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Thankfully, Abby Johnson, upon whose life the film Unplanned is based, is a staunch pro-life advocate.
However, it was not always that way.
Many people know that Johnson worked for Planned Parenthood — and, as a local clinic director, was their Employee of the Year — until she had to assist with an abortion herself.
What most of us do not know is that Johnson actually had two abortions before being employed by Planned Parenthood. These episodes are covered in the film.
After reading a Christian Post article by Brandon Showalter, ‘”Unplanned” movie will cause men to repent for mistreating, abandoning women and shift the culture’, I was amazed that any woman who went through two traumatic abortions would even want to work for Planned Parenthood.
One cannot help but think that God was trying to send her a message. When the first one did not reach her psyche, He seemed to have tried again. Incredibly, that one also failed.
These, quite possibly, involved Johnson’s two abortions, both of which involved her boyfriend, then husband, Mark.
Showalter tells us that Johnson’s first abortion took place while she was in college and partying quite a bit with Mark. The inevitable happened, and Mark offered her a lift to an abortion clinic to ‘take care of it’. He couldn’t afford to pay for her abortion, so:
Abby applied for her first credit card to pay for it herself.
Unplanned shows Ashley Bratcher, who plays Abby:
being handed a few crackers as she’s seated alongside several other dazed and traumatized women dressed in pink hospital gowns as they’re herded in and out of the procedure room at the clinic like cattle.
Abby’s father warned her about Mark, but she went ahead and married him anyway. A year later, on Valentine’s Day, he was cheating on her. She filed for divorce, then found out she was eight weeks pregnant with his baby. She went to the Planned Parenthood clinic which later employed her as its director. Perhaps she worked there to improve standards, because this was her experience (emphases mine):
… she’s told that because she’s only eight weeks pregnant she qualifies for a chemical abortion that she can perform by herself at home.
Actress Ashley Bratcher turns in a stunningly convincing performance as Abby Johnson. She fully inhabits the role. And in my view, the most unforgettable scene was how she portrayed the grisly, excruciating night of desperation that a young, panicked Abby endures as she bleeds out and discards the pieces of her second pregnancy. One can palpably feel her anguish as she writhes in intense pain, sobbing all alone in the fetal position on her bathroom floor.
Her ordeal was followed by several weeks of severe abdominal cramps and blood clots, health risks Planned Parenthood never warned her about when they gave her the RU-486 abortion pill couched in professional-sounding assurances that she’d be just fine.
Wow.
So she went to work at a place that could have killed her. She also encouraged, even indirectly, other women to have abortions there.
Thankfully, the Lord got through to her mind and heart in the end.
Fortunately, everything ended well. Showalter elaborates:
It’s extra hopeful in that she was fortunate to find a good man in her second husband, Doug, a stay-at-home dad who I interviewed in the latest CP podcast, and with whom she’s now expecting their eighth child.
The one thing Showalter does tell us is that his reaction to the abortions portrayed in the film — Abby’s and the one in which she had to participate — is not unusual for other men who have also seen Unplanned:
The film’s promoters told me that my visceral response to the movie was something they’d seen from many men at other prescreenings around country. If that’s true, then I dare say we are on the cusp of a massive shift in the national conversation about abortion. And it won’t just be about this or that legal restriction and the usual toxic politics we have trained ourselves to tune out or compartmentalize as just another issue.
Go see “Unplanned” this weekend. Take several friends with you. I’d advise taking a box or two of tissues. This one is not to be missed.
Make sure your sons, nephews and their friends see Unplanned. Just because it’s about abortion does not mean it’s ‘only’ a ‘woman’s’ film.
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Unplanned, the movie based on ex-Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year Abby Johnson’s experience, premiered a week ago on Friday, March 29, 2019 and came in fourth out of new releases. It even showed in fewer theatres than those films:
And it has an R rating because of the abortion scene — not sex:
Even more amazing about Unplanned‘s success is that major television networks refused to allow adverts for it:
NewsBusters reported that family networks also refused to air the advertising. Oh, the irony! Emphases mine below:
Several mainstream channels like HGTV, Lifetime, and Hallmark have straight up rejected advertising for Pureflixâs new movie, so if youâve been wondering why youâve only seen ads for the film on Fox News Channel, the promotional fix is in. Oddly enough, this is coming from channels that we regularly consider as providing wholesome, family friendly material.
