“Being a mom…softened my heart to be able to listen to that whisper of God saying, ‘You can’t do this anymore.'”
By Roxane Solonen
Catholic Mom
The name “Grace” came to Abby Johnson out of the blue one day while drying her hair during her pregnancy with her first child. She recalled thinking, simply, “I like the name Grace!”
Though a Christian, Johnson had not yet come to fully recognize the conflicts her job presented regarding her faith. Nor had she realized what a fitting name Grace would come to be for her daughter, whose first months of life played out with her mother as a Planned Parenthood manager.
Though a Christian, Johnson had not yet come to fully recognize the conflicts her job presented regarding her faith. Nor had she realized what a fitting name Grace would come to be for her daughter, whose first months of life played out with her mother as a Planned Parenthood manager.
“I look at how much my life was shaped because of my pregnancy with her, because of who she was,” Johnson says of Grace. “Being a mom … softened my heart to be able to listen to that whisper of God saying, ‘You can’t do this anymore.'”Her revelation led eventually to a decision to leave the abortion giant, where she was steadily rising within the ranks, to dedicate her life to warning others of the organization’s deceptive aims and leading other workers away from the industry through her organization, And Then There Were None.
In May, Johnson talked about her journey with a group of faith-based reporters at a coffee shop in Oklahoma City during a break of the filming of “Unplanned,” the movie based on her memoir of the same title, which details her conversion, to be shown in theaters this spring.
Johnson said being on set of the film of her life story was interesting. The first scene she saw brought her face to face with a moment just after co-workers had given her a baby shower at the clinic.
“Watching (the actress) walk out of the set and seeing her get in her car, and have a conversation with the person at the fence, it was very emotional for me,” Johnson says. “I’m watching … this confused person that I was, this person who was constantly trying to justify what she did … it was hard watching someone play the worst version of yourself.Ashley Bratcher (“War Room”) plays Johnson, and joined the discussion that evening, sharing a riveting discovery linking her to Johnson’s story. She’d only been on set four days when, in a phone discussion with her mother, learned that she’d almost been aborted.
“She said, ‘I was actually at the clinic,'” Bratcher said, recounting the story her mother told her of hearing her name being called, being led to the exam table, and deciding right there on the table that she couldn’t go through with it, and how she “got up and walked out.”
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