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The Human Side
Pro-life activists may be delighted when a former abortionist joins their ranks.
But an American nurse who once worked in an abortion clinic warns that the repentant abortionist should first come to terms with his own spiritual and psychological problems.

Joan Appleton is the founder of the US chapter of the Society of Centurions, an organization of former abortion providers.

Appleton once worked as a nurse at a Virginia abortion clinic, and was an enthusiastic member of the National Organization forWomen. In that role, she now confesses, she deliberately gave false testimony in support of a lawsuit which eventually became an important Supreme Court test (Bray v. Alexandria Women’s Health Clinic), and that she lied again in her testimony before the US Congress in support of a law banning protests outside abortion clinics.

Joan converted to the pro-life cause after she saw an ultra-sound image of a baby at whose abortion she was assisting. In retrospect she believes that her conversion was also prompted by the fact that she had seen so many women hurt—physically or psychologically—by the abortion process.

What is the Society of Centurions and how did you come to be part of it?

Joan Appleton: It is an international organization of former abortionists and abortion providers and their employees. It was started by Dr. Philip Ney in Victoria, British Columbia and it has been operating on an international level for several years now.

The group is composed primarily of East European physicians who, under Communism, were ordered to do abortions or they would not be able to practice medicine, if they were in obstetrics or gynecology. I opened the first chapter of the Society of Centurions of America this year.

As a fellowship, what we do is help those who have come out of the abortion industry to go through the transition into reconciliation with Christ and healing.

What we know—and it is extremely apparent in the abortion industry—is that there is a distinct difference between those women who have had abortions—the mothers who suffer from post-abortion trauma—and those of us who have actually been the killers, the executioners. That has to be dealt with.

There is a reason why we killed. And that is the human side of our story. All of us have come from backgrounds in which we had left a denomination or a church, and practiced atheism for quite some time. So coming back to Christ is part of the transition. But that aspect is only part of it. The other aspect is the human aspect, which involves dealing with why we killed unborn children to begin with.

There has been very little study done on these questions, and certainly there are no texts written on how you deal with the post-abortion trauma suffered by the abortion provider. So Dr. Philip Ney began the Society of Centurions. The name is based on the centurion who crucified Christ, and when Christ died he fell to his knees and said, “Truly this was an innocent man,” and he dropped his sword. We are people who have dropped our swords against the unborn.

I went through a healing process—a very intensive program with Dr. Ney—along with several others from America, some of whom are well known within the pro-life movement now. As I said, it was a very intensive program, but it was very beneficial for me to go through that program and to be able to deal with some of the problems that I had, which led me to be in the business of abortion.

Healing is an ongoing process. There can be a lot of stalemates with those of us who have been in the business, but don’t deal with that human aspect. What the Society of Centurions attempts to do is to not only be a fellowship available to those who are coming out of the abortion industry—but something more than that, too.

When you come out of the abortion industry you are very much alone. The people in the pro-life movement often have no understanding whatsoever about what this transition means, and what we go through. Many people who have come out of the abortion industry have gone into hiding. There is a lot of drug and alcohol abuse, and even suicide. These are a very neglected bunch of people who, if you believe that Christ died for all of us, need help in coming back to seek reconciliation.

Is the Society connected with any particular Christian denomination?

Appleton: It is totally non-denominational. In the United States we have set up a team of clinical psychologists—who must be Christian, must be pro-life, but come from different denominations —and clergy, both Protestant and Catholic, who are willing to learn about the special needs of former abortion providers in order to help them spiritually as they come back to Christ.

I found with myself that, having been brought up Catholic, through 16 years of Catholic education, that the most difficult part was finding a priest who took my sin as seriously as I did. It was actually through the help of two Evangelical ministers that I was able to come back to the Catholic Church. After that process I was also ready to seek some therapy with a Catholic therapist, and was introduced to Dr. Ney, who brought me through his program and got me to where I am today.

What most people in the pro-life movement do not understand is that our value system is based on a certain set of beliefs, and when you come to the realization that absolutely everything you believed in is wrong, you are totally lost. You don’t know who to love, who to hate, who to root for; you don’t even know who you are, yourself.

Age is no factor in this. It is very, very difficult to reach an acceptance of what you have done. But God is very good. He doesn’t give us the full realization of the horror that we’ve done immediately.