THR reported that, besides FNC, âevery other mainstream television outlet has declined to air the ad.â Among these, the Travel Channel, Cooking Channel, HGTV and Food Network, â all owned by Discovery â ârefused to sell ad time for Unplanned due to the âsensitive natureâ of the movie,â Unplannedâs promoters claimed. Unplanned producer John Sullivan claimed, âWe were looking to spend money, but they didn’t want to get involved.â
The Hallmark Channel and USA Network (NBC Universal) also firmly rejected the filmâs ads, objecting to the controversial nature of the movie. Another producer, Joe Knapp, surmised, âMost of the networks didn’t go into detail beyond citing the subject matter of the film and that they didn’t want to get into politics.â
Yeah, maybe. Though itâs not like some of these networks have ever shied away from promoting a certain left wing bias. Lifetime for example, (owned by A&E, a Walt Disney/Hearst Communications Venture) âpreviously promoted an interview with Scarlett Johansson where she pitches Planned Parenthood.â Sounds about right.
Twitter proved problematic, too:
Twitter reinstated the account. Even the US ambassador to Germany noticed:
I hope this happens:
And this:
Abby Johnson, who became a pro-life activist once she saw the horrors of abortion for herself at Planned Parenthood, appeared on Fox and Friends last Saturday:
I worked at Planned Parenthood for eight years, rising through the ranks from volunteer escort, to clinic counselor to clinic director. I was awarded the Employee of the Year prize in 2008 and was one of the youngest clinic directors in the country, setting an example of how to run a clinic to churn out as many abortions â the biggest money maker â as I could. Then it all changed when I was asked to assist in an ultrasound-guided abortion …
The fetus was 13-weeks-old and I could easily see itâs head, arms, and legs. The abortion instrument â a suction tube â was on the screen as well. The baby jumped away from it but it was all for naught. The abortionist turned on the suction and I saw that baby get sucked apart right in front of me on the screen and inches from the probe I was holding.
In mere seconds, that fetusâ life ended and the screen only showed a black, empty uterus. The life that was there just a couple minutes ago was gone. In that moment, I saw for myself what I was supporting for the last eight years and it broke me.
How do you deal with something so profound that completely turns your worldview upside down? Everything I knew to be true was flipped. The lies exposed. I cannot have just seen that. Iâve been told this isnât a baby, that itâs just tissue. How could not have known?
My life was forever changed. I walked out of Planned Parenthood a week later, after failing to justify what I had seen. I couldnât stop thinking about that baby I saw on the screen and what had happened …
Two directors – both men – in Hollywood approached me five years ago about turning my book, âUnplanned,â into a film. It tells the story of what I saw that day on the ultrasound screen, how I started working at Planned Parenthood, and what happened when I walked away. This is my story, my voice and I was surprised that someone in Hollywood wanted to tell it. Itâs not a mainstream story but itâs my story. And itâs the story of many, many abortion workers, those who have already left the industry and those who are still in it.
You wonât be able to unsee what I saw if you go see the movie, which I implore you to do. But you also wonât be able to say you didnât know what abortion is or what happens when a woman walks into Planned Parenthood. If you are pro-life or pro-choice, you will know exactly what you are supporting.
A few weeks ago, I wrote about the life story of Ashley Bratcher who plays Abby Johnson in Unplanned. Ashley was almost aborted herself — at her grandmother’s insistence.
For those in the US who would like to see Unplanned, I would suggest doing so sooner rather than later. There is likely to be a shutdown of it, just as there was with another top box office abortion film, Gosnell, in October 2018.
Do not wait. Please take sons and/or nephews with you, too — not just daughters, their friends and nieces. More to follow on men’s reactions to Unplanned in a future post.
In November 18, my reader underground pewster of Not Another Episcopal Church Blog posted ‘Good News and Bad News: Number of abortions in U.S. hits historic low’ which contrasts abortion and homicide figures for the United States.
