”
He shook his head. “Can’t do it. We need a good angle on what’s actually happening here at the fence. If there were ever any questions, we’d need it to be clear.”
“It’s just such a personal and vulnerable decision for many of our clients to come here—they have parents or husbands or boyfriends or coworkers or friends who have no idea they are pregnant or need medical attention or contraceptives. So the last thing they want to worry about is the fear of a video in someone’s hands that shows them walking into our clinic.”
My patience was getting a little thin at this point. I was trying hard to find some compromise, to work with them, to keep things positive and conciliatory, and it seemed to me that Shawn wasn’t working with me.
When it was clear I wasn’t getting anywhere, I turned to head back into the clinic. But I’d only taken a step or two when I turned back to him and said, “You know—” He looked taken aback, as if he thought I was going to get nasty. But I just thought he should see our point of view. “There have always been people like us—like Planned Parenthood—defending the rights of women and human rights in general. Isn’t that what the emancipation movement was about in the 1800s, and then in the early 1900s, the suffrage movement? In World War II, people tried to stand up for the Jews. And now there are people like us, standing up for the reproductive rights of women, just as the suffrage movement stood up for their voting rights.”
He listened respectfully, and then he simply said, “Abby, you don’t have to justify your job to me.”
What? Justify my job? “I’m not justifying, ” I said. “I just want to explain—”
“And you don’t have to explain what you’re doing either. The truth is, you just cited two instances of injustice—the slaves and the Jews—that could only exist because a whole segment of our population was dehumanized. Society’s acceptance of that is what allowed injustice to continue. And that’s exactly what Planned Parenthood does to the unborn.”
I was speechless. It wasn’t that I couldn’t have come back with a thoughtful response. I could have. But there was such a simple, straightforward logic to what he said. I looked away from him for a moment or two to process his words.
Then I looked back at him. Shawn would tell me a few years later that he remembered that I put my hand on my hip, and he wasn’t sure what I would say—he thought I looked as if I were about to light into him. But all I said was, “You aren’t going to convert me.” And I turned and went back into the clinic.
Shawn says he chuckled as I walked away, amused by my defiance. But he also began praying for me immediately. He believed I would not have said what I said about his converting me if I hadn’t, at some level, considered it a possibility.
It wasn’t quite the new start with the Coalition for Life I had in mind.
In my first weeks as director I wanted to set some new best practices. One of the first was to emphasize to my staff that the reason we were here was to help our
Similar Books
