
Trigger warning: This post contains graphic content about abortion.
CV NEWS FEED // A former Planned Parenthood worker-turned-pro-life advocate from California shared her story at a pro-life march in Malta on Sunday.
The march was organized to celebrate Malta’s “pro-life society and laws,” according to local news outlet Newsbook Malta.
Patricia Sandoval, a prominent pro-life advocate from the United States, flew in to share her story of redemption and healing with the crowds. She used to be pro-abortion and worked for Planned Parenthood as a nurse. Eventually, she had an experience working there that changed her life and her views on abortion.
At the pro-life march in Malta on December 3 Sandoval “praised Malta’s stance on abortion.”
Malta is one of the only remaining European countries where abortion is completely illegal unless the mother’s life is in immediate danger. This exception was introduced just this summer in June when the Maltese Parliament passed an amendment.
‘Life is a Right’ was the chosen theme for this year’s march, Newsbook Malta reported.
Sandoval was 19 when had her first abortion. Receiving little information on the post-abortion effects, Sandoval suffered from frequent nightmares, eating disorders, and anxiety. After her second abortion Sandoval became suicidal.
After her third abortion, Sandoval broke up with her boyfriend and moved to another town, wanting to “forget everything.” She got a job working for a Planned Parenthood as a bilingual back-office nurse.
“In the interview she told them she wasn’t a nurse, but they gave her the job anyway. They were very excited that she had had three abortions,” according to Celebrate Life Magazine, which featured Sandoval’s story in 2020:
The first day on the job, Patricia’s manager told her she would counsel 50 patients. She remembers telling the girls, “You’re 13 years old. You’re going to suffer if you bring a child into this world.” She told them that she’d had three abortions and was okay…
At Planned Parenthood, Patricia was warned to never use the words “baby” or “mother” or “fetus” because it gave human dignity to the baby. Instead she was told to say “it,” a “sac of tissue,” or a “blob of cells.” During the pre-abortion ultrasound that was done to determine how far along patients were, the screen was never facing the patient, even if she begged to see it…
On one occasion, Patricia’s manager told her she had to assist the abortionist, but that it would only last five minutes, “because time is money.” Patricia explains that they never really knew who the abortionist would be because he traveled to different abortion clinics around the state.
Her boss explained the reasoning: “If we have a complication, or a woman dies, and they sue us, the abortionist is not from here, so there’s less hassle for us. You will never tell a soul what you see behind these doors. Most importantly, you will never tell the mothers that, after the abortion, we throw their babies away in the garbage.” Patricia felt as if an arrow pierced her heart.
The turning point for Sandoval was after she helped with the abortion that day:
In the back room, Patricia wanted to see this “blob of cells” that the abortionist had removed. The “nurse” who was training her took tweezers and held up an arm with a little hand attached and said, “This is part number one. We need five parts.”
Patricia saw tiny fingerprints on those fingers. But what really broke her heart was the expression on the baby’s face. She could tell he was screaming because his little mouth was open. He had fought for his life, but there was nobody to defend him. It was then that Patricia realized that she had been lied to. She hadn’t aborted sacs of tissue. She had aborted three babies. Her children.
Patricia recalls, “Working behind the doors of a clinic is a step away from hell! I saw women screaming while our staff dragged them down hallways. I wanted to ask, ‘Isn’t anybody else horrified?’ But they had no expression; they worked like robots, traumatized by the abortions.”
The last day Patricia worked there, a girl, close to six months pregnant with twins, went into the clinic for an abortion. That’s when Patricia knew she had to leave.
After leaving Planned Parenthood, Sandoval lived on the streets with her boyfriend for three years and suffered from a meth addiction. When her boyfriend left permanently after a fight, Sandoval experienced a conversion on the streets of Sacramento where she begged God to forgive her:
Suddenly, a young woman ran out of a restaurant across the street and hugged Patricia, looking into her eyes. Her eyes were blue and full of mercy; her smile was full of love. She said, “Jesus loves you. I am a waitress over there, and I saw you crying. I prayed for you, and God told me to tell you that even if your father or mother abandons you, He will never abandon you. He’ll be with you until the end of time. He’ll forgive everything that you’ve done.”
That waitress, named Bonnie, took Patricia home to her (Patricia’s) father’s house. After years of struggle with family issues and one relapse into drugs, Patricia sought help in the sacrament of confession and eventually attended a Rachel’s Vineyard retreat.
Sandoval began working at a dermatologist’s office. After meeting Fr. Victor Salomon of EWTN’s Defendiendo La Vida at the Rachel’s Vineyard retreat, she told her story both Fr. Salomon’s show and Janet Morana’s Silent No More.
“Her apostolate grew until she was featured on Alejandro Bermudez’s program Cara a Cara on EWTN Espanol, which led to worldwide speaking engagements where thousands of men and women hurt by abortion have shared their pain and sought forgiveness and healing,” Celebrate Life Magazine wrote:
Patricia has since married and is now the mother of an infant daughter named Maria Victoria. She hosts the show De Dos en Dos on EWTN Espanol and says, “The youth are the reason I became pro-life. They are my passion and my motivation.” She hopes to continue her successful TV and speaking apostolate as she enjoys the joys of motherhood.
Learn more about Sandoval’s life and testimony here.
According to Newsbook Malta,
#Malta4Life launched its campaign during which it will be collecting signatures calling for an abrogative referendum aimed at striking down the amendment which allows doctors to terminate a pregnancy when a woman’s life is at risk or her health is in “grave jeopardy which may lead to death.”
The petition is calling on the government to scrap the recent amendment and reinstate old abortion laws.