As the whole world knows, gun control is a huge topic. These were America’s homicide figures for 2016 as compiled, interestingly enough, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Emphases in the original:
All homicides: 19,362
Firearm homicides: 14,415
The CDC also publishes abortion statistics. In 2016, the Washington Post reported an annual total of:
638,169 abortions …
Is anyone up in arms (pun intended) about that?
No.
In fact, WaPo cheered the news:
the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicate that âfewer U.S. women are having abortions than at any time since Roe v. Wade.â … down two percent from 2014.
Wait a minute. In the run up to Roe v Wade in 1973, abortion supporters told the American public that this ‘medical procedure’, as they called it, would be ‘rare’.
Yet, this is the lowest number of abortions per annum since 1973?
So much for ‘rare’.
In 45 years, there have been approximately 60 million abortions in the US.
‘Rare’, indeed.
In January 1918, LifeSite.com reported the statistics. The 60m figure comes from the Guttmacher Institute, which assumes that CDC under-reports figures by as much as five per cent, exacerbated by the absence of reporting from state health departments in California and New Hampshire for over a decade. Here is a graph comparing the two sets of figures.
Note that in 1973, there were well over half a million abortions that year alone:
So, the next time someone gets triggered over homicides and gun control, ask them if they are equally as worried about abortions.
Remember: 60 million, since 1973.
Then ask that person what the greater worry is: guns or abortion?
Countless articles, books and videos about diet have been published around the world relating to what has been known for sometime now as ‘the obesity epidemic’.
Despite that, we are still debating what exactly causes obesity. Some say calories do not matter, that it’s the type of food we eat.
Some proponents of that theory say that what we eat determines not only our weight but also our general overall health. That, too, has been ongoing since the 19th century.
Kellogg’s attempted link between food and disease
Dr John Harvey Kellogg, a physician, was the co-father of the original breakfast cereals developed in the 19th century.
At first, Kellogg developed the breakfast cereals with his brother Will. They had a falling out over corn flakes, which, Mental Floss explains, turned into a lifelong feud.
First, there was the question of taste. John wanted them plain. Will thought a bit of sugar made them palatable.
Secondly, the brothers had differing views of sexuality. John developed cornflakes because he thought they would curb the sexual appetite, especially pleasuring oneself. Will had no interest in such associations.
It turned out the Will was the better businessman and founded the Kellogg Company, which continues to produce breakfast cereals worldwide.
Dr Kellogg, his brother, continued to promote his link between food and disease brought on by masturbation at his sanitarium in Battle Creek, Michigan:
Kelloggâs solution to all this suffering was a healthy diet. He thought that meat and certain flavorful or seasoned foods increased sexual desire, and that plainer food, especially cereals and nuts, could curb it.
Obsession with grains exists over a century later
Fast forward to the 21st century, and we are still obsessed with grains, although not quite in the same way as Dr Kellogg.
From the 1970s, corn has increasingly become a staple in American diets, much to the delight of farmers.
Corn can appear as a refined product, either in foods or snacks but also as corn syrup sweetener. Both have been linked to obesity.
In 2007, CNN reported on a plant biologist, Todd Dawson, who developed a hair strand test to see how much corn someone was consuming.
‘If we are what we eat, Americans are corn and soy’ offers an interesting insight into the old adage.
Dawson told CNN’s Dr Sanjay Gupta why he was interested in testing for corn (emphases mine):
“We are what we eat with respect to carbon, for sure. So if we eat a particular kind of food, and it has a particular kind of carbon in it, that’s recorded in us, in our tissues, in our hair, in our fingernails, in the muscles,” Dawson says …
“We’re like corn chips walking because we really have a very, very large fraction of corn in our diets, and we actually can’t help it because it’s an additive in so many of the foods we find on the market shelves,” Dawson says.
Foods like ketchup, salad dressing, soda, cookies and chips all contain corn, usually high fructose corn syrup.
