BRYAN, Texas (BP)–Planned Parenthood has dropped a lawsuit against a former clinic director who quit her job after viewing an abortion by means of an ultrasound machine.
Abby Johnson, 29, turned in her resignation Oct. 6 after working for eight years at the Planned Parenthood in Bryan, Texas. She began participating in pro-life prayer vigils with the Coalition for Life after her departure from the clinic.
Planned Parenthood said in its lawsuit Johnson broke a confidentiality agreement and an employment contract, according to the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), which gave her legal assistance.
“Like so many Planned Parenthood lawsuits, this lawsuit was baseless, so we are pleased that it has been withdrawn,” said Steven Aden, senior legal counsel for ADF.
Johnson told Fox News she had a “change of heart” after watching on a sonogram an unborn child “crumple” as he was vacuumed from the mother’s womb.
“I just thought, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’ and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought, ‘That’s it,'” Johnson told KBTX-TV, the CBS affiliate in Bryan. She told Fox, “I would say there was a definite conversion in my heart … a spiritual conversion.”
Johnson already had become disillusioned with her job, saying her regional supervisor had urged her in recent months to find ways to increase profits by producing more abortions, she told Fox.
“Every meeting that we had was, ‘We don’t have enough money, we don’t have enough money — we’ve got to keep these abortions coming,'” Johnson said, according to Fox.
Planned Parenthood is the country’s leading abortion provider. Its affiliates performed more than 305,000 abortions in 2007, the latest year for which statistics are available.
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Tom Strode is Washington bureau chief for Baptist Press.
