If it were your own daughter in crisis....

... what would you choose for her?


Okay, stay with me, while I draw this comparison. Really, don't go anywhere, just give me a few minutes to show you something powerful, a real study in contrasts.

In the past couple of days online, two very different models of women's healthcare kept popping up for me, and I was so viscerally struck by the colossal differences, more so than usual.

One model of women's healthcare undermines that which is uniquely woman, and will not only happily alter/derail her feminine nature and biology (in other words, her health), but will kill her unborn child in exchange for a nice wad of cash (and then some). That model is big business, and its "providers" care very little, if at all, about the women who pay for "services." This is the model that receives a half a billion dollars in taxpayer money each year, in addition to its own revenue stream from the (often poor and desperate) women who come in, and from the human body parts it sells and/or "donates" for research.

By contrast, the other model never undermines or disdains a woman's biology, but works with her body's design and nature. This model of healthcare would never harm a mother or her child -- but wants both to survive and thrive. Not only will this model of care provide help and health to the woman for free (nothing in it for them, unlike the first model), but the staff and volunteers care about the woman or girl, personally, and continue to serve her needs (including material needs), free of charge, long after the initial crisis and/or appointment is over. This is the model that some left-wing legislators, in cahoots with the abortion industry, are trying to close down and make illegal!


I didn't know which one to present you with first, the good or the bad. So, I'm going to go with the bad, so that your anger, disgust, horror, and even nausea will be soothed by the end of the post.

And so I give you, Planned Parenthood, offering services you may not have heard of....

Did you watch it all the way through? Are you physically ill?

I can only pray that you have been sufficiently horrified by what you just witnessed (which doesn't even begin to touch upon the body count at the clinics). If what you just saw isn't evil, then what on earth is?

Keep in mind that Planned Parenthood, the shameless purveyor of death and filth, is the darling of the Democratic Party and its candidates. If you needed any proof, here's Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards in the great seat of honor next to President Bill Clinton at this year's Democratic National Convention. It doesn't get much more prestigious than this:

Getty Images

The Democratic Party loves Planned Parenthood so much that it honors and defends the organization by name in its very Platform:

We will fight Republican efforts to roll back the clock on women’s health and reproductive rights, and stand up for Planned Parenthood. 

By name!

Oh, and Ms. Richards has had unfettered, revolving-door access to the current White House as well, with approximately 40 visits since Obama took office. Planned Parenthood is flush with both power and money.


Now let's turn to the hope. Let's look at the opposite of Planned Parenthood -- those organizations which are not flush with power and money but are full of real help, love, and heart -- and let's learn how women are treated in the centers and clinics set up to be a loving and humane alternative to PP.

My good friend LeeAnne wrote the following to someone online the other day, describing the care clients receive at one of our local crisis pregnancy centers, First Way:

I am currently a manager at a pregnancy center, and while we are of course going to share with clients the physical effects of abortion, contraception, etc., we spend much more time helping women (pro-life and pro-choice) get life on track if it is not. 

We work on strengthening the family structure, choosing the right fella, and addressing the issues that need support in her life: material, social, emotional, mental, familial, sometimes spiritual if she wishes. 

We spend just as much time and often more with someone whose pregnancy test is negative, as a real re-think about her goals in life can happen just then.

We stay with a pregnant mom through the pregnancy, and for a year after baby is born, then help her transition to other organizations which continue to help.

We have male counselors help guide and encourage the fathers of the babies, strengthening the families. We offer lots of help, but encourage them to step into the role of advocating and improving their situations themselves.

We have free pregnancy testing, ultrasounds, maternity clothes, and free diapers, baby clothes, and baby equipment when they come to classes on pregnancy health, parenting, and strengthening families.

We support women and men - many - who have dealt with miscarriage.

Drug rehabs bring their patients to us for support.

It just won't work to de-value the life of the mom so much that, without offering something better, we allow her to enter the ranks of the walking-wounded, the post-abortive women we talk to every day (pro-life and pro-choice) who suffer until finding a place of healing, often through groups that generously offer time to guide these women to healing.

We can't allow that to happen without doing our best to address what brought her to this place in the first place and showing her a life-affirming option.

These last 2 weeks (for some reason) I have spoken to so very many post-abortive women and heard their relentless suffering and pleas for us to tell others there is a better way. Giving her contraception will not fix the deep desires of her heart to have a healthy relationship. Helping her realize the purpose of the sexual act, the way to work with her fertility, and the goal of a strong family makes a difference. And it often works! They redeem their situations over time, and edge closer to a better life for themselves.

I just wanted to paint a landscape of what it looks like to help these moms. And we are but one organization of many, in one city; there are so many. Our clients sometimes come to us when just about to move away. So far I have never been unable to find support for a client in her new city, by starting at a pregnancy support center in the city to which she is moving.

