An anti-abortion activist and former Planned Parenthood clinic director called for reform within the anti-abortion movement at a Georgetown University Right to Life (RTL) event Oct. 17.
Abby Johnson, the speaker, joined the anti-abortion movement in 2009 after watching an ultrasound abortion while working for Planned Parenthood. RTL, a student anti-abortion group, hosted Johnson to denounce abortion in all forms, call for federal codification of abortion as murder and condemn President Donald Trump’s defense of abortion pills.
Johnson said the anti-abortion movement is at a crossroads following the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs v. Jackson decision, which held that the U.S. Constitution does not confer the right to an abortion.
“The pro-life movement, for the past 50 plus years, has been trying to regulate abortion,” Johnson said at the event. “They’ve been trying to make it harder to get an abortion instead of just eliminating abortion. We are eventually going to have to have a very difficult conversation about where we go from here.”
Johnson added that the anti-abortion movement must shift its thinking toward valuing embryos and fetuses the same as live children.
“It takes a paradigm shift in our thinking, in our own movement, for us to truly see the pre-born child in the exact same dignity, worth and personhood as someone out of the womb — and I don’t think the pro-life movement is there,” Johnson said. “As a pro-life woman who does believe in equal protection of the unborn, I believe that the mother and the child are in a dead heat. Their equality is exactly the same.”
On the 2024 campaign trail, Trump said he would veto a federal abortion ban, although the Trump administration proposed a rule change in August to remove elective abortion from government medical coverage provided to veterans. Trump also defended former President Joe Biden’s policies to increase abortion pill accessibility in May.
Johnson said Trump’s expansion of access to the abortion pill mifepristone, known developmentally as RU-486, didn’t come as a surprise to many in the anti-abortion movement, and that Trump was falling short of the expectations of the anti-abortion movement.
“The FDA approved a generic form of RU-486, the chemical abortion pill,” Johnson said. “Trump could have stopped this, and he chose to allow expansion of the chemical abortion pill. On the campaign trail, Trump did say he would do nothing to ban abortion, including chemical abortion. So, it should not be surprising to anybody that Trump is not the savior we thought he was.”
Elizabeth Oliver (CAS ’26), RTL’s president, said that because Georgetown students tend to have complex opinions on abortion, introducing to campus someone like Johnson, who has a history on both sides of the issue, is important.
“Many people at Georgetown find themselves in-between on the issue of abortion,” Oliver told The Hoya.
“Bringing someone like Abby, whose opinions changed over time, shows that opinions do change and it can be a gradual process, and that looks like listening to other people and having respectful dialogue,” Oliver added.
Johnson said her relationship with Planned Parenthood began when she was a college student who was drawn in by its goals, although she later resigned and was sued by the organization.
“I was on my college campus and saw a Planned Parenthood booth, and I didn’t have my first abortion at Planned Parenthood so I didn’t know anything about the organization,” Johnson said. “So I went to work with Planned Parenthood believing I was helping women, and believing that this organization really wanted to reduce the abortion rate.”
“When I left I wasn’t like, ‘Now I’m totally pro-life,’” Johnson added. “I just knew I didn’t want to have a hand in it anymore, but when I left, Planned Parenthood sued me. They ended up suing me, taking me to court, and that turned into a news story, and that’s why I do what I do now.”
Johnson said she thinks abortion should have the same legal implications as murder.
“I do believe it should be treated as murder. I do not believe that a mother should have a legal cut out in the law so that nobody else can legally kill that woman’s child, but she can,” Johnson said. “The majority of women that have abortions have seen their children on an ultrasound. These are not ignorant women. They know what they’re doing.”
