Kara is an upbeat person who wears her compassion on her sleeve. An adventurous spirit, she is quite comfortable in her own company and is happy to venture into the unexpected solo. Following these impulses have brought Kara much excitement and a variety of experiences, and it was also the thing that led her directly into the ever-open arms of the abortion industry.
Growing up, religion did not play a significant role in her life.
“My parents were Sunday Christians. I would not have even considered myself to be a Christian,” Kara said. “Things like abortion were never discussed. I had literally no opinion about abortion or concept of what it was, except that I would say that women deserved reproductive rights. I was always on the liberal side. I was involved in the Gay/Straight Alliance in high school. Many of my friends were gay or lesbian.”
After high school, Kara tried her hand at different jobs including selling cars and working full time as a barista. She felt restless and wanted something better for her life.
“I always loved babies. I could not wait to be a mom,” she said. “One day I asked myself what I really wanted to do with my life. What touched my heart and how could I make a difference?”
It was that self-reflection that led Kara down the path to becoming a doula.
“Being a doula and walking alongside women through their pregnancies and the births of their babies was the best thing in the world. I loved it.”
Ironically, it was that love of babies and the miracle of birth that pointed Kara directly to the abortion industry. As a proud doula, Kara carried a mug decorated with a uterus and flowers while she was at her other job. One day, a stranger saw her mug and told Kara that Planned Parenthood was hiring. She applied.
“I had no pre-conceived notions about Planned Parenthood,” she said. “Even when my best friend told me that working there was the opposite of being a doula, I ignored her.”
In retrospect, Kara feels that the training she received during her first month at the clinic was very intentional and developed by the people at PPFA to make workers ignore their consciences and not ask questions.
“Planned Parenthood paid incredibly well. After trying so many different things, I finally felt like I had a career, and I wasn’t a failure at life. It was incredibly attractive.”
Kara gradually rotated into the more disturbing roles of her job at Planned Parenthood.
“No one in their right mind is going to think that working in an abortion clinic piecing babies back together is appealing,” she said. “So, what do they do? They groom you; they make you feel like you are special and important. They pump you up and brainwash you. For the first month, you don’t touch a patient. They talked about how Margaret Sanger was an amazing person. Looking back, it all feels like it was very intentional and that they were following specific procedures in place by PPFA to make murder more appealing.”
Kara floated between four different Planned Parenthood clinics.
“I did it all – trans care, birth control, pap smears, phlebotomy – abortion was the last thing,” she said. “I was actually eager to start with abortion visits because that is how you got status in the clinic. If you worked abortion visits, you were cool.”
Kara started counseling women about their abortion procedures. She was under pressure to work “tech,” which is the POC (Products of Conception) lab. She kept putting it off and eventually was told that if she refused to work in the POC lab, she could not continue to work there.
“I will never forget the first time I walked into the POC lab to work tech,” she said. “There was blood everywhere. I remember that there was a fully formed baby’s foot on the floor. The smell was indescribably horrible. The body parts were in spaghetti strainers. I told them that I could not do it.”
There were two girls at the clinic who only wanted to work in the POC lab, so Kara was not forced to work tech again.
“The autoclave was in that room, so I still had to go in there. I get nauseous just thinking about it.”
Ironically, Kara used the skills she had gained as a doula in the abortion clinic.
“I spent a lot of time with the girls in the procedure rooms acting almost as an abortion doula. I held their hands I told them to look at me, so they didn’t have to see or be aware of what was happening. For the ones without insurance who could not pay for sedation, I coached them through their pain.”
It was an encounter with Christ that started opening Kara’s eyes and opening the pathway out of the clinic.
“Unexpectedly, one of my past doula clients invited me to church,” she said. “I was more surprised than anyone when I received Christ that day. The Holy Spirit had so many different things to work on in me. I was engaging in so much immoral behavior at the time.”
Initially, Kara was not under conviction about her job at the abortion clinic. She started learning to follow Christ and tried to listen to His voice as she continued to work there.
“My friend told me that I could not follow Christ and work at a place that murdered babies. I was convinced that I could. I was holding on to the delusion.”
Everything came to a head when Kara had an experience remarkably like the one that led Abby Johnson out of the abortion industry. During a procedure, the doctor had a difficult time locating the baby. Kara was asked to hold the ultrasound in place.
“I saw the baby on the screen,” she said. “I saw what happened to it. I actually felt it happening under my hand. I became so convicted. I felt God, even there in the abortion clinic.”
Kara started to seek out spiritual resources to help her through this confusing time. She started watching sermons from a church in Florida. When they announced one Sunday that they were hosting a Care Net banquet, she instantly booked a ticket. Something told her that she needed to be at that banquet.
“There I was, an abortion clinic worker, sitting at the table with this pastor I followed online,” she said. “When the pastor asked me who I was, I just broke down. He introduced me to the director of the center, and she told me about Abby and And Then There Were None. I told her that I knew about ATTWN because I often dug their postcards out of the trash and brought them home.”
After attending the banquet, Kara felt brave enough to watch Unplanned. As soon as it was over, she called the hotline number for ATTWN on the end screen.
“I was bawling and heaving. The ultrasound scene, that was what I had gone through as well. I was completely disillusioned from that moment. I knew that God was leading me to healing. I didn’t feel hopeless, but I felt convicted. The Lord said it was time to get help.”
Kara, like many workers, was suspicious of And Then There Were None at first.
“I didn’t know if they were real. How could there be a group of pro-lifers who cared so deeply about abortion clinic workers?”
Kara made the decision to quit Planned Parenthood without another job lined up. She attended three different healing retreats with And Then There Were None and fell right into the “Quitter Tribe.” While it was scary leaving a well-paying job, she knew she was doing the right thing and had the support of other Quitters of the abortion industry who had been in her shoes. Through a series of events that only God could have orchestrated, Kara found herself in Florida volunteering at that same Care Net center, and weeks later she was offered the position as a Center Director.
“I have worked hard to heal,” Kara said. “At first, I felt bad that I could not cry. I was so blocked off and dissociated from everything. Counseling with Amanda helped give me the tools to work through things on my own now.”
Kara strongly encourages other workers who have not reached out for help to do so.
“You are never alone. There is an entire ministry devoted to helping you get out, heal, find a better path, and connect you with an amazing group of people who have been where you are,” she says. “There is such a strong connection between us. We just run into each other’s arms with so much love in our hearts. We always show up for each other.”
Kara continues to work at Care Net and is now engaged to marry the man of her dreams.
“The Lord made me wait,” she said. “I was not happy being single, but the Lord made me wait and now I am so happy that He did.”
Kara admits that she is not where she wants to be, but that she is working hard to develop her relationship with Christ and become the woman He created her to be.
“I am walking the path the Lord has for me. I am divinely held by Him,” she said. “Without my Tribe, I would not be where I am today. I have been equipped and shown such unconditional love by Sarah and everyone at And Then There Were None. The love we have for each other is so deep and real.”