Letter From Bryan
The Convert
Former Bryan Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson’s abrupt change from pro-choice activist to pro-life spokesperson turned her into a talk show sensation. But is her story true?
Roger Smith says: I’ve been a born-again Christian since age 5 (pushing 55 here now), have been an ardent student of the Bible since age 18 (read it cover to cover 8 times, studied the whole thing in segments and in half a dozen English translations several more times, along with studying it in four other languages including Greek and Hebrew; went to a wonderful conservative graduate theology school, have been involved in teaching and ministries at many levels --- none of that to brag, all of it only to give a little profile of where I’m coming from spiritually). I also moved from having been closely involved with prolife groups in the mid-’80s, to quickly becoming unsettled at their very obvious promotion of misinformation, and the hypocrisy of not WANTING to learn any more accurate information if it didn’t agree with the things they already believed. That is not Christianity: God is the God of truth, not of "whatever we believe at the moment". Truth may line up with what we believe; it may challenge things we believe, even things we cherish. But truth is the only place you’ll find God, not in mis- (or dis-) information. Misinformation 1: "Human life begins at conception". Several other prolife points are usually linked with that, such as the often-heard idea that "brain waves" (the bioelectric signals in the brain’s cortex that are associated with personality and consciousness) have been detected as early as 40 days into pregnancy. However, that just isn’t medical fact; those brain signals have never been detected earlier than about 20 weeks (see this informative article, and especially its internal links to the original medical research: eileen.250x.com/Main/Einstein/Brain_Waves.htm). So since we associate brain activity with the presence of what we Christians would call mind, soul, or spirit, obviously that cannot emerge till around five months along. In addition, if fully human life (in the biblical sense) begins at conception, that makes no sense in the case of identical twins (or other multiples), since as we all learned in high school science, identicals all begin from a single fertilized egg, which later splits into two (or more) embryos. You’d have to suppose that God also somehow split the mind/soul/spirit as well, to make two or more individuals --- but obviously you never hear a word on that from prolife groups, not to mention there isn’t a hint of support for that notion in the Bible, let alone science. Misinformation 2: "The Bible is against abortion". The Bible doesn’t say a single thing about abortion --- even though abortion was utterly common in the ancient world (search "herbal abortion" or "herbal abortifacient" for a lot of information on that). If God had thought it was a problem, pretty obviously he would have said something about it. However, since in the Bible God matter-of-factly takes responsibility for all that happens as a result of physical (including biological) processes, those who assert unilaterally that "abortion is wrong" must deal with the fact that God himself performs abortions: we call those sad events "miscarriages". (In fact, as any reasonably educated woman in this society will of course know, around 80% of a woman’s fertilized eggs don’t implant in the womb, but are flushed out naturally; so prolife Christians would have to acknowledge that God almost casually flushes away countless millions of incipient lives worldwide, every month; yet you never hear prolife groups address these points.) As a matter of fact, those prolife Christians who studied their Bibles would be aware of Numbers chapter 5, in which (as part of the very law which God gave Moses) a woman suspected of cheating on her husband is to be brought to a priest, who then performs a ceremony calling on God to cause her to miscarry if she’s pregnant with some other man’s child. That is, the God of the Bible, himself, gave direction that he was to be called on to quite literally perform an abortion, with the expectation that he would do just that. So obviously "God is against abortion", "the Bible is against abortion", or simply "abortion is wrong" cannot be maintained by Christians as blanket, unilateral beliefs or positions. So when does human life begin? It might also be worth noting that many cultures in earlier times considered life in the womb to begin only when the woman first felt "quickening", that is, movement in her womb; by no means did they (nor the church) take such an extreme position as prolife Christians do today. Given the actual medical facts about "brain waves" --- what we Christians would read as indicating the presence of soul, mind, or spirit --- it would be hard to make a case for fully human life emerging any earlier than around 20 weeks, as mentioned above. More importantly, it might be emphasized that human life simply doesn’t have any discernible "moment" of beginning: even the "moment" of conception isn’t, of course, a single moment (the moment when a sperm cell first begins to penetrate the egg’s outer membrane? or when it is fully taken inside? or when its genetic material first begins to disperse inside the egg? or when its genetic material, and that of the egg, are fully combined?). With what we’ve been able to see and learn through medical science, Christians in particular ought to be more humbled and amazed at the ever-deeper mystery of when life begins --- which appears indeed to be an "emergence", and not a "moment" we could point to or capture in a photo. That indeed is much more the tendency of God in Scripture: though he makes his reality known, he never lets himself, nor his work, quite be pinned down (which, of course, would give us the misperception of control). We managed to "pin him down" once, on a cross, but aside from that he won’t be pinned down. We should rather humble ourselves