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DULLES, Virginia, May 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-life media can have a huge impact on women considering abortion – although abortion opponents themselves may not know it, according to former Planned Parenthood clinic director Abby Johnson.

Johnson described the impact of one pro-life television advertisement campaign that criticized her own Planned Parenthood clinic in Bryan, Texas. Everyone working at the clinic, she says, had seen the ad – and apparently, so had many women who might have had abortions there.

“Our numbers declined almost 50 percent while that campaign was running,” said Johnson. “Why?

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“Because pro-life media works.”

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Johnson, whose dramatic pro-life conversion two and a half years ago made shockwaves in both pro-life and pro-abortion circles, was speaking at LifeSiteNews.com’s 15th anniversary gala in Dulles late last month of the number one way to bring clinic workers into the pro-life fold: give them the truth.

“There are many things that change their minds, and of course God is at the center of that. But you know what really catches their attention? Facts.”

She described one encounter with a man named Tom outside a different abortion clinic after Johnson had begun pro-life activism. Although Tom regularly showed up alongside the pro-life protesters, he was not with them: in fact, he held up a piece of posterboard with the word “pro-choice” on it. Johnson spoke to Tom and learned that he was the grandfather of an aborted child.

“And I thought, okay, this is a man that’s hurting, and we need to reach out and minister to him,” she said. She took the opportunity to share several news articles on abortion, saying, “I want you to do the research on this yourself.”

“He read them over,” said Johnson. “He came back the next day. And he walked up to me without his sign, and said, I just wanted to let you know that I’ll never be coming out here again as someone who’s pro-choice.”

“What we write, what we say, our actions, are bringing about conversion, and it’s happening almost every day.”

Johnson says that her new ministry to clinic workers, And Then There Were None, has helped 17 workers leave the abortion business in four months.

“Isn’t that all we want in the pro-life movement? Yes, we want to save babies, but … we want to convert the clinic worker,” she said. “We want to convert the woman or man who’s going in to an abortion clinic.

“We want conversion. That is our ultimate goal.”

But Johnson says she knows from experience that the road won’t be easy.

“When I saw the abortion on the ultrasound take place, and I went back to my office, I desperately wanted to justify what I had just seen,” she said. “I justified my sin for eight years.

“I did not want to leave my job. I did not want to leave the money I was making. I didn’t want to leave all my friends. … I wanted to remain comfortable. We’re not called to be comfortable. Fighting this war will not be comfortable. We will take hits – but we don’t do it because it’s comfortable, we do it because it’s right.”