I left the abortion business in 1989 after running the clinic for five years. If I knew then what I know today I would have gone to the nearest bridge and jumped.

The transition is long and continuous. What has happened in the past is that there are too many of us who have gotten out of the business, were embraced rapidly by the pro-life movement, and were put on the stage right away to give our testimony. Some of us became trophies, and ultimately were used and abused by the pro-life movement. There are very few of us who have experienced that sort of sudden transformation and have been successful in dealing with it. We see a lot of people who have been active within the pro-life movement, have done a lot of work after being in the abortion industry, and then have disappeared. A lot have fallen—gone back to drug abuse, or to alcoholism, which is extremely common among former abortionists. Some have even gone back into the abortion business, having been driven away by the pro-life movement, basically. So the Centurion program set out to educate the pro-life movement, to help them gain an understanding of the people who have worked in the abortion industry.

For example, I was in the business of taking human life. I was in the business of deceit. When you’ve been in that business, you don’t just come out and say, “I’m sorry,” and receive absolution, and it’s all over. On a human level, it doesn’t work that way. There is a long period of transition, and there are many difficulties.

Although there has never, ever been any official documentation or any clear statistics compiled, just from speaking with the former abortionists that I have dealt with throughout Eastern Europe, Western Europe, and here in the United States, I can say that 95 percent of us have been abused—emotionally, psychologically, physically, or sexually—as children. Is there a correlation? I think so. But it is going to take scientific research in order to really make that correlation.

You said that most members were raised in some faith and became atheists. Were they actually atheists—as opposed to just agnostics, or people who just didn’t care about religion?

Appleton: Well, I think they just don’t —or didn’t—believe in God. Some become agnostics. Some of them remained in their churches. And some people who are still active in the abortion business are also involved in their churches today. They are deacons in their churches, they are elders in their churches, they are perhaps lectors, or take communion devoutly on Sunday, or are very active in their parishes. But they don’t believe any more; it is all a facade.

You have mentioned that drug and alcohol use is common among people who come out of the abortion industry. Is it equally high among those who are still doing abortions?

Appleton: It is very high in the industry. There is not a difference between those who are in the abortion business and those who come out. The drug use and alcohol use begins within the industry.

The one thing that people do not understand is that there are three things that can happen to you when you are in the abortion business.

First, you can realize the horror that you are involved in, and you get out.

Second, you can realize the horror that you are involved in, but you do not have the courage to get out, so you get a little mentally ill. By that I mean that your life just isn’t right. In particular, personal relationships fail. You may start doing drugs or abusing alcohol during that time, but you are miserable and you really have no idea why. Your life is falling apart.

Third, you can realize the horror that you are involved in, and you don’t have the courage to get out, so you take it a step further, and you begin worshipping the horror, and then “the choice” becomes your god. This is a real diabolical side of it, and people need to understand the spiritual warfare that goes on. This is where you sell out, one way or another. And many physicians, in particular, have done that. These are primarily the partial-birth abortionists—those who really relish what they are doing.

Is the incidence of drug abuse as high among former abortionists in Eastern Europe as it is in America?

Appleton: Yes, it is—with alcohol being the number-one drug of choice.

You started the first chapter of the Centurions in America. How many people are members now?

Appleton: Actually, most of the people with whom I am working are not members; they are on the periphery. I get calls every day—because we have distributed our literature, making it available to people in the abortion industry. Sometime in the fall of 1999, I hope, we will have our first therapy session. It will be a very private event—secretive, actually—for our first group.

The calls that I get come not only from people who have not been in the abortion business and left it, but also from people who are still in the abortion industry and want help getting out. So our numbers are growing. I can honestly say that I have contact with about 60 people, including both former abortionists and present abortionists and clinic employees. The need is mammoth.

What we hope to do is keep our support team in Minnesota, where I live, and do the hard therapy there, but branch out into other states and make the fellowship available for those who want to come out of the abortion business. We want to make all the information available, and certainly someone who has been in the business should be able to find someone who is available to talk—ready to talk to anyone who is willing to engage in the conversation, or who is hurting, or who is looking for some help in coming back to the church and coming back to God.