before the amazement of life, rather than think we can define it so precisely as to wage cultural wars over it. Finally, I also notice that something like three-fourths of all that’s said or written on abortion is by men --- and it is a fact that not a one of us men will ever have to face, firsthand, the challenges of any pregnancy (whether planned or unplanned). Our breathtaking arrogance, in thinking we can dictate ultimate truth on something we will never have to face personally, is deeply disgraceful; we men should rather give place to women on that issue. (I’ve tried to limit the things I’ve said here to medical and scriptural facts, with a few unavoidable implications raised by those; other than that, I won’t presume to say what any woman should or shouldn’t do or think --- far less when I can never be in the shoes of any woman facing the family, financial, social, medical, or other issues that quite often complicate the matter from being a simple "choice". In fact, those who try to oversimplify this complex, agonizing matter to a "choice" do dishonor to all the lives involved.) An authentically "prolife" position ought to take into consideration all of life’s complexity; in fact life is far too important ever to take a kneejerk, reflexive stance on whether something is simply "wrong" or "right". One thing that Christians ought to agree on, though, is that one of the few simple, straightforward statements in Scripture that does indeed encompass all of life is what Jesus said: "In everything, treat others as you would like to be treated." Prolife groups certainly do not do that; if in fact they are Christians, I would hope and pray that they would actually do what Christ said, and take all lives into consideration, not just one. And yeah, I know this is really long (not to mention, more than a year after the article was first published; I found this linked from a current article, here www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/29/susan-b-anthony-list-planned-parenthood_n_841978.html ), so edit away. ;) (March 29th, 2011 at 5:04pm)
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Alright. Here’s the deal. I have been doing the work of two full time people for two years. Then, after I have been working my whole big butt off for them and prioritizing that company over my family, my friends and pretty much everything else in my life, they have the nerve to tell me that my job performance is “slipping.” WHAT???!!! That is crazy. Anyone that knows me knows how committed I was to that job. They obviously do not value me at all. So, I’m out and I feel really great about it!
Johnson received condolences and encouragement from a number of Facebook friends, most of whom were shocked by her announcement. She never mentioned being pressured to increase abortions, having witnessed the ultrasound-guided procedure, or having suffered a moral crisis.
In mid-December I met with Johnson and Carney at the Coalition for Life office, where Johnson spends most days when she is not out of town for a speaking engagement. She has an open face, with big brown eyes and a confident smile. She had cut her hair since the story broke; it was now in a sophisticated bob, and her nails were freshly done in a French manicure. I asked Johnson about the questions that had arisen regarding her motivation for leaving Planned Parenthood. She acknowledged that she had been disciplined just before quitting but said she never worried that she would be fired. “I was employee of the year,” she said. “I had been promised by the higher-ups that one day I would be the COO of the affiliate.” Johnson insisted that the Facebook posting was merely a cover story, designed to buy her time to decide how and when she would reveal her real reasons for quitting. She was not ready to expose herself to attack at that point. Nor did she turn to the Coalition out of revenge, she said. “It’s not about being disgruntled. If I was disgruntled, I would have come over and said, ‘Shawn, let’s really stick it to Planned Parenthood.’ If I was angry about being written up, that’s what I would have done, because I have a ton of stuff that I could have disclosed to the media. But I’ve never done that, because that was never my intention.”
Carney said that none of the apparent discrepancies in Johnson’s story—the curious timing of the Fair and Feminist interview, the coincidence of the disciplinary action and Johnson’s resignation, and the incongruous Facebook posting—bothered him. “Her coming down here can only be explained by a genuine conversion experience,” he said. “Abby could have taken a right and driven off and gone to a fast-food restaurant, cried her eyes out, called her husband, quit the next day, and we’d have never known. But she didn’t do that. She decided to take a left and come into this house.” It was easier for skeptics to believe that Johnson was just a disgruntled employee, Carney said, than that a commonly performed procedure was in reality so awful that the director of an abortion clinic could not abide the sight of it. “I think for some people the reason for her leaving is almost too ugly to look at with honesty,” Carney said.
Other questions about Johnson’s credibility arose during our interview. She told me, for example, that there had never been any threats of violence against the Bryan clinic; however, Johnson herself received a series of threatening letters in 2007. “God will punish you for killing the innocent or we will,” read one. “You are not taking us seriously. You were at the clinic alone. Not very smart,” read another. In fact, the threats were taken so seriously that security cameras were installed at Johnson’s house, as she later acknowledged. Johnson also claimed that while most services at Planned Parenthood were provided by a nonprofit corporation, abortions were done by a for-profit corporation. Both she and Carney seemed to sincerely believe this was true, though all services at Planned Parenthood are, in fact, provided by a pair of separate nonprofit corporations.
