Those in Jessica’s circle describe her as warm, personable, and highly intelligent, with a soothing voice. With that in mind, the career path she chose is certainly no surprise. However, her early life would have been a barrier for those without her resilience and faith, and would have caused many to doubt that she would ever achieve such great success.
Anyone who cares about the issue of abortion has heard the argument that until there are no kids in foster care, women need to have access to abortion. People who stand for life are in the majority of couples who choose to foster and often embark on the arduous adoption process through the foster system. These children are not forgotten or tossed aside to focus solely on the unborn, but, as we all know, two things can be true at once. Our Quitter of the Month is such a profound example of this and shows the absurdity of using the fact that foster children exist to justify the “need” for abortion access.
Jessica’s life itself is miraculous. Her mother, a young teen, was pressured by her family to have her aborted. As a coincidence, or a “God Wink” as some have called it, an aunt was also pregnant. Jessica’s mother chose to follow her aunt’s path, and they were pregnant at the same time and delivered their babies closely together, instead of aborting as she was pressured to do.
However, life was not sunshine and roses. Jessica’s mom was woefully unprepared for motherhood. Two more children by different fathers quickly followed. It was only a matter of time before Jessica and her siblings were removed from their mother and sent to separate foster homes.
“It was hard growing up,” Jessica said. “My mom would often say that no one would want a partner with three kids. We felt like her life and her choices were our fault. As if by existing, we ruined her life.”
As a teen in foster care, the trauma she had been through caught up with Jessica. Severe OCD ruled her life. It was imperative that she perform her routines and rituals. She could not stand to eat at school for fear of contamination. It was as if she had no control over her life, and her brain was reaching for some way for her to get back in the driver’s seat. This had a profound impact on her ability to return to high school.
“I started having panic attacks,” she said. “I was afraid to go anywhere or do anything,” she said. “We all ended up back at my mother’s house, but it wasn’t long until she sent us all away again.”
This time, Jessica stayed with a friend and found comfort in a healthy family that included a mother who showed her much-needed love and affection.
“My friend’s mom was so sweet and authentic. They were Catholic, so I went to church with them,” she said. “I had never been exposed to religion at all. The mother had experienced her own trauma. She freely shared with me. She listened. She was a huge comfort to me.”
Jessica was still seeing her mother from time to time. One of her many boyfriends, who had significant psychological problems, told her one day that she was going to hell.
“This impacted me deeply,” Jessica said. “I had begun to embrace Christianity, and it was becoming more important to me. The idea of going to hell was so disturbing. I remember praying so hard and begging God to allow me to understand Him. I don’t know how to describe it, but I had a powerful spiritual experience at that time. The Holy Spirit entered me. I felt such peace.”
After that experience, Jessica started to contemplate and understand the purpose of suffering. She wanted to be self-sacrificial, rather than only serving herself.
“The only thing I could do was surrender all of the suffering I experienced to God.”
Jessica decided that she wanted to become a psychologist. Because she was a ward of the state, her college was thankfully paid for. She moved in with her biological dad’s parents, who had always wanted a relationship with her, but her mother made sure that they were kept apart.
“I healed during this time and transformed,” she said. “I went to a therapist who was helpful, although she was pro-choice. When I expressed my feelings about an abortion I had when I was 15, she told me I made the right choice.”
These affirmations were in direct opposition to her growing faith in Christ, but did orient her toward the pro-choice point of view. At the age of twenty, Jessica chose to be baptized.
“Christianity was the most important thing to me,” she said.
After graduation from college, her grandparents worked out a deal that would help her realize her dream of becoming a psychologist. In 2013, Jessica became Dr. Sullivan. She had overcome so much more than her classmates or professors could ever comprehend, but she was brilliant and driven, and she relied on God to guide her and help her meet her goal.
After working with non-profits for fifteen years, Dr. Sullivan was interested to hear that Planned Parenthood was interested in setting up counseling services for women.
“I wanted to help counsel women during menopause, perinatal, and prenatal care. That was my specialty.”
Dr. Sullivan was told that she was being hired at Planned Parenthood to help establish those programs. Unfortunately, she quickly learned that this was not the case.
“When I got there, it was just wild,” she said. “No one, including the management staff, knew what they were doing. The employees seemed like a hodgepodge of unqualified workers. People who would have a difficult time finding a job elsewhere. It was an unorganized mess.”
Dr. Sullivan was hired as the Vice President of Operations over an affiliate consisting of 11 facilities.
“It was my understanding that they wanted to establish a counseling program and only provided abortions on Tuesdays,” she said. “They pushed for me to go into the clinics on abortion days. Into the rooms where the contents of the abortions were sifted through and disposed of.”