These centers are where the beauty happens, not in the pharmacy where she gets cheap contraception or the abortion clinic that EVERY client I have spoken to explains to be a cold place, devoid of hope and help.

First Way is a great model for crisis pregnancy centers. My husband serves as a volunteer board member, and we willingly support the center financially and with material goods for the women and children and families in need, unlike our forced "support" of Planned Parenthood via our tax dollars.

Other amazing local crisis pregnancy centers in my neck of the woods are Life Choices Women's Clinic (medical clinic) in two locations plus a mobile clinic, and Aid to Women Center Pregnancy and Medical Clinic, which produced the following video with testimonials (starting at about the :40 mark) from the women helped. Note that they were treated like family, truly loved and cared for as human beings, not as a number or a means to a bottom line:

I have witnessed these stories over and over and over again. This type of care is loving, selfless, redemptive, healing, and fully human.

Mary Ann is another of my personal friends, and as the receptionist at First Way, she reports: "The girls who have come to us after Planned Parenthood repeatedly mention how nice we are, and how PP treated them badly."

Is that really a surprise?

Check the first video on this post again. Then check the edited or unedited videos from the Center For Medical Progress, which exposed barbaric, inhumane practices and the selling of human baby parts at Planned Parenthood, and which were not doctored.

Compare and contrast. In whose hands would you wish your daughter to be?

Or any human being, for that matter?

Spread the word. Support your local crisis pregnancy center. And, please, help abortion workers leave the abortion industry.

So much evil out there, but also so much good. Never stop doing the good.

Blown away: Our Lady hidden for decades in a Phoenix Planned Parenthood abortion clinic!

WOW, WOW, WOW! Sometimes the signs from Heaven are unmistakable.

This story happened locally, here in Phoenix, and involved my personal friends. It blew me away, and I know you will be amazed as well at the beauty and power of God's Providence!

I will let my dear friend Christine Accurso, the Executive Director of First Way Pregnancy Center, tell the story that she first told us at First Way's recent fundraising gala:



In the Spring of this year, Planned Parenthood Arizona announced that they were going to close their state headquarters (of almost 30 years) and move less than a mile from us at First Way Pregnancy Center. They did in fact sell their old building on 7th Street to a new owner, purchased a new building less than a mile from our center, and opened it over the summer. The new owner of the 7th Street building decided to demolish the existing building.

On April 15, 2015, the building went down, and I stood across the street with two women who had had abortions in that very building, many years before. Watching the building be turned into a pile of rubble was a healing moment for both of these women. It was a powerful experience to stand silently with them as the building disappeared.

Before it was torn down, a demolition company was hired to clear out the building. In the process of clearing it out, they made a surprising discovery in the janitorial closet, where the mop buckets and cleaning supplies were housed. One of the wooden floor panels was turned over, and on the backside, face-down, was a huge image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It surprised the crew, and when they found it, one of the workers called me. I had never met this man before, but he is pro-life and knew that our pro-life pregnancy center was just a few miles away. He explained to me what he had found, and he brought it over to us.

Christine Accurso tells the incredible story, with Bishop Olmsted looking on. 

It really is amazing to think about all the possibilities of how this image got there. We will probably never know the whole story, this side of heaven.

I immediately called Bishop Olmsted when I learned of this discovery. I brought the image to the Bishop, he gave it a special blessing, and he began to recall the special significance of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Mary is mother of God, and Our Lady of Guadalupe’s specific patronage has been dedicated to the unborn. She is even depicted with a ribbon around her womb because in this image, she is pregnant with Jesus.

I kept thinking, what in the world was this precious image of such a holy woman doing inside of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic? I’m not exactly sure, but I do know that my confidence in all of heaven “having our back” in this important fight for life, has been absolutely strengthened.

We are grateful to the man who brought it to us, who wishes to remain anonymous. This beautiful discovery has brought joy to our staff, volunteers, and donors. This special piece of flooring (from Planned Parenthood, no less) now hangs in the chapel at First Way Pregnancy Center here in Phoenix, Arizona.



Thank you, Christine! I am just in awe, thinking of the Blessed Mother -- Our Lady of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn -- dwelling there in that killing place, never far from her children. Praise God!




First Way Pregnancy Center is a 501(c)(3) non-profit that provides free resources which support life affirming choices. This is accomplished through a loving and non-judgmental approach with peer counseling, education and practical services [and they even have a thriving men's program and peer counseling for the fathers of the babies, which has been enormously successful!].  www.1stway.net

My interview with Abby Johnson!

