When the president of the largest abortion vendor in the country is frantic about the significant uptick in pro-life legislation, it’s a sure sign the pro-life movement is on the right track.
In March 2021, Alexis McGill Johnson, the president and CEO of Planned Parenthood, told NBC News that “this legislative season is shaping up to be one of the most hostile in recent history for reproductive health and rights.” It only got better from there. By July, almost 600 pro-life measures had been enacted in all but three states and Washington, D.C. For perspective, 10 years ago, in 2011, that number was just 70. Ironically, in 2021 we are on track to enact as many abortion bans and pro-life bills as 1973, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
As a former Planned Parenthood clinic director, I have testified many times at state legislatures in support of pro-life legislation. But in April, for the first time, former abortion workers with my organization And Then There Were None testified in support of a Tennessee bill requiring the proper burial of fetal remains. Their willingness to speak out was key to passing and enacting the pro-life legislation. Their testimony exposed the gruesome and cruel protocols present in nearly every abortion clinic after the destruction of an unborn baby.
The pro-life movement has waited decades for the opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme Court case that allowed abortion for any reason at any time during pregnancy. We very well may get that chance when the court hears the case out of Mississippi that banned abortion after 15 weeks’ gestation.
I think the momentum is swinging in a big way for the pro-life movement. The signs are all there: the incredible number of pro-life bills enacted; the extraordinary growth of peaceful prayer outside abortion clinics, like 40 Days for Life, which is now praying in more than 1,000 cities in 63 countries; and the 54% reduction in the number of independent abortion clinics from 2012 to 2020.
While the pro-life movement had a seat at White House meetings when Donald Trump was president, our voices are not silenced now that Joe Biden is in office. Pro-lifers have already demonstrated that having a pro-life president, while helpful in many ways, is not a necessity for saving babies. I’m saddened we do not have a pro-life president in office, but the fire I have within me to help mothers and their babies and those working in the abortion industry is not diminished. I think many in the pro-life movement can relate, as evidenced by their actions at pregnancy centers, and as sidewalk advocates and peaceful prayer warriors.
Like many in the pro-life movement, I want to make abortion unthinkable, something no one would even consider because they would understand that it kills innocent life and often leaves the woman and her family with irreparable mental, emotional and sometimes physical harm. I want women to be empowered with all the facts about abortion and to have the help they need to make the right decision. I want people to support women facing unexpected pregnancies, especially those in very difficult circumstances. I want women to be surrounded by love and a support system they can trust.
This is the flip side of the positive pro-life legislation moving through state houses. Some women will want abortions whether abortion is legal or not. We need to stand in the gap between them and abortion clinics, between them and ordering abortion pills online, and between them and the decision to end their pregnancies for whatever reasons they choose. How do we do it? Through love.
Part of this love is to walk with women considering abortion, get with them in their mess and help them with whatever they need. We cannot turn down women who come to us for help. To this end, I founded Loveline, a ministry that meets women where they are and assists them with their financial and emotional needs. We’ve helped over 300 women and 600 children—with rent, medical bills, temporary housing, tires for their cars so they can get to work, and emotional support and love. Women can contact Loveline through text or phone at 888-550-1588.
Like the Body of Christ, all of us in the pro-life movement have different talents, and we need to work together to end abortion and make it unthinkable. Love will end abortion. I firmly believe this because I’ve experienced it firsthand. I know what it’s like to be far from God, to be in the depths of hell on Earth inside abortion clinics, sorting through the body parts of aborted babies, watching women wail in the recovery room after aborting their child, and feeling completely lost after my own two abortions. I was saved by love, by those sidewalk advocates and prayer warriors who refused to give up on me, by a God of unfathomable love who placed me on His heart. This is the same God who will end abortion. ©2021 Abby Johnson
Abby Johnson is the CEO and founder of And Then There Were None and ProLove Ministries. She’s the author of “Unplanned,” which was made into a feature film of the same name in 2019.
Photo: Jeffrey Malet/Newscom