Washington D.C., Apr 21, 2016 / 04:54 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- No matter how deeply someone may be entrenched in the culture of death, they are never beyond the loving reach of Christ, said former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson to a group of Georgetown University students on Wednesday.
“I’m standing in front of you today as a testament to the power of conversion,” Johnson, a former Texas Planned Parenthood clinic director who later converted to Catholicism, said in a talk scheduled the same day as Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards’ address to students on Georgetown’s campus.
Reflecting later on Richards addressing students earlier in the afternoon, Johnson said, “I just kept thinking you know, I believe that one day – I have faith – that one day it won’t be me standing here speaking and defending the sanctity of human life.”
“I believe that one day it will be Cecile Richards standing here.”
Johnson’s speech was part of Life Week 2016 at Georgetown. A pro-life panel led by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), chair of the Select Investigative Panel on Planned Parenthood, spoke on campus Tuesday evening. The group Students for Life organized a protest of Cecile Richards’ speech on Wednesday, before Johnson’s pro-life talk that evening.
Cardinal Wuerl was scheduled to say a pro-life mass at Epiphany Catholic Church near Georgetown’s campus on Thursday evening.
Richards’ invite to speak on campus by the student group Lecture Fund – and the subsequent support that the university gave the group – drew biting criticism from the Archdiocese of Washington for its “unawareness of those pushing the violence of abortion.” Planned Parenthood is the nation’s largest abortion provider, performing well over 300,000 abortions per year.
“The Jesuit community on campus clearly has its work cut out for it and a long way to go as it tries to instill at Georgetown some of the values of Pope Francis,” the archdiocese stated.
In 2012, the university also ignited controversy by inviting then-Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius to speak at its graduation ceremonies. Many Catholic organizations were being ordered by the HHS, under threat of heavy fines, to violate Church teaching by providing coverage for birth control to employees, and bishops were speaking out against the mandate.
Johnson focused her Wednesday speech on her conversion away from being a Planned Parenthood clinic director and ultimately to the Catholic faith. She emphasized the importance of prayer, perseverance, and trust in God in overcoming the evil of abortion.
“No one is beyond the power of conversion because no one is beyond the power of Christ,” she stated. “And we can make all the most beautiful arguments in the world for why we should be pro-life, but at the heart of life is Christ.”
She exhorted the students to be hopeful for the conversion of more clinic workers and pro-choice leaders. “And if we are people of faith, we better believe that,” she said. “We better believe in that type of goodness, that type of kindness, that type of faithfulness from our God.”
She pointed to her organization And Then There Were None, dedicated to helping abortion clinic workers and doctors leave the industry, as an example of success. She initially thought 10 workers a year leaving the industry would be a great total, but there have been 218 workers leaving the industry in three years, including 6 full-time abortionists.
“Being pro-life is not just about saving the baby. Because if it was, then we would just be pro-baby,” she said. “We are pro-life, and we believe in the dignity and the inherent worth of that woman who’s walking in to that abortion facility and we know that she deserves better than anything she can receive inside those abortion facility walls.”
“My goal is not just to make abortion illegal, my goal is to make abortion unthinkable so that a woman never even darkens the door of an abortion facility, that she never even thinks that taking the life of an innocent human being is acceptable,” she continued.
“We can grow weary. We can grow tired. We can become angry. We can become frustrated. But in those times, it is then that we have to remember the goodness of God,” she said.
Article Archive
No one is beyond conversion, Abby Johnson tells Georgetown students
Related Articles • More Articles
The Oregon State Capitol in Salem. / Credit: Zack Frank/ShutterstockWashington, D.C. Newsroom, Mar 28, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is reporting a significant rise in assisted suicide prescriptions and deaths in the state, a move that comes after authorities in 2022 began allowing out-of-state residents to access the lethal services.Since the state's passage of the "Death with Dignity Act" in 1997, assisted suicide numbers have been generally rising there, with a markedly sharp uptick since 2013. OHA on March 20 released its 2023 assisted suicide data summary that reported a considerable increase in suicide prescriptions in 2023. The study found that assisted suicide prescriptions in the state rose from 433 in 2022 to 560 last year.Of those 560 prescriptions, 367 people are known to have died from ingesting the suicide "medications." This is up from the 304 who died from assisted suicide drugs in Oregon in 2022.Over half, or 56%, of the assisted ...
The state capitol building of New Hampshire in Concord, New Hampshire. / Credit: Michael M. Santiago/Getty ImagesCNA Newsroom, Mar 28, 2024 / 11:30 am (CNA).The New Hampshire House of Representatives is poised to reconsider its narrow passage of a bill that would legalize assisted suicide in the "Live Free or Die" state.Last week, New Hampshire state representatives passed HB 1273 by a margin of just three votes, 179-176. Twenty-four representatives abstained during the vote. However, the bill has not been advanced to the New Hampshire Senate, as one member of the slim majority, Rep. Mike Ouellet, filed a motion to reconsider. The Republican politician had initially voted in favor of the proposed law. However, the following day, Ouellet revealed that he wanted to change his vote due to his faith."I've been a practicing Catholic my whole life," the lawmaker told the New Hampshire Center for Public Interest Journalism. The Republican politician felt "torn because the bill w...
Adoration. / Thoom / Shutterstock.CNA Staff, Mar 28, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).Did you know that it is possible to sing a special song of adoration on Holy Thursday and have your soul purified?It's true, and the song is "Tantum Ergo."First, some background...A plenary indulgence is a grace granted by the Catholic Church through the merits of Jesus Christ to remove all temporal punishment due to sin.What does this mean?"An indulgence does not confer grace. An indulgence is not a remission of the guilt due to sin. The guilt due to sin is ordinarily taken away by the sacraments of baptism and penance (confession), in which we receive forgiveness for sins through Jesus Christ," the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) explains in this helpful Q&A."Although guilt is taken away, and with it the eternal penalty that is due to sin, namely, damnation, the eternal loss of the presence of God, there remain consequences for sins that those who have committed them ...