Over the years, I have posted about Abby Johnson, the former director of a Planned Parenthood abortion clinic in Texas who had a massive change of heart and became passionately pro-life. Her book, Unplanned: The dramatic true story of a former Planned Parenthood leader's eye-opening journey across the life line, is riveting. And like many of you, I could not put it down. Since then, I have linked her work on this blog often (including here and here), and I was thrilled to finally meet her in person last fall.

What a dynamic speaker! She was so well-received at the First Way Pregnancy Center banquet that night that First Way executive director Christine Accurso has invited her back to speak. If you are anywhere in the vicinity of Phoenix, you do not want to miss her talk, this Saturday, March 7, from 10:30 to 12:30, in Gilbert, Arizona.

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Abby has been asked a million questions, but these are some questions I've always wanted to ask her:

Q.  Abby, in several articles and in your book, Unplanned, you have beautifully expressed your own feelings about doing the work you did for Planned Parenthood and how you've grappled with things since you left. I’d like to hear more about how those around you felt when you were working at PP. For example, what did your parents think? How did they reconcile it with their Christians beliefs? And what advice would you give to those whose family members might be caught up working in the abortion industry today?


A.  My family is and always have been very prolife. I know that I am at this prolife point in my life in huge part to my praying parents. They never stopped praying and they never stopped believing that one day I would leave. I know there were times when they questioned God. But I think they kept going back to the scripture in Proverbs that talks about training your child up in the Lord. It doesn't say that they will never depart from His ways, but God promises that our children will come back to that foundation when they are older.

My husband was also prolife, which made things tense in our marriage at times. But I know he was also praying. He has told me before that he had confidence that I would one day leave. He says that he saw how much I genuinely cared for these women and that his prayer was that one day I would be able to see how taking the lives of their children was hurting them. He said that he knew once I made that connection, I would leave. And he was right.


Q.  Did you ever avoid telling people where you worked, or did you wear it as a badge of honor? If there was any discomfort in telling, was it because of your own unease or because you sensed that others might not approve?

A.  It was honestly a little bit of both. Internally, I was very proud of my work. But I just didn't want the hassle. I didn't want to have to defend what I did. I believed that what I did was right. But defending abortion is not an easy job. And many times, I just didn't want the fight.


Q.  If I had met you back in your PP days, what should I, a pro-lifer, have said to you? I know it’s a strange question, but I’d love to know the “right” thing to say if someone I meet informs me that she works at PP.

A.  I tell people that you should always speak the truth in love. But I think the most important part of that idea is actually listening more than you speak. Ask questions. "Why did you decide to work at Planned Parenthood? What do you love the most about your job? Are there any challenges?" I think what you will find is that many of these workers fall into two categories...

1. They don't really care about the politicized part of it at all. They just needed a job to pay the bills. 

Or

2. They have had abortions themselves and working in the industry is the easiest way for them to justify their own actions.

It's all about listening and asking genuine questions. It's not about being "right."



Q.  You worked often in the POC ("products of conception") room, counting and piecing together small body parts. Did you ever bring that home with you, or were you able to compartmentalize enough that you did not think of your work when you were at home?


Q.  Somehow, I was able to really keep that separate from my life outside of Planned Parenthood. I can't really explain how that work didn't bother me (really at all) except to say that when you are immersed in that type of evil, spiritual blindness is real.


Q.  Finally, I am so excited about your apostolate to abortion clinic workers and former clinic workers, And Then There Were None. Please tell us a little bit about your mission and what we can do to help support those courageous souls who wish to come out of the abortion industry once and for all.

A.  We are the only national ministry that offers comprehensive resources to abortion clinic workers. We have multiple ways that we can assist workers who want to leave their jobs. We provide professional resume writing, professional recruitment services, job training, one-on-one counseling and advisement, healing retreats, spiritual guidance and support, and limited financial assistance to help ease the burden after they leave their job inside the clinic.

We are working very hard to rehumanize the abortion clinic worker. I think for many years, we have looked at these people and blamed them for abortion. We have looked at them as our enemy. But they are not our enemy. Our enemy is sin. They are misguided sinners just like you and me.

I had someone say to me one time, "So what, you just think you are going to love these workers out of the abortion industry?" My reply was simple. "Yes. I absolutely believe we will. And we are." We have 141 former clinic workers who have come through our ministry. We feel like God has blessed us more than we could have ever imagined. But that's just how God is. He's in the business of conversion.

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Thank you Abby, for your courage and witness!

And again, if you are in the Phoenix area, don't miss her talk this Saturday! Tickets are priced at only $7 so that this event can be accessible to all.

If you are unable to attend, consider buying a ticket to donate to a medical student, as we certainly need those students to hear what Abby has to say. Email me at littlecatholicbubble@gmail.com for more details on how to get your ticket(s) to them.