Abby Johnson, the ex-director of the Planned Parenthood abortuary in Bryan, Texas, has joined the Live Action pro-life organization, Live Action announced this week. Live Action is the group that recently released videotapes of a Planned Parenthood staff member advising undercover Live Action operatives how to procure abortions and contraception for fictitious underage, illegal-alien prostitutes.
Johnson, who will be Live Action’s Chief Research Strategist, left the group, she says, after witnessing the abortion of a 13-week old unborn child on an ultrasound machine.
“Abby Johnson has seen the abuses inside Planned Parenthood with her own eyes and confirms the danger its clinics pose to women and young girls,” Live Action President Lila Rose wrote at the group’s website.
She is a courageous trailblazer despite Planned Parenthood’s desperate attempts to attack her and silence the truth. We are thrilled and very thankful to have Abby join our team and are confident that her first-hand experience, conviction and guidance will provide invaluable counsel to Live Action as we advance our common goal of protecting women and children from the abuses of Planned Parenthood.
Said Johnson, the author of new book Unplanned: The Dramatic True Story of a Former Planned Parenthood Leader’s Eye-Opening Journey across the Life Line:
I can tell you from experience that Planned Parenthood often turns a blind eye to sexual abuse and trafficking — what you see in Live Action’s videos is not a rare occurrence. But ignorance is no defense, especially when it has turned their clinics into a safe haven for those who sexually exploit women and girls. This is not a training problem so much as it is an ideology problem. I am humbled and eager to begin this partnership with Live Action so that together we can expose the serious harm Planned Parenthood poses to the most vulnerable among us.
Attack From The Left
Johnson left Planned Parenthood in October 2009 after eight years. Almost immediately, the pro-abortion left sprung into action, questioning her motives. In November, 2009, Salon.com published a piece that detailed an injunction Planned Parenthood filed against Johnson to keep from airing the organization’s dirty laundry. It says Johnson was more worried about being fired after a poor work evaluation.
The Texas Monthly’s issue of February 2011 reprises that theme, claiming that Johnson was also overworked and disgruntled and ready to leave.
The implication is that Johnson’s conversion to the pro-life cause is phony, that her sudden realization that abortion is an odious crime was merely a change of convenience because she was going to be fired.
Whatever the case, Johnson no longer toils in the vineyards of the highly profitable abortion industry, which Planned Parenthood dominates.
Live Action
For its part, Live Action has repeatedly hammered Planned Parenthood with undercover video recordings of its employees. The latest shows the manager of the clinic in Perth Amboy, N.J., advising undercover operatives from Live Action about how to procure abortions and contraceptives for minors.
Shockingly, the clinic chief tells the operatives what kind of sex the minor prostitutes should have in the weeks after an abortion, when it is unsafe to perform intercourse: “Waist up,” she declares.
Live Action has also caught Planned Parenthood on tape preparing to accept a donation from a “contributor” who wants to use the money to abort black children. Another video recording shows Planned Parenthood employees peddling false information about abortion.
After Live Action released the latest video recording, Planned Parenthood fired the staff member. It had said Live Action’s undercover sting was an “astoundingly cynical form of political activity.”
Defund Planned Parenthood
The video has inspired pro-life activists and their congressional allies to push for ending Planned Parenthood’s federal funding. Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) has introduced legislation to do just that.
Planned Parenthood receives some $350 million annually in government funds. In May, the federal Government Accountability Office revealed that Planned Parenthood collected $2.02 billion in federal funds between 2002 and 2008, with only $657.1 million being spent. That raises the question, the American Life League says in its summary of the GAO findings, of what happened to the rest of the funds.
Mishandling funds is nothing new for Planned Parenthood. In 1973, GAO reported that federal grants going to its international affiliate “needs better oversight.”
ALL also showed in its summary of the GAO findings that the more federal funding Planned Parenthood receives, the more abortions its performs. Between 2006 and 2008, CNSNews.com reported, the number of abortions Planned Parenthood performed rose from 289,720 to 324,008, a 12 percent increase. During the same period, its funding rose substantially.
Photo: Abby Johnson with Live Action President Lila Rose: Live Action.org