“I think where the danger comes in with corn is that much of the corn grown now in North America is going into making high fructose corn syrup,” Dawson says. “So it’s not that corn per se is bad, but it’s the sweetener made from corn that gets into many of the foods that Americans are probably consuming too much of, and we now see that showing up as obesity and heart disease and potential for type 2 diabetes.”
Dr Gupta wrote:
To be fair, researchers say we’re eating too much of all kinds of sugar, not just high fructose corn syrup.
Dawson tested Gupta’s hair:
69 percent of the carbon came from corn.
This may seem high, but it is typical for Americans.
Dawson said that Europeans eat far less corn and have fewer weight issues:
Dawson tested his own hair after three months in Italy: 5 percent corn.
However, the Corn Refiners Association in the United States rightly pointed out that many countries around the world are experiencing higher rates of obesity — corn or not:
many parts of the world, including Mexico and Europe, have rising rates of obesity and diabetes, despite having little or no high fructose corn syrup in their foods and drinks.
What about soy?
Dr Gupta’s article points out that the increase of soy in food products is also a concern:
Checking labels during a recent trip to the grocery store I found soybean oil in everything from tortilla chips to fruit syrup.
Dr. Joseph Hibbeln at the National Institutes of Health says that soy can produce health issues for those who do not eat enough healthy, especially omega-3, fats:
In recent years, a form of soybean oil has been the primary source of trans fats, which raises levels of LDL, or bad cholesterol, in our bodies and is thought to contribute to heart disease.
Our bodies need a balance of omega-6 fatty acids like soybean oil and omega-3 fatty acids like fish oil, Hibbeln says. Over the last century, our diets have shifted almost completely to omega-6 fatty acids.
“It’s quite likely that most of the diseases of modern civilization, major depression, heart disease and obesity are linked to the radical and dramatic shift in the composition of the fats in the food supply,” Hibbeln says.
Our brains are composed of fatty acids, and an absence of omega-3 fatty acids can actually change our behavior, according to Hibbeln.
Hibbeln’s research suggests diets containing omega-3 fatty acids found in fish reduce depression, aggression and anger, while improving mental well-being.
One man’s simple remedy
I owe a hat tip to Twitter’s unseen1 for both the above articles.
This is what he is adopting as an overall health plan:
Thank you for the common sense solution, unseen1: painless and practical.
As he says, if it doesn’t work, go back to junk food.
In closing, here’s a simple rule: ask yourself if your grandparents ate what you are about to consume. If not, leave it to one side.
In 2018, the redoubtable Candace Owens started a movement called Blexit, encouraging American blacks to leave the Democrat(ic) Party:
Black People Donât Have to be Democrats. #BLEXIT
The video in the tweet below shows the remnants of the latter years of segregation in the Democrat-controlled South:
Candace Owens has been involved with TurningPointUSA, headed by Charlie Kirk, founded to encourage a libertarian form of conservativism at American colleges and universities.
Through TurningPointUSA, Owens met a young Englishman, George Farmer, who has now launched TurningPointUK with the same objectives in mind at British universities.
TurningPointUK launched officially last week with three events in London, Nottingham and Brighton which took place between March 10 and 13, 2019.
Here’s a short video from February about what the organisation supports:
Owens and Farmer are engaged to be married. On Monday, March 11, they visited the House of Commons as the guests of pre-eminent Brexiteer, Jacob-Rees Mogg (C-North East Somerset).
This is when Blexit met Brexit:
I do hope Candace is right about ‘a free-speech takeover’ in Britain. We sorely need it.
Best wishes for both Blexit and Brexit — two movements I definitely support.
We know that Democrats object to tax cuts.
They often say that tax cuts benefit only the rich.
However, when America was in its infancy, the Founding Fathers were against high taxes and a big central state. James Madison, who served as President between 1809 and 1817, was among them.
Fortunately, freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) knows his history and believes in the values upon which the United States was founded:
The US needs many more Congressmen like Dan Crenshaw to restore the nation to the principles upon which it was built.
The short video below does not delve into how Dr. Willie Parker can reconcile abortion with Christianity, but he does acknowledge what ‘pro-choice’ people do not.
