I am privileged to be the operations director for And Then There Were None, the new pro-life ministry geared towards converting abortion clinic workers and helping them out of the abortion industry. In the two weeks following the first webcast, five abortion clinic workers (both current and former) have contacted us in need of assistance.
I believe that one of the biggest roadblocks we as pro-lifers face is our own attitudes towards abortion clinic workers. I’m sure many of you who read this have heard of or have participated in 40 Days for Life, which is rooted in prayer, fasting, and outreach in front of abortion clinics. Over sixty abortion workers who have quit cited 40 Days for Life as their reason for leaving the abortion industry. Imagine if the prayer campaign was instead based on screaming and condemning women and clinic workers outside abortion facilities. Would any hearts ever be changed?
This is but a summary of two former workers who have contacted us.
“Mary” is a single mother who is doing all she can to find a new job just to pay her bills and take care of her child. She even tried to get a job at a nearby Burger King because she has struggled to find work at a different non-abortion health center, since potential employers hesitate to hire her since she has worked in the abortion industry. It has put a black mark on her record.
Mary worked at the abortion center for eight months. She explained to me that she had quit because she couldn’t handle seeing the little body parts of the recently aborted babies anymore. The clinic contacts Mary several times a month to offer her more money if she returns, and she denies them, even though she is struggling financially. Just as she was facing evacuation from her home, And Then There Were None helped her pay off bills to keep her water and electricity running while helping her in a job search.
“Amy,” a single mother of four, worked in the abortion industry for four years. She started out doing office work, but over time, she got asked to help out during abortions, for which she was paid by commission. When she could no longer handle participating in abortion procedures, Amy reached out to a pro-life group who got her in touch with And Then There Were None. Amy witnessed illegal activity and fraud in the abortion clinic, but she fears what the legal repercussions for her and her family would be if she exposed it. Because And Then There Were None will provide legal help to former workers, Amy is going to be able to protect her family and still expose the illegal activity in the abortion clinic.
This is only the beginning of what will be brought forward when we reach out to abortion workers. They will be able to receive emotional and spiritual support and healing through ATTWN. There are clinic workers contacting us about some sick activity in abortion centers: unclean surgical equipment. Patient abuses and sexual harassment. Abortion doctors doing unspeakable things to aborted babies. Medicaid fraud and bribery. All this will come to light, and truth will prevail.
Consider this: there is overwhelming support from the pro-life community for the work that pregnancy resource centers do. Many of these centers provide options, financial help, assistance in job searches, and nonjudgmental emotional support for women, many of whom are contemplating ending the lives of their unborn children. Pregnancy centers are a vital aspect of the pro-life movement, and very few pro-lifers would dispute that.
Though the vast majority of pro-lifers have exhibited a strong support for the new ATTWN ministry, a few of the same pro-lifers who support pregnancy centers also hesitate to support or even outright denounce helping abortion clinic workers who want to leave the abortion industry. ATTWN provides options, financial help, assistance in job searches, and nonjudgmental emotional support for those wanting to leave the abortion industry, but some pro-lifers are claiming that abortion workers who have converted should be more content scrubbing floors at fast food restaurants than continuing to work in the abortion clinic.
I wonder if these people would be so righteous as to look an abortion-minded woman in the eyes and say, “If you really don’t want an abortion, you should be content cleaning toilets to make enough to get by” and leave it at that.
No? Then how can one justify acting that way towards abortion clinic workers?
LifeNews.com Note: Jennie Stone writes for the Live Action blog and this column is reprinted with permission.