We are very different culturally here in the United States and in other parts of the world, so we will be run somewhat differently from the way that the international conferences of the Centurions are being run. In Eastern Europe in particular, their needs are very, very different from ours. In Eastern Europe, when a physician decides that he can no longer do abortions, he is likely to lose all hospital privileges, which means that he will lose the right to practice medicine, and thus to support his family.

That is a devastating blow—something we don’t suffer here in the United States. And yet most of the people who contact the Centurions in Eastern Europe are willing to do just that—to take that risk. So the Society tries to help these former abortionists within Eastern Europe to maintain a living. For instance, Dr. Ney was able to get an ultrasound machine to a doctor in Romania, and she was able through referrals to maintain a small office. Not only could she make a small living at what she was doing through the referrals—because she was the only private physician to have an ultrasound machine—but she was able to save lives at the same time.

Still, for those doctors the sacrifice is tremendous, in a way that it is not for us here in the United States. Here a doctor can go on doing other things when he gets out of the abortion business, and certainly not lose a livelihood.

So the needs are different, depending on which part of the world you live in. Another thing unique to Eastern Europe is their perception of God. They know that there is a God, but they have lived under Communism for so long that very often the one God they know is the fearsome God, and not a forgiving, merciful God. So they are waiting for God to strike them down, to punish them for what they have done, and they live with tremendous pain and anguish and guilt over having been forced to do abortions. Again, these needs are quite different from those we encounter here in the United States.

Here in the US we have a multitude of organizations that do post-abortion counseling for women. What we hope to do is to grow over the years, gradually, so that eventually we can meet all the needs of all the people who have been in the abortion business. But for now we are just in the beginning stages. Right now I have more former abortion providers looking for help than I have people ready to help them. So it is a heavy load.

Part of your job must be to educate the pro-life movement.

Appleton: Yes, we need to educate the pro-life movement. And we need to recruit members of the clergy, both Protestant and Catholic, who are willing to learn about the specific needs we deal with. We need to have them help us produce a booklet, aimed specifically for the clergy, to help others meet the needs.

You see, nine out of ten times, when someone decides to get out of the abortion industry, the first person he will go to is a member of the clergy. That member of the clergy can make or break that person at that particular time. Whether these people go on with the process of reconciliation, whether they succeed in their transition, is greatly dependent on that first encounter with the clergyman. So it is vitally important that the clergy understand what they are dealing with. And none of them—none of them—do. The biggest handicap we have faced in reaching those people who have gotten out of the business has been trying to get through, or get around, the clergymen who have claimed them as their own personal trophies, and forbidden them to make contact with us. That’s very, very frustrating, when you know that on the human level, you are the only one who can help them. That has been a very difficult thing.

You also mention that a lot of people are hurt when they become sort of trophies and are pushed prematurely into a high-profile involvement in the pro-life movement—before they have come to terms with their own personal problems.

Appleton: Yes; those people are always hurt, and they always fall. I had a tremendously difficult transition myself. I got involved with drugs and alcohol. I did cocaine, marijuana, and prescription drugs. You see, I got on the speaking circuit too quickly. I ended up in a treatment center in Texas. The way it happened is that I was supposed to speak at a pro-life conference, and I never showed up; I ended up just sitting in my hotel room in a drugged state. This is what happens.

Now the pro-life movement can be very unforgiving about that sort of thing, but they are misunderstanding it. They don’t understand that you cannot stand up in front of a group of people you don’t know, time and time again, and tell them of the horrors of what you have been involved in, and not have it take an emotional toll on you—especially if you have not gone through the healing process.

We all fall, every one of us. And so the job at the Society of Centurions is to prevent that sort of disaster from happening. It is to educate the pro-life movement about our needs. Sometimes the last thing on earth anyone who has been in the abortion industry needs is the pro-life movement. They certainly need their friendship, they need to be welcomed because they are going to be outcasts, and they need their prayers. But that’s it. You know what I mean: Love me, support me, but don’t ask me to do any great pro-life work—not yet.

For now, I suppose, your most important job is to let people who are working in the abortion industry—or who have left the abortion industry—know that a group like the Society of Centurions exists.

Appleton: Yes. Right now more people are realizing the we exist, and I get calls constantly. I can’t get organized fast enough.

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