Go halfway in (1:15):
Parker cannot remember whether he’s performed 20,000 or 30,000 abortions:
What’s the difference?
Created Equal, it would seem, is making the pro-life movement the next Civil Rights movement, particularly in their use of Dr Martin Luther King Jr’s speech voice-overs.
I pray for their success in raising pro-life awareness.
They have an excellent Twitter feed, too:
Get involved in some way, shape or form in bringing the horrors of abortion — murder — to the forefront of people’s minds.
We’ve run from this issue for too long, while millions of lives around the world, not only in the United States, have been deliberately and violently ended — prematurely.
There are people who do not believe there is a crisis at the southern border of the United States, despite repeated statistics such as these:
I would call everyone’s attention to the third statistic.
On February 5, 2019, an article appeared in CNS News about a group of Guatemalans posing as ‘families’, when, in reality, they were human traffickers with trafficked humans (emphases mine below):
Associate Chief of U.S. Border Patrol Intel Carl McClafferty said Friday that human traffickers are using children to smuggle illegal immigrants across the border as a family unit and recycling the children back across the border to be used again.
This phenomenon began in the latter months of Bush II’s presidency:
October 2008 was the first time the Border Patrol ever had more family units than single adults apprehended, McClafferty said during a White House meeting on combating human smuggling on the southern border.
What follows is how Border Patrol linked up with HSI — Homeland Security Investigations — to apprehend a Guatemalan ring of human traffickers and their victims:
âIn Yuma, Arizona, we were catching groups of Guatemalans — family units — turning themselves into Border Patrol, crossing around where the fence ends. And I just started looking into it and found that some of the sponsors, after they were released, were the same person, with the same address and same phone number,â he said.
âSo they reached out to HSI, to Charleston, South Carolina, where these people were going. HSI looked into it. There’s something going on here. âWhy don’t you come out, and we’ll do this case together?â We went up to Charleston, followed a group that actually got released. They were picked up by the sponsor,â McClafferty said.
âImmediately after that, the smuggler pulled over and put a bag of trash in a dumpster. Agents recovered that. Inside was their ankle bracelet, their illegal documents, already discarded by these sponsors who tend to be in the smuggling organization. They investigated this case. We were able to tie this back to a larger group that was smuggling Guatemalans into South Carolina and other places,â he said.
The investigation resulted in eight indictments, a warrant being served and 24 illegal aliens taken into custody.
This is what was happening to the child victims involved. A woman was being paid to ‘recycle’ them, as it were:
âAnd one of the indictments was a woman who was being paid $1,500 a child to take the children back to Guatemala who are not part of the actual family unit. So, she claimed to be doing this 13 times, and so we found out they were recycling these children. They would bring them up, smuggling them as part of a family group, recycle them back to Guatemala, put them in another family group, and come back up. So this was, you know, obviously an exploitation of these children,â he said.
Churchgoers, in particular, need to be very careful about accepting the ‘family’ label so quickly and so universally.
Sometimes, all is not as it seems on the surface.
Who knows what was happening to these children? That is the bigger question.
Here is what is happening to some of these children. On Wednesday, March 6, 2019, freshman Congressman Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) discussed ‘family’ migration with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen. Crenshaw said that one little girl ended up in New York, where she was raped repeatedly every day for five years. On a visit with Border Patrol in McAllen, Texas, he also saw groups of illegals presenting themselves as family units. Upon investigation, they turned out to be human traffickers. Nielsen told him that much more border personnel are needed in order to combat the epidemic of human trafficking along the southern border:
I would urge everyone to pray for human trafficking to end and to pray especially for the children involved.
Since November 2016, all we have heard about is President Trump’s alleged collusion with the Russians which supposedly tipped the election in his favour.
Riiiight.
To date, no evidence has come to light.
On the other hand, we have Trump’s 2016 opponent, white as snow as presented in the media.
Will her crimes ever be investigated?
I pray that someone somewhere in the United States in a position of authority is investigating her.
I pray that, one morning when we all wake up, we will be pleasantly surprised to find the relevant authorities bringing Hillary Clinton to justice.
