I love a good conversion story. Don't we all? And this is nothing if not that. Abby Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood for years, starting as a volunteer and working her way up to clinic director. She was a spokeswoman and lobbyist for the organization. She writes that she was, if not a true believer, that she at least walked the talk, having had two abortions of her own as a young, married woman, because a baby would have have been an inconvenience. After years of working at the Bryant, Texas clinic, and watching, day after day (and in some cases, night after night), the gentle efforts of the Coalition for Life, Johnson is asked to assist in an ultrasound guided suction abortion. She watches at the cannula probes, stimulates, and then kills the baby and the totality of what she does crashes down on her. This, combined with orders from PP's leadership to increase the number of surgical abortions performed in order to generate revenue, tips her.

Johnson's story is very, very well written. It's a page turner, and high emotional. Her perspective necessarily asks her readers to have sympathy for both sides of a polarizing topic. No one at Planned Parenthood is presented as evil or even misguided. Until the order to generate revenue, given by an anonymous higher-up, every person Abby works with is in it to do what they think is helping. And the protesters, who kindly make conversation and pray, are not presented as fanatics who hate women, as the narrative often wishes to present them. Each of them is as kind and thoughtful as the women inside.

Other reviews mention the "God content" and how they largely think that Johnson was a mole. It's a valid point, but one that misses the genuine relationships she had with the people around her. Her naivete shows, for sure, but since her thesis is the love of a forgiving God, it's hard to imagine her first living a lie (no matter how useful it might be) and then doubling-down on the lie in order to write the book. Having read other reviews, it's interesting to see the contortions people go through to make her thoughts and feelings false, invented, and irrelevant.

I loved the book, having never made any bones about being pro-life. I was edified to read portraits of abortion workers as compassionate people. I was yet more pleased to read about how the Coalition for Life treated a woman who fled the clinic and asked for help: ongoing counseling during her pregnancy, financial support for pre-natal visits and birth expenses, clothes, and supplies, including a full year's worth of diapers. It was also extremely validating to read that PP's business model is abortion for profit, non-profit being a tax status and nothing more.

Abby Johnson has co-authored a brave, readable book. I very much recommend it.