While the national media narrative of abortion focuses on the women, babies, protestors, and the vast political tangential impacts of defunding Planned Parenthood, contraception mandates, and the Supreme Court, one group of individuals consistently is left completely out of the conversation: the abortion workers themselves.
Sometimes abortionists will snatch the spotlight, often not in positive stories, like late-term abortionists Kermit Gosnell or LeRoy Carhart. But what about the unseen nurses, counselors, secretaries, managers, and janitors, all of whom make their living at abortion clinics around the nation? What of their stories?
There are an estimated 3,200 abortion workers currently in this country. That’s not a huge number for the nearly one million abortions done each year. Each of these workers has a story as to why they ended up working in the abortion industry, and I've found in my own work with former abortion workers that no one grew up wanting to do it.
At And Then There Were None, we’ve helped over 380 abortion workers leave their jobs, quit the industry that had become the source of daily nightmares, and start over on many levels – financial, spiritual, and emotional.
I worked as a manager of a busy Planned Parenthood in Texas for eight years. I was even noticed for the good job I was doing by the national leaders with employee recognition awards. But it wasn’t enough, and one day, I walked out and never returned.
It was the love and constant, kind contact from the pro-life community that ultimately helped me to walk out. And I’ve been telling my story. There are many others like me, others who have finally walked away from a job that was killing them, from the lies they were forced to tell women to the unimaginable horror they saw every day at their jobs.
It’s these workers that are frequently left out of the national narrative. Yet, what if these workers got to tell their stories? The secrets of their former lives as abortion workers are devastating to the abortion industry.
The abortion industry builds its reputation on claiming to care for women in their most vulnerable time, when they are facing an unplanned pregnancy with no support. They claim to invest in modern and safe facilities and build themselves up as heroes to women who have no place else to turn.
But when former abortion workers get a chance to tell all, to unmask the abortion industry, the building blocks of these so-called advocates for women come crumbling down.
Abortion workers are the ones in the operating rooms that see instruments left uncleaned, tables stained, bodies unceremoniously handled, sensitive medical documents discarded, and mistreatment of women. They are the ones that have witnessed women being pushed to choose abortion and parents left out of important decisions.
Their voices are missing in the national conversation. We hope to change that, one former abortion worker at a time. When they are ready – and many are – they will tell their stories, and more of their former colleagues and co-workers will leave the abortion industry until there are no more left to run the clinics.