|
|
|
|
"Unplanned": A book You
Won't Want to Put Down Part One of Three Reviewed by Dr. Wanda Franz, National Right to Life President Good evening and thanks for joining the discussion. Part Two is a fun review of a delightful pro-life movie. Part Three helps us understand that we must listen not just to what pro-abortionists say but also to what they don't say. Over at National Right to Life News Today (www.nationalrighttolifenews.org), I provide a second look at Abby Johnson's new book. In addition, we follow-up on Tuesday's abortion numbers from the Guttmacher Institute. Moreover, we are following a complaint by a student nurse against Vanderbilt University for mandating abortion training. We end with an invitation to sign up for the NRLC Academy! Please send your comments on Today's News & Views and National Right to Life News Today to daveandrusko@gmail.com. If you like, join those who are following me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/daveha.
As Director of a center that performed abortions, Abby was confronted every day by the presence of pro-lifers on the other side of the fence that surrounded the clinic. Her book is a well-written documentary of the conflicts between the opposing sides of the abortion issue. "unplanned" is a dramatic, well-written analysis of how real people confront and address the issues, how they make points with the opposite side, and what works and what doesn't. Even though you know the outcome, you are drawn into the drama of the lives of the people involved. You won't want to put this book down. What provides the dramatic force of this book is the underlying drama in Abby's own life which helps determine the decisions she makes. When she first signs on to the Planned Parenthood agenda as a volunteer, she is hiding her own secret abortion. She personifies so many modern women who have abortions expecting that this decision will have no impact on their lives. Instead, these women often find that the abortion experience changes their lives permanently. (In the book, Abby also talks about a second abortion she has after she is working for Planned Parenthood.) At National Right to Life, we have learned about the impact of abortion on women through our organization, American Victims of Abortion (AVA) led by Olivia Gans. We have become familiar with the stories of aborted women and we have found a sad similarity. Following the abortion, most women (as Abby did) try to put the experience behind them, assuming that they will just get on with their lives. As Abby writes, describing how she felt immediately after her first abortion, "The act was done. The 'problem' gone. The process had been physically painful, but I had no regrets. No sadness. No struggle over whether what I'd done was right or wrong. Just a definite sense of relief: Whew. That's behind me. I can get on with my life now." Most women aren't conscious of any immediate impact of the abortion on their emotional lives. They will sincerely say that it had no effect on them. Years may pass without any sense of any problems. Then, some event will trigger sad recollections of the abortion and the sense of loss of the missing child in their lives. If the women are fortunate, they will be given the opportunity to grieve, pray, and seek forgiveness. Then healing and health become possible. The question that remains for the woman is: How did having that abortion shape my life? What kind of life would I have had if I hadn't had the abortion? What kinds of decisions would I have made differently? Abby's story shows how her own abortion dramatically shaped her life. Everything appears so "unplanned," yet her decisions and the life-style she adopts go very much to "plan" if we recognize that she is working so hard to avoid facing the sadness and pain from her abortion and any questions that her abortion raises in her mind about the person she is. It is that little hidden secret that drives her, without her knowing it. It is unlikely that she would have signed up to help at Planned Parenthood if she hadn't needed to justify her own abortion. Abby admits to the conflict she feels in her work at Planned Parenthood, but she clings to the justification that women should have a choice. This helps her to justify her own choice. The wall she has built up to shield her conscience from her own abortion comes falling down when she is confronted with the vision of the actual abortion. She finally faces the truth about what abortion really is all about and then she can't help but face her own truths. She is one of the fortunate ones who gets the opportunity to grieve and pray. Abby's book appropriately deals only with her experiences on the front lines of the abortion conflict, both inside and outside the abortion center. For those of us working in other parts of the movement, such as education, legislation, and political action, this book is a powerful reminder of why we work so hard. It is the disturbing, sad and painful face of all those individual women victimized by abortion and the terrible loss of life going on in the midst of our communities. |
I
just finished reading the new book by Abby Johnson titled
unplanned. She is the woman who was the Director of the Planned
Parenthood facility in Texas, who defected and joined the
pro-life side. Her turnabout created a tremendous stir.