Planned Parenthood and the body parts
October 18, 2012
The following story was sent out by the Sacramento 40 Days for Life group on October 13 with this note: “Patricia
worked at the Planned Parenthood here in Sacramento and is now helping
the Rachel’s Vineyard post-abortion healing ministry.”
My name is Patricia.
I have the best childhood memories. The only thing missing in our
family was God. We never went to Mass on Sundays, never read the bible,
and I had no idea how to pray the rosary. Since we didn’t have a strong
religious foundation in our family, my mother practiced new-age beliefs
and my parent’s marriage (and our family) fell apart. My parents
divorced and my younger brother and I decided to live with our father.
The divorce deeply wounded us all.
As a young girl, I was popular in school. I had good grades, won
school recognition awards, and felt confident. I was definitely the
apple of my father’s eyes. I noticed when I was 12 (when my parents
began to have problems) that I started to pull out my hair when I was
anxious or worried. it would actually make me feel better.
My father and I developed a close relationship when he was going
through his divorce. We would go to the movies, shop and dine out often.
In a way, this filled in the void for my mom. My father meant
everything to me.
At 19 I had my first serious boyfriend. He was 5 years older than me
and I cared for him very much. We became sexually active, which I was
not prepared for. Looking back I think that the security, love and unity
that was lost in my family, I tried to find in my relationship with my
boyfriend. A couple of months into our sexually active relationship
“bingo” I was pregnant. All my dreams and goals just went down the
drain.
The one thing that struck my heart the most was the thought of
disappointing my father. How could I do this when he is still grieving
over his divorce? How am I going to leave him alone and also abandon
him? The gossip in our family will humiliate him after he speaks so
fondly of me to everyone.
That night I gave my boyfriend the news. He was so happy and joyful
to be a father. That gave me a feeling of security and support so we
decided to keep the baby. My friends at the time were not too pleased
with my pregnancy. One of my best friends at the time did not have the
courage to tell me in person how she felt about my pregnancy so she sent
me a sentimental letter in the mail. The letter basically said that I
was making a complete mistake, I was too young to be a mother and I had a
long future to look forward too. Therefore, I should get an abortion
before 4 months and a half – before I’m too far along.
Soon all my friends ganged up on me and felt the same way. I knew
they wanted the best for me but it was pure ignorance. I was so confused
at this point. I decided to proceed with my abortion and I would lie to
my mother and boyfriend and tell them I had a miscarriage.
The day of my abortion my girlfriend accompanied me. I was very
scared. When I was brought into the procedure room the doctor saw that I
was nervous. She tried to calm me down by saying, “Patricia, I had two
abortions myself and I performed two abortions on my daughter, she is
ok, I am ok and you are going to be ok also. Look at me. Everything is
fine. You are not doing anything wrong. This will only take 5 minutes.”
I have to admit I did feel better especially when she told me that
she went through the same thing. During the procedure, as the baby was
getting sucked out of my womb, I felt disgusted with myself and felt
like the biggest traitor to my child. Deep down I knew I was doing
something horrible, but, at the same time I felt relieved. The “problem”
was taken care of. That night I told my boyfriend the news. I lied and
said I miscarried. He cried and was devastated, but I expressed no
emotion. The guilt and shamed buried my feelings.
As our relationship continued, my feelings towards him started to
change. I was less attracted to him and I was unsure about him. At times
I started to feel some depression and inner grief and I didn’t
understand why. The clinic where I had my abortion encouraged me to
resume my sexual relationship but this time practicing safe sex. They
gave me birth control pills, but, I was taking them irresponsibly. 4 or 5
months after my abortion “round two” I was pregnant for the second
time. How could I be such an idiot and put myself in this same
situation? Immediately I knew I was not going to keep this child. I
booked my appointment at Planned Parenthood because it would be
embarrassing to go back to the clinic I just recently had my first
abortion at. What would they think of me? This abortion was quick,
emotion-less and no one knew about it. I still felt ashamed of myself.
The relationship with my boyfriend (on my end) worsened. I had a hard
time kissing him or being affectionate. I felt disgusted by him. As my
depression and grief increased, I felt more distant from my boyfriend.
6 months later, you guessed it, I was pregnant for the third time. I
gave my boyfriend the news again and he was so excited. I gave him all
my reason on why we should not have this baby and basically forced him
to go with me to the abortion clinic. He did not want to but he was
scared I would leave him.
