IF I HAD TO CHOOSE THE MOMENT the Enemy began to lose his grip on me, it was during my pregnancy with my daughter. I was glowing as life grew within me and loved all the body changes that accompanied. I had been working for Planned Parenthood for six years at the time. Unfortunately, as the pregnancy progressed, stress at work increased. Management became more difficult to work with, I was expected to work more than the standard full-time hours, and I felt bad asking for time off for prenatal appointments. Things went really bad when I requested part-time work after having my daughter. Management had decided to have me work more than a half hour’s drive away. They knew I had experienced breastfeeding problems, yet persevered through them. My hope had been to spend time with and breastfeed my daughter during lunch break each workday. Now that would be impossible. I couldn’t believe their response to me, to us.
In fact, I was so rattled, I knew the feeling inside was something that I had to deal with. I couldn’t carry it around. I was growing bitter. It wasn’t healthy.
I decided to go back to church, something I hadn’t done since I was a teen and when I did, it was one of those moments when you feel the pastor is talking directly to you. The Jesus he presented spoke to my heart. I was more than intrigued.
The pastor encouraged us to read the Bible every day. He said, “If you really want to get to know Jesus, read the book of Matthew.” Well, I really wanted to know.
The pages of Matthew brought Jesus to life in a way I hadn’t experienced before. His love, compassion, and forgiveness gave me somewhere to take my bitterness. I gave my heart to Jesus.
I continued my work at Planned Parenthood. The branch I worked at did not perform abortions and I was happy about that, having already spent some time working as an abortion recovery room nurse at a private clinic years ago. One day years later, however, I got the directive to get training for implanting a new contraceptive device. I was sent to another office to place them while being shadowed by a physician. This particular office was an abortion clinic having their procedure day.
As I sat alongside my manager who drove us to the office, I began to have a reaction. An aching in my spirit. I couldn’t seem to shake it.
As we parked, I began to pray for what I was about to experience. As the doors opened, I saw women sitting shoulder to shoulder, waiting for their abortions and my heart began to wrench. I no longer saw just one person affected by abortion, but the life within as well. It may sound strange, but the overriding feeling that coursed through me was that I was a coward.
As if God had heightened my senses, I could feel the women’s pain deep within at the soul level; what made their faces so sullen and gray? The smell of abortion came back to my memory—that distinct smell of death. Those who have ever smelled it know what I’m talking about. It is unforgettable.
As I was brought into the presence of the abortion doctor, I did not see healthcare; I saw a business transaction. I was standing in the middle of the most sinful business plan possible – the elimination of generations of children disguised as care.
I turned to my supervisor and with complete ease said, “I’ve seen enough and it’s time for me to leave.”
To which she replied, “I completely respect your decision.”
I walked over to the manager who drove me and told her it was time to go. She finished up quickly, grabbed her belongings and we walked out the door as if we were not entirely the ones in control. I hadn’t done any of the contraceptive implants I had come to do, and there I was, walking out without anyone asking or saying a word to me. This was not normal.
The scales had already fallen from my eyes when I asked my manager as we drove what was spoken about in the managers’ meeting that she attended. “Quotas,” she replied.
“Oh, are our numbers going down?” I asked.
“No,” she said.
I replied, “Well, that’s not good,” to which she chuckled and said, “We don’t want the numbers to go down.”
I asked, “What do you mean? Isn’t the goal to put ourselves out of business?”
“No,” she said, “abortions are how we make our money.”
I thought the mission was to reduce abortions, not increase their volume.
When I got home, I knew it was over. God was calling me out of Planned Parenthood even though I was the primary income earner of the family and held our family’s healthcare benefits. I wasn’t sure how my husband was going to respond. I e-mailed a local health department inquiring about women’s health services and whether they had a need for a provider. In less than seventy-two hours, I received a call wondering if I had seen their ad in the paper – I hadn’t, however, their reproductive health grant funding had tripled and they needed a provider. Miracle confirmation number one.
