Abby Johnson Quotes

My first March for Life was in 2010, three months after I left my job in the abortion industry as clinic director at a Planned Parenthood in Texas. It was intensely emotional, shocking in many ways, especially the outright love I saw in the faces of people who I once considered enemies.

I've heard pro-lifers yell at abortion clinic workers that they should 'Repent!' Repent of what? They don't see what they are doing as something that needs to be repented of. Why? Because they are blinded. Do you think yelling at them will remove that blindness? Not likely.

I have been proud to fight and stand for religious liberty, to stand against Planned Parenthood, to defend life for my entire career.

Obama often criticizes policies that place the interests of the powerful ahead of the powerless. But through his administration's support of abortion rights, Obama shows his lack of empathy for society's most powerless.

Change happens by listening and then starting a dialogue with the people who are doing something you don't believe is right.

Love without conversation is impossible.

It so happens that I'm pro choice.

Pro-lifers have long been castigated for bringing private values into the public square. But actually it is the pro-abortion position that is based on merely personal views and values.

There's a feminist writer, Naomi Wolfe, who is reconsidering her position on abortion.

I'm not being outspoken or pro or con abortion.

I spent over 90 percent of my time talking to people who didn’t have to listen to me.

I am pro choice. You Mr. Romney are multiple choice

Abortion is not health care. A woman has a right to her body, but that is not her body. What about the baby?

If the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is to live, our babies must live. Our mothers must choose life. If we refuse to answer the cry of mercy from the unborn, and ignore the suffering of the mothers, then we are signing our own death warrants.

I am opposed to abortion on demand, and I am opposed to the 1967 Act in Britain being transferred to the north.

Being pro-choice was not just a movement to me; it was a lifestyle. I wholeheartedly embraced that lifestyle and loved being a part of it.

I like people. I like to speak to people, engage with people.

I'm interested in roles that are human, that have some sort of empathic quality.

Some pro-life advocates focus almost exclusively on the rights and suffering of the unborn baby, while some pro-choice advocates focus equally exclusively on the rights and suffering of pregnant women. This is a distortion of the moral choice that confronts us as a society.

Abortion is profoundly anti-women.

The ability to understand the people you’re dealing with is practical. Leading with respect and curiosity is practical. ... At the center of every healthy family, organization, and nation is a core humanistic skill: the capacity to see others deeply, to understand them, and to make them feel seen, heard, and understood.

My mother always told me that no matter how much you dislike a person, when you meet them face to face you will find characteristics about them that you like. Jerry Falwell was a perfect example of that. I hated everything he stood for, but after meeting him in person, years after the trial, Jerry Falwell and I became good friends.

Empathy isn’t just something that happens to us — a meteor shower of synapses firing across the brain — it’s also a choice we make: to pay attention, to extend ourselves.

In order to have compassion for others, we have to have compassion for ourselves.

It's hard to hate up close. The more you get to know each other, the more common ground you can find and the more you can disagree without being disagreeable.