During the third abortion I was very emotional. My boyfriend was
terrified for me and he would squeeze my hand tightly. I looked up and
saw the tears flowing from his eyes. At that very moment I thought to
myself, “What a wicked person I am, he is thinking this is my first
abortion when I have already killed two of our children. I am trash. I
am a killer, a murderer.” Our relationship after that grew further and
further apart but it was mostly me. I couldn’t bare him touching me. I
waited a few weeks and I broke off the relationship. He was devastated
and completely heartbroken. I had no emotions. He would not leave me
alone so I decided to move to Sacramento, California and start my life
over.
I needed a job in California. I saw an ad in the newspaper that
Planned Parenthood was seeking a bilingual person for back office work. I
thought to myself, “This is awesome – I want to work for Planned
Parenthood since they were so nice and caring when I had my second
abortion – plus, they provided me with free condoms and birth control
pills.”
I interviewed with the manager at Planned Parenthood. She said, “Ok –
we do about 40 abortions a week, 20 on Wednesdays and 20 on Fridays.” I
told her I had no problem with seeing blood and she told me that
Hispanic woman and African-American woman were the 2 top ethnicities
having the most abortions in their clinic.
I was hired on the spot. My first day was on a Monday. Mondays were
consultation days at Planned Parenthood. The manager instructed me, “You
must do everything in your power to convince these girls to keep their
appointments for their abortions. If you see that they are frightened
and want to back out, console them by telling them you had one yourself.
Oh, and never EVER call it a baby, a he, or a she. You call their baby
an “it.”
When she said these things to me I was shocked. It seemed
hypocritical and deceiving. Something inside didn’t feel right. I didn’t
think too much about it and began counseling woman and young girls (in
English and in Spanish) and encouraging them to have their abortions –
giving them my full support.
Wednesday came – my first day assisting the doctor with the
abortions. My manager that morning instructed me, “Patricia never ever
tell a woman what you see happen in the back office after the abortions
are performed. You must never tell the patient that we basically throw
their baby away in the garbage.” I was appalled by this. Is she really
saying this to me so bluntly? I didn’t know what to think.
With the first patient, I held her hand while she underwent her
abortion. Of course she was crying uncontrollably and she nearly
fainted. After the procedure was over, my job was to take the bag
attached to the machine that was used to perform the abortion, empty the
bag out in a back room and dump all the contents out onto a huge glass
petri- dish. 5 body parts were to be found in order to give the
physician the “ok” that the abortion was successful and the patient was
able to leave the procedure room.
When the medical assistant who was training me emptied out the
contents from the bag into the petri-dish I couldn’t handle the smell.
She then grabbed a pair of tweezers and started searching inside the
petri-dish. She then found an arm, grasped it with the tweezers and held
it up to the light. She said, “This is one part -it’s the arm.” I could
see the detail in the baby’s hand, the knuckles and the fingernails
formed. She then found the second arm. I was horrified at what I was
witnessing. I tried to act normal like it wasn’t affecting me. She then
lifted one of the legs up to the light with the tweezers. I could see
the small tiny hairs on the skin, the lines around the knees forming and
the toenails. But when she held up the head of the baby, that’s when I
knew I had murdered my three children. On the head I could see the nose,
the nostrils, the eyelashes and even the eyebrows forming.
I thought to myself “My God what have I done? I was also lied to and
deceived.” 20 body parts would get thrown into this bag and at the end
of the day the bag is tied into a knot and placed inside this big
freezer. It turns into a block of ice. The place looked like a holocaust
on abortion days. I was falling into more depression working there. I
would cry at my lunch hour in my car almost every day. One day, I left
and never went back.
My self esteem was so low and I wasn’t that confident gal I once was.
I started dating, what you might say was, a loser who was also a drug
addict. I started doing Cocaine. I had experienced it before but didn’t
do it habitually. I would tell my boyfriend that I felt a deep grief and
depression and he recommended doing Cocaine when I felt those emotions
because it helped to numb the pain.
My boyfriend then showed me how to smoke Methamphetamine out of a
pipe. The rest is history. I became extremely addicted quickly. I was
living a whole different life with different people. I didn’t know who I
was; I was so lost. Little by little I started losing my possessions. I
lost everything 6 months later. I was severely addicted to smoking
speed/crack for about 3 years.
During those three years I would sleep in motels, cars, hung out on
sidewalks for the night or slept in the homes of drug dealers or other
crack addicts. I was around people who were deeply addicted to heroin,
people who possessed guns and people who had warrants out for their
arrest. I had so much anxiety especially when I was high. Of course the
hair pulling trauma worsened. I pulled so much hair out daily, I soon
had bald patches everywhere. I was frail, thin, and my bones where
starting to pop out, especially my ribs. My eyes developed dark circles
and were sunken in. I looked in the mirror and didn’t recognize the
person I was looking at. I would just see an empty person looking back
at me. I was a dead woman walking. I completely lost my identity.