After accepting the job for far less money and no benefits, our family began receiving unsolicited checks in the mail. For example, my dad had sent me a check for my birthday gift two months early unaware of the job transition. It helped with bills while we adjusted. Miracle confirmation number two.
Never questioning that I had made the right decision to leave, I also never questioned the condition of my heart – I thought I was fine, until the evening of a Bible Study I was attending, where we shared our testimonies. When it was my turn, I stood and suddenly everything I knew about the tragedy of abortion and Planned Parenthood came rushing to the surface. I am a rather subdued person, not gregarious at all and rarely show intense emotion. I broke down and wept to the point I was not certain a person there could understand one blubbering word I said. But I kept trying – because I needed to share that they just can’t understand that kind of darkness until they’ve been a part of it. My damage was laid bare for all to see, especially me.
Afterward, a woman who had had an abortion, approached me with arms outstretched. “I forgive you,” she said. What a relief. Miracle confirmation number three.
In time, I got the chance to see Abby Johnson speak at a pregnancy center fundraiser. I knew by her remarkable story and work that she was going to be a key part to my healing.
Entering into the presence of women at an And Then There Were None retreat had a dark-to-light effect on me. The dark secrets of the heart received the warm, healing light of women, just like me, who embraced me while offering no judgment. The lack of judgment is our kinship. It is the impossible outcome to have been a part of something so deeply wrong. But I have learned, such is God’s grace.
Whereas the coldness shown by my coworkers when I went part-time was a slap to the face, I see now it was a part of God’s plan to remove me from Planned Parenthood, bring me to Him, and into the arms of so many wonderful sisters.
“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me – practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.” – Philippians 4:8-9
Where Are They Now? Caroline Strzesynski
While “sweet” is usually the first adjective that comes to mind when one hears the name Caroline, the Caroline who our tribe of Quitters at And Then There Were None have come to know, and love is more than that. She is dignified. She possesses a quiet strength and poise like a lioness ready to protect her young, but only if provoked.
Caroline had never heard of And Then There Were None when she left Planned Parenthood in 2012. Her exposure to the abortion industry started as a recovery nurse in an abortion clinic, and when she made the decision to finally walk away from the industry twelve years later, she was a lead clinician.
“Planned Parenthood paid for my education to get my Masters. I loved my job and thought I would retire there,” she said. “My goal was to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I placed IUDs, removed old Norplants, did colposcopies and vulvar biopsies — things a physician would do. I was passionate about my job.”
Although Caroline had grown up in the church, neither she nor her husband had a relationship with God. She became a mother herself, and God began to work on her heart.
“After I became a mother, I made the decision to return to work part-time,” she said. “To say they did not support my choice would be an understatement. They made things very difficult for me and I felt myself becoming bitter.”
Since she had experienced a church family as a child, she decided to start attending again to find support. Her husband, Scott, was not a believer at the time and had no interest in going.
“I would take the kids to church solo,” she said. “I would share with Scott about what we were learning. It wasn’t until neighbors we both enjoyed invited us to Bible study when he agreed to come along. Nine years after I became a Christian, Scott did as well.”
In time, she felt conflicted about her work as a clinician at Planned Parenthood, but one final day at the sister affiliate was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
She was sent to a Planned Parenthood sister affiliate to learn about Nexplanon, a hormonal birth control device that is implanted in the arm. “The abortion facility was so bleak and sad. Women were just lined up. I started to see the life within. I started to realize what I was doing was impacting generations.”
“The abortionist’s behavior was unacceptable, and the staff knew it,” she said. “She was late, immature, and unprofessional. She allowed her resident to do things he should not have been doing.”
Caroline recalls one woman in particular who had just endured a suction abortion and was lying on the table with groans of pain. “You are consenting to this, right?” the abortionist said, almost as an afterthought, referring to the birth control device which was to be placed.
“The woman just wanted it all to be over. She was obviously cramping and in pain. A staff member took the post-abortive patient’s credit card, left the room to go to the front desk to run the card for the cost of the birth control device before they proceeded. They just let her lie there. There was zero compassion
or informed consent.” Caroline left that day without doing any of the procedures she was sent there to do. She knew her time with Planned Parenthood was over.
