Alfonso came out of the Army hoping to work in the medical field to help people as he had in combat. He began as a medical biller and coder and went to work for Planned Parenthood.
He first felt like he was doing a service for women.
Alfonso’s father left when he was a child and he did not have the opportunity in his upbringing for faith in God to take hold.
He struggled without a father figure and had a desire for the presence of God in his life.
It was after Alfonso survived a near fatal combat incident in the Army that he felt as though God may have been at work in his life.
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After being medically discharged, Alfonso struggled with PTSD and brain fog from his mild traumatic brain injury in combat.
When he took the job at an Indiana Planned Parenthood, along with thinking he was helping women he believed the abortion mantra that an unborn baby is just tissue, or a clump of cells.
Having been baptized after leaving the Army, Alfonso’s Christian faith began to mean a disconnect with his work. Though people would tell him he was doing something good, he knew otherwise inside.
Meanwhile, others in his family disagreed with his employment at an abortion center.
“My mom definitely didn’t support it,” Alfonso said. “She’d say, ‘You’re my son, and I love you,’ but she wished I’d find a job somewhere else.”
As at many abortion centers, sidewalk counselors prayed regularly in front of the Planned Parenthood building. Once or twice, Alfonso got to talking to them and when he did, he defended abortion. But any conversation with sidewalk counselors was prohibited by Planned Parenthood and he was written up for not following the rules.
“You have to sign a paper when you start working there that you will not talk to anyone praying outside, you won’t tell them anything that goes on inside,” he said. ‘If you’re caught a couple of times, you’re fired.”
Another thing that was prohibited was displaying any signs of faith in God.
Alfonso was told to put his cross necklace inside his scrubs, and when he was caught reading his Bible on his lunch break, he was told, it was “offensive” and to not bring it to the center again. No co-worker expressed support for him. Alfonso points out that Planned Parenthood purposely hires those with a ‘progressive’ mindset who are less likely to disagree with anti-Christian policies.
When that Planned Parenthood closed following abortion becoming illegal in Idaho, Alfonso was asked to work a few miles away at another Planned Parenthood in Oregon. With Idaho abortion centers shut down, young women came to this Planned Parenthood from miles around, where abortion were done up to 30 weeks.
This was when he began to see things in a different light.
A regular group of sidewalk counselors would minister at the abortion center and Alfonso saw their sincerity, offers to help women, and encouragement for abortion workers to leave the industry.
“I got talking to one guy for like a half-hour one day,” he recalled. “I was seen on the cameras and got written up.”
But the man planted a seed and Alfonso continued to chat with him.
His eyes were opened further at a monthly employment meeting where the Planned Parenthood director talked about not meeting monthly abortion goals.
“Abortions brought in a lot of money, a lot more than selling contraception or pap smears,” said Alfonzo. “It was $650 for up to 12 weeks, and $1500 after that, and this was a couple of years ago.”
The callous sales goals meeting got Alfonso thinking about finding other work. He thought of a pregnant girl who’d come into the abortion center thinking about placing her baby for adoption. The center pushed her to abort instead.
“At that meeting to go over the financials, I began to see that Planned Parenthood really was all about the money,” he said.
Alfonso had worked in various abortion center roles from front desk to the recovery room. Most horrifying was the POC (products of conception) room, where he witnessed the death of the aborted babies firsthand and felt as though he were back in combat witnessing dead bodies.
Alfonzo turned to alcohol to deal with things, which eventually impacted his marriage.
Another depressing aspect of the abortion industry for him was seeing women return for repeat abortions as though they were birth control. This was a never-ending cycle that left him hopeless.
After his marriage fell apart from his alcohol and substance abuse he began praying and reading his Bible, asking God for help.
The way out of abortion employment for Alfonzo came when he was abruptly fired for a charting error. He was angry, but this was liberation.
That day, Alfonso walked across the street to a pregnancy center, where he told them that he had just been fired from the abortion facility, and he asked for help and counseling.
“I said I wanted to speak to the guy who’d been talking to me in front of Planned Parenthood,” Alfonzo said, the man had said he was connected to the pregnancy center.
The pregnancy center connected him with the sidewalk counselor from Love Life pro-life outreach, who became an important support and advocate for him. They also connected him with the And Then There Were None abortion worker ministry.
Alfonzo had thought he was all alone, and he was motivated by knowing there were others like him who had walked out or were looking for a way to leave.
He is grateful for the help he has received, praying to God each day in thanksgiving.
Just days later, Alfonso stood outside the very abortion center he’d just left, praying and holding a sign of encouragement for women. Though his former coworkers have yelled at him and called him a hypocrite, he realizes that other former abortion workers are his friends.
Alfonso is now sober, is engaged to be married, and works with immigrants who are survivors of war as a registered medical assistant. He is also dedicated to his faith in God.
Alfonso has had the opportunity to use his story of having worked from Planned Parenthood to inspire others with the message of life and God.
He has also been able to have a hand in a pregnant mom who was headed into his former employer to ultimately choose life for her child.
“It’s my calling from God,” Alfonzo said. “This is what I’m meant to do.”
LifeNews Note: Patty Knap is a certified pregnancy counselor, faith formation teacher, ABA therapist for autism, and freelance writer from Long Island. This originally appeared at Pregnancy Help News.