Towards the end of my addiction, I would hear voices speak to me and I
would speak back to them and argue with them. I was spun. One day while
in a motel room with a bunch of drug addicts my boyfriend and I got
into a huge argument. He snapped his fingers at me and told me to leave.
I didn’t know where to go so I sat down onto the sidewalk in the motel
parking lot. I then saw all my “friends” get into a car and leave me. I
was all alone – with no food, no water, no friends, no family and no
drugs. I sat there all day. I curled up into a semi fetal possession
with my head buried into my knees and I sobbed and sobbed. I had
nothing. I hit the lowest point I could possibly hit, rock bottom.
At that moment, I felt God’s presence looking down at me. I lifted my
head up while still in tears and started to speak to Him. I told Him,
“You are all that I have left. I don’t know how I let my life end up
this way. I want to thank you for the beautiful childhood and family you
gave to me and I’m sorry I ruined my life. Thank You for everything.”
As soon as I finished my short conversation with the Lord, a young
blonde girl my age (22) with a name tag that said “Bonnie” knelt down
beside me, embraced me with a hug, looked at me in the eyes and said,
“Jesus loves you.” I looked back at her – confused. She smiled and said
“I’m a waitress at the restaurant right over there. I was taking an
order and the Lord spoke to me. He said, “Look out that window and tell
that girl sitting on that curb that I love her and that I will never
abandon nor forsake her until the end of times.” So I put my order down
to come out and tell you this.”
I couldn’t believe God responded so quickly. I was amazed. Bonnie
took me into the restaurant and with the sweetest smile told me to order
whatever meal that was on the menu. She was a daughter of a pastor and
she told me she would drive me wherever home was. And she did.
After being away from my father’s home for 3 years, there I was
standing at his front door. I was so nervous and I shook as I knocked on
the door. My father opens the door to see his little princess looking
like a skeleton with hardly any hair and deep sadness in her eyes. I
started bawling and threw myself to his feet and begged his forgiveness –
very much the prodigal daughter.
Years went by and I would hear people talking about Rachel’s Vineyard
retreats (for healing after abortion) or I would see a pamphlet from
time to time. I would avoid thinking about going because I made the
decision that it was not for me. I thought to myself, “No way, I already
went to confession. Jesus has healed me and there’s nothing more
healing in this area He could possibly do for me.” I admit I was ashamed
and I was frightened.
When Valerie Fish, the coordinator of the Rachel’s Vineyard Retreats
in Northern California called to help me register for the retreat, the
tone of her voice and the love she transmitted made me feel peaceful and
at ease.
When I arrived,
the staff was so caring and loving. They made me feel
extremely comfortable and welcome. That weekend was so powerful and
transforming for me. God revealed many things to me and not only did he
heal the wounds from my three abortions, he also healed the open wounds I
still had regarding my parent’s divorce and my past drug addiction.
The most powerful thing for me that weekend was that I went in the
retreat feeling like a murderer a horrible sinner who aborted three
children. When I left the retreat, I realized that I was a MOTHER of
three beautiful children that Jesus and Mary were taking care of and
that they’re waiting to meet me one day in heaven. My heart was so
joyful.
My first child, my daughter, is named Marianna in honor of the Virgin
Mary. The second child, my son, is named Emmanuel in honor of Jesus. My
third child, my daughter is named Rose in honor of the Rosary.
That weekend I made a vow to my three children. Since I terminated
their life and didn’t give them a chance to live, in their honor I would
do everything I could to stand up and defend life.
God has blessed me to be a part of the Rachel’s Vineyard staff and to
share my testimony in front of hundreds of youth in the Bay area. God
has also blessed me to be leader in our first Spanish Rachel’s Vineyard
Retreats in Northern California beginning in October 2011.
But, the biggest blessing is that God gave me spiritual parents in
Valerie and Bob Fish. Valerie has guided me spiritually, and, through
her, God has blessed me to be His servant. I thank God for the
opportunity to share my testimony. But, my testimony is not about me –
it’s about Him and for His glory. Amen.
Resources: http://cal-catholic.com
VAIN
is the man who puts his trust in men, in created things. Do not be ashamed
to serve others for the love of Jesus Christ and to seem poor in this
world. Do not be self-sufficient but place your trust in God. Do what lies
in your power and God will aid your good will. Put no trust in your own
learning nor in the cunning of any man, but rather in the grace of God Who
helps the humble and humbles the proud. 
