How to land a job after working in an abortion clinic
If you’ve worked in the abortion industry in some capacity, you know it’s not easy on multiple levels. There are things you’ve seen you can never forget. You may have had to dodge protestors just to get to the door. You have heard things you should not have heard and maybe you even participated in activities that you had no training in and had no business doing.
Or you may have interviewed someone who worked in an abortion clinic and have wondered why they seem to be secretive or cagey. Either situation can be awkward and challenging. But there’s hope for both someone who worked in an abortion clinic and those who are wondering if they can hire someone who worked in one.
Say you made the decision to leave the abortion clinic and now you have to find work. There are lots of challenges to anyone searching to change jobs and entire industries but for those coming out of abortion clinics, some of those challenges can seem insurmountable. But there is hope.
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No matter what your work in the abortion clinic, you have transferable skills. If you were a receptionist, you would know how to schedule people, organize a calendar, and keep track of multiple things at once. If you were a nurse, you absolutely can still work as a nurse and aid patients, administer medication, check vitals. If you were a phlebotomist, the country is full of labs in need of people just like you. Even if you were an abortion doctor, you possess skills that can be used for life and not death.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that during the job interview process, questions about your past can really be hard to answer and your previous employer may have gone to great lengths to blackball you solely because you left the abortion clinic.
Many of our former abortion workers have told me that they didn’t know how to answer the question of why they left their former jobs. That’s a loaded question for any interview because interviewees need to be careful about being honest while not throwing their former employer under the bus.
However, those who have worked in abortion clinics often have traumatic experiences that not only they themselves don’t want to think about but that they don’t want to tell others about in order not to inflict trauma on them. Many former abortion workers will freeze when this question is posed. They may come across secretive or cagey, which is the exact opposite of what they are feeling. Hiring managers should be patient when interviewing candidates who used to work in abortion clinics. They are more than likely trying to be protective of their traumatic experiences.
Honesty is crucial to any interview process and if you, as a former abortion worker, are feeling apprehensive about the question of why you left, it’s entirely plausible to say something like, “The environment was one of destruction and dishonesty. I feel that my skills are better suited to a place that more closely aligns with my values and morals.”
Be prepared with a list of the skills you have that apply to the position you are seeking and you can be an asset to the company. Career and industry changes are common so you are not alone when seeking to jump ship to a new job. But being a former worker in the abortion industry is certainly a more unique position to be in. Thankfully, you can be sure that more than 680 other former abortion workers have been in your shoes.
When I left Planned Parenthood, my manager told me, “good luck ever finding work again.” I was terrified. I was my family’s breadwinner. I had to make a good living to support my family. This was a non-negotiable. But seeing what I saw inside that clinic had changed me and I could not, in good conscience, stay there. It was through the assistance of a pro-life group that I got my first interview. They backed me up, helped me with my resume, and spoke to others in the medical field who they knew would be open to having a former abortion worker amongst their ranks.
Getting a job — a good job — after working in the abortion industry is entirely possible. It’s not worth staying in an abortion clinic job that tears you down day after day. Those memories are hard to erase. You can quit and there are some fantastic jobs with caring bosses that are out there just waiting for you.
Abby Johnson is a former Planned Parenthood director who now runs And Then There Were None, the only ministry in the country that helps abortion workers leave their jobs and find new, life-affirming ones and healing.