As confounding as these inconsistencies are, there may be a much larger problem with Johnson’s story. Johnson has told the story of her journey from pro-choice activist to pro-life celebrity many times in many venues, and the crux of the tale is always the same: her moving description of what she saw on the ultrasound that September day in the Bryan clinic’s operating room. It is an undeniably compelling story. Mike Huckabee interrupted Johnson several times during her appearance on his show, marveling at every detail and embellishing here and there with his own comments. “You literally were holding your hand on top of her belly, at that point, and realized that what was underneath that hand, once, a moment ago, was life...it’s gone,” he said. “My gosh.”
Johnson’s account is so plausible and rich in detail that even Planned Parenthood seems not to have investigated whether this event ever took place. At my request, the staff at the Bryan clinic examined patient records from September 26, the day Johnson claims to have had her conversion experience, and spoke with the physician who performed abortions on that date. According to Planned Parenthood, there is no record of an ultrasound-guided abortion performed on September 26. The physician on duty told the organization that he did not use an ultrasound that day, nor did Johnson assist on any abortion procedure. “Planned Parenthood can assure you that no abortion patients underwent an ultrasound-guided abortion on September 26,” said a spokesperson. It’s difficult to imagine that Johnson simply got the date wrong; September 12 was the only other day that month that the clinic performed surgical abortions.
Could clinic staff and the physician be mistaken? The Texas Department of State Health Services requires abortion providers to fill out a form documenting basic information about each procedure performed at a clinic. This document is known as the Induced Abortion Report Form. The Bryan clinic reported performing fifteen surgical abortions on September 26. Johnson has consistently said that the patient in question was thirteen weeks pregnant, which is plausible, since thirteen weeks is right at the cusp of when physicians will consider using an ultrasound to assist with the procedure. Yet none of the patients listed on the report for that day were thirteen weeks pregnant; in fact, none were beyond ten weeks.
Johnson stands by her version of events. “What I described on the screen is something I’d never seen before, so I wouldn’t know what to describe if I hadn’t seen it,” she said. It seems unlikely, though, that an eight-year veteran of the abortion wars would be unfamiliar with the image of the “recoiling fetus,” which has been common coin among anti-abortion activists since the release of the controversial 1984 film The Silent Scream, which purported to show fetal pain. When I asked if she could provide any other details of what she saw that day to help firm up her story, Johnson volunteered that the patient in question was a black woman, a description that she has never previously included in her account. Only one patient from September 26 was black, according to the Induced Abortion Report Form, and she was in the sixth week of her pregnancy. There would be no medical reason for a doctor to use an ultrasound to guide an abortion performed on a woman at such an early stage. Even if one was used, it’s hard to imagine how Johnson, who said she has seen hundreds of ultrasound pictures in her career, could mistake a one-quarter-inch-long embryo for a three-inch, thirteen-week fetus.
Johnson told me she was unfamiliar with the Induced Abortion Report Form. When I explained what the forms for September 26 reflected, she suggested that Planned Parenthood could have doctored them. “Anything to discredit me is what they’re gonna do,” she said. “You know, I’m not really interested in defending my story anymore. I haven’t done this just for fun. I haven’t done it for my own benefit. So I don’t really care what they’re saying. They’re just trying to grasp at straws and come up with something,” she said. “And it’s just not true.”
If the story of Johnson’s conversion doesn’t bear up well under scrutiny, it may be because it was never meant to. Johnson has consistently said that she never planned to go public with her story. In fact, the media only learned of her defection a month after she quit, when Planned Parenthood took Johnson to court. According to testimony at that hearing, on the day she quit her job Johnson told two young co-workers that the Coalition for Life could find them jobs, just as it had offered to do for her. All they had to do, one of the young women testified, was say they could no longer work at Planned Parenthood because of a “moral conflict.” (Both are still employed at the clinic.) Johnson told me early in our interview that clinic workers sometimes felt trapped. “Where else would you work?” was a refrain she often heard around the Planned Parenthood office. “You’ve done abortions—who else would want you here in this town?”
Johnson, who has a young daughter and a husband who is a schoolteacher, told me her only goal in the weeks after leaving Planned Parenthood was to find a new job as quickly as possible. But she’d suddenly found herself with a camera in her face, telling her story to a much larger audience. “I had no idea I would be on Fox News. This was just totally unexpected,” she said. “Things just really took off in a different direction than what I had thought they would.”
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