This was not what Dr. Sullivan had been hired for, nor was she interested in having any part of it.
“It was unnerving,” she said. “I told them that I am not clinical staff, and I should not be there at all. I was hired for operations and administration. That’s like saying the VP of the hospital needs to be in the OR.”
Even though clinical duties were not part of Dr. Sullivan’s job description or in her scope, they continued to pressure her.
“I was yelled at by my boss. She wanted to know why I was not being compliant.”
Part of Dr. Sullivan’s duties included overseeing the budget, with a strong aptitude for numbers and experience in accounting, budgeting is one of her areas of expertise.
“It soon became apparent to me that most of the money was coming from abortions,” she said. “With the bans coming down, I knew they were going to be in trouble. This was in 2022, and the six-week bans were coming to my state.”
Looking ahead and wanting to provide services to women that she had been hired to do, Dr. Sullivan approached her employers and told them that it was time to implement all the other services.
“I urged them to help people really plan their parenthood, not just provide abortions.”
Dr. Sullivan was also highly critical of the “counseling” that was provided 20 hours before an abortion, as mandated by the state. As a psychologist herself, she knew this was not counseling. Women were simply asked if they understood what they were doing and if anyone was forcing them; then, they were asked to sign.
“I wanted women to have all of their actual options; I thought we should provide some case management and find out the barriers to parenthood before scheduling an abortion.”
There are many programs that most of these women would have qualified for. They could have qualified for free childcare, financial assistance, housing assistance, and more. Having grown up in the system herself and worked for other non-profits for fifteen years, Dr. Sullivan was very familiar with many of the programs that could have helped alleviate some of these barriers for women. They were never asked about their obstacles to parenthood and were not given all their options before making an irreversible decision.
“I was very vocal about this to upper management because I was new and did not understand the culture of Planned Parenthood,” she said. “I suggested that we rebrand ourselves to do these things, and I knew I had crossed a line. Over the next few months, I realized the goal was to get as many people in there for abortions as possible.”
In anticipation of the bans, the upper management scrambled to find a way to keep the current of revenue flowing through abortions. They devised a scheme to create channels that would allow women who were too far along to manipulate the system.
“They asked me to implement this program and I told them that I would not,” Dr. Sullivan said. “I knew this was illegal.”
Because of her outspoken nature and refusal to circumvent the law, Dr. Sullivan was treated harshly. She also did not participate in many of the wildly inappropriate activities that happened regularly. As a conservative Christian, she stuck out like a sore thumb.
“Planned Parenthood was so cult-like,” she said. “We had these days they called Appreciation Days. They spent so much money on these things. They were ridiculous. They were not supposed to tell us what to think politically, but the CEO would. They would have these weird chants and drum on the desks. I never participated. I was used to a traditional non-profit. This all felt so weird and cultic.”
Dr. Sullivan landed at Planned Parenthood during COVID, and she was praying and asking God to guide her. After discovering a live birth policy outlining the protocol for these situations during abortion procedures, she made inquiries. Co-workers shared with Jessica that babies were born alive at least once a month. She knew this was not a place where she could continue to work.
Upper management instructed all workers to completely ignore the people on the sidewalk. They were to have no eye contact, keep their earbuds in at all times, and never speak to them.
“One day, I left, and as I was walking out, I was praying for guidance. I wanted to quit,” she said. “A protester yelled into a megaphone at me and told me that if I wanted to quit, I should call And Then There Were None. I quit that day. Literally, the answer to my prayer was delivered through a megaphone.”
Dr. Sullivan did not know what to expect when she called And Then There Were None.
“I was concerned that it would be an exploitative or high-pressure group,” she said. “Everyone has been so genuine, gentle, and caring. I know they have my best interests truly at heart. After I quit, I started my new practice, then immediately came down with a serious case of COVID. I was sick for weeks. ATTWN checked on me, practically helped me, and they made a huge difference. I felt so supported.”
Since quitting, Dr. Sullivan has decided to pursue some legal actions against Planned Parenthood. She was quite surprised when they even admitted in writing that they “abused and harassed” her for her beliefs. These proceedings are still ongoing, and she hopes her testimony and the outcome will make a difference in the lives of anyone impacted by the abortion industry.
It takes a strong person to stand up to a political and financial behemoth like Planned Parenthood. When considering that Jessica could have been aborted and discarded in a POC room, was removed from her home and placed into multiple foster care situations, returned to an abusive and neglectful mother, and a ward of the state, God’s providence and hand on her life is even more apparent. She is a testament to the brilliance of God’s perfect design and love for each of His children.