Actress Ashley Bratcher has become a strong advocate for unborn babies and mothers ever since she played Abby Johnson in the film “Unplanned.”
But it is not just her powerful performance as the former Planned Parenthood director-turned pro-life advocate that is touching lives across the globe.
Bratcher has a pro-life story of her own.
Visiting the Philippines this month for the premier of the film there, she told Philstar.com that she almost was a victim of abortion.
“I was intended to be aborted. My mother told me that I was minutes away from being aborted. She was already on the abortion table when she decided to get out and walk out,” she said.
Bratcher said she had no idea that she almost was aborted when she agreed to play the role of Johnson. She said she knew that her mother had had an abortion before she was born, but she did not realize that her mother almost aborted her, too.
“She had been devastated by her choice and three years later she found herself in the same predicament [with me],” she wrote in a column at Fox News.
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When Bratcher called to tell her mother about getting the role in “Unplanned,” she learned what had really happened before she was born.
She continued:
As I began telling her Abby’s story, I heard her fall apart. Her voice broke as she said, “I need to tell you something that I’ve never told you before.” Through tears she confessed, “I was going to abort you.”
I sat in confused silence as she continued, “I was at the clinic sitting on the table when the nurse who was very pregnant came in to talk to me. I felt sick. I couldn’t do it. I got up and walked out.”
Moved by compassion for women struggling with unplanned pregnancies, Bratcher has been using her time in the spotlight to advocate for them and their unborn babies. She said she tells women that they are “not alone” and “there is more help than you realize,” according to Philstar.com.
“Know that there are a lot of organizations are there to provide all your needs, from diapers to finances,” she said.
“It is important to tell women that they’re not alone and there are organizations that can help,” Bratcher continued. “True health care saves lives.”
She recently partnered with Heartbeat International to start a new educational scholarship for pregnant and parenting mothers.