Caroline had carpooled to the sister affiliate that day with her manager. On the way home, her manager told her about the new quotas. Caroline asked her manager why there would be abortion quotas, as she had always been of a mindset that the entire goal of Planned Parenthood was to reduce the number of abortions.
“She just laughed at me,” Caroline said. “She told me that’s what we want the public to believe. I always believed the thing about abortion being only 3% of what Planned Parenthood did. Suddenly I understood that it was all a total lie. I honestly thought that Planned Parenthood was a true non-profit. I knew I had been bamboozled.”
Caroline informed her manager she had seen enough. She was done. While her decision was respected, they did try to lure her back with money.
“There is no amount of money you could offer me to keep me here,” she told them.
Despite her resolution, this was scary and uncharted territory for Caroline. While her husband worked to provide for the family, she had always been the primary breadwinner and held the family’s benefits for many years. Despite working part-time, she made good money.
“I’ve always had an unhealthy relationship with money,” she said. “I am basically Dave Ramsey’s love child,” Caroline said with a laugh. “I needed to know I was going to have enough for retirement, savings, investments. I slowed down. I changed my perspective. God taught me I could make do with less.”
Although Caroline had been conditioned to not trust pregnancy centers, a friend connected her to the director of a nearby center. The director listened intently to Caroline’s story and knew it was no accident Abby Johnson would be speaking at an upcoming gala.
“Although I was wary, the longer I was in that pregnancy center, the less unworthy I felt to even be there,” Caroline said. “I met Abby and her assistant, and shortly after, I went on my first retreat with And Then There Were None. The retreat was so therapeutic for me. We just dug through everything and then we dealt with it. Before, I had no one to talk to. I can’t describe how wonderful it was to have a sisterhood.”
When Caroline says she felt a kinship and a sisterhood with her tribe of fellow Quitters, she means it. Even to the extent of getting tested, finding out she was a match, and donating a kidney to a Quitter who would have surely died without her sacrifice.
“When I learned I was a match, I kind of panicked. However, I knew God had our lives in His hands,” Caroline said. “Start to finish, the entire process took nine months. I was so concerned she was going to die before we could get everything done.”
As He always does, God had it under control. Shelley, the recipient of Caroline’s kidney, and her husband Donald are doing great and enjoying their new lease on life. Scott and Donald have become good buddies and enjoy trading Dad jokes. The tribe of Quitters often refer to Donald and Scott as their “mascots.”
In the eleven years since Caroline made the decision to quit being a health care provider for Planned Parenthood, her quiet strength and boldness have served her well. In a field where hormonal and other types of birth control are the bread and butter, Caroline instead felt comfortable with a more wholistic and natural approach. She wanted to empower women to take charge of their own fertility.
“I told the practice where I work, I would no longer be providing birth control,” she said. “I learned about NaPro (Natural Procreative Technology) and the Creighton Model FertilityCare System. Now, I teach women about their fertility, identify problems in the menstrual cycle for further care, and how to avoid or achieve pregnancy using Creighton.”
In addition, Caroline, who used to oversee hormonal and other forms of birth control for Planned Parenthood, started her own FertilityCare practice called Sofia’s Virtues, which she named after St. Sophia who had three daughters named Faith, Hope, and Love, who were all martyred for their faith.
“It is my goal to bring these virtues back into women’s healthcare. I trust God to lead me, and I know He will.”
If you are an abortion clinic worker considering reaching out to And Then There Were None, Caroline urges you to do so immediately.
“There is no reason to hesitate,” she said. “They are good at what they do—finding employment and meeting all the needs associated with leaving the industry from financial to licensed counseling. They cover every piece. You will have a family. The camaraderie is so important. There is strength in numbers.”
If you are a past or current abortion worker, call, text, or email us today. What do you have to lose? A kidney? (that is a joke… you could also gain a kidney!)
Caroline reflects on how her life has changed often.
“All I saw, and all I did was prevent pregnancy,” she said. “Now, I have the honor of helping those struggling to become parents become pregnant. I am grateful.”