sorrow

Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 24, 2025 / 08:00 am (CNA).

Abortion clinic workers across the country are once again receiving Christmas cards from religious sisters offering prayers, compassion, and an invitation to seek a career outside the abortion industry.

And Then There Were None (ATTWN), a pro-life organization dedicated to assisting abortion clinic workers leave their jobs and find life-affirming careers, carries out this ministry each Christmas season with help from convents around the country. The Christmas card project is a part of a larger mission of handwritten cards sent throughout the year.

This year, Dominican, Maronite, Benedictine, Carmelite, Capuchin, and Franciscan sisters, as well as Apostolic Sisters of St. John and Trinitarians of Mary, sent at least 1,030 handwritten Christmas cards to abortion clinic workers with loving messages and an image of the Holy Family. 

Reaching ‘quitters’

ATTWN has sent nearly 23,000 handwritten cards to abortion facilities in the last decade, encouraging workers to leave their jobs with ATTWN’s support.

“The clinics are hearing from us about once every four to five business days in some way, whether it’s through some gift, a little trinket, a handwritten card, a postcard, or something we send in,” Abby Johnson, ATTWN CEO and founder, told CNA.

Johnson herself once worked in the industry, serving as a clinic director of an abortion facility in Bryan, Texas, for eight years before leaving and starting ATTWN to help other “quitters” leave, find new employment, and heal from their experiences.

“Our handwritten card ministry is one of the most effective ministries we have in reaching abortion clinic workers and having them leave,” she said. “There’s just something very personal about a handwritten note. Somebody took the time to sit down and write to you.” 

ATTWN has “dozens and dozens” of volunteers who send the messages regularly, Johnson said. “We have a really accurate database of abortion clinics and abortion referral facilities. I think there’s about 850 facilities on there, and this group of women are constantly writing notes.” 

When workers receive the notes, “they leave,” Johnson said. “Workers will say, ‘I got this letter. I folded it up, I kept it in my purse, I put it in my scrub pocket, and I went home and I called you guys.’ So it is very powerful. We see that it does truly make a difference.”

“I received a handwritten note from one of my sidewalk counselors when I worked at the clinic, and I still have it in my wallet,” Johnson said. “It’s just a Bible verse on it, but it says, ‘The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with joy.’ And I still have that little card in my wallet from 18 years ago.”

The note “meant enough at that time to keep it,” Johnson said. “I pull it out and remind myself why I’m doing [pro-life work] and how God has blessed me so much. It’s just a powerful reminder that someone out there took the time to think about you, specifically.”

Christmas card ministry 

The letters create “by far the most overwhelming response … and we have the highest response from them at Christmastime, which is when they are receiving the notes from the sisters,” Johnson said. 

Five years ago, Johnson decided to incorporate the Christmas season into the ministry, specifically with the help of religious sisters. 

“The idea came to me because I was very moved by a Franciscan sister who used to pray in front of the facility where I used to work in Bryan, Texas. It was the first time that I had ever seen a nun in public in my life.”

“I was so struck by her being out there and her presence,” she said. “It was so hot outside, and she was in her full habit, and her little face was so red. It was over 100 degrees. I remember I just watched her all day outside my window.”

“I remember the first patient that left that day after having an abortion, she fell to her knees and was just weeping. I thought: ‘Wow, this has really impacted her in a way that I just can’t understand. She has a sorrow that I just don’t understand.’”

“That’s always stayed with me ever since I was working there … So when we started the ministry,  we started thinking: ‘How could we incorporate nuns in some way?’” 

If workers started speaking with religious sisters, it could “make an impact on their heart,” Johnson thought. “We started reaching out to convents across the country, asking them if they would partner with us.”

Several reached back out to ATTWN and eagerly wanted to be a part of the project.

A ‘perfect partnership’

ATTWN shares its database of clinics with the sisters, “then they just start writing,” Johnson said. “It’s just been really beautiful to see the fruit of that.”

Some of the participating sisters live in cloistered convents. “They don’t go out. They spend their lives in contemplative prayer,” Johnson said. “So their only real correspondence is through mail, through writing. So it’s beautiful work for them.”

“This is what they do. They write notes, they send letters, they pray. That’s what they do all day long. So it’s a perfect ministry for them. It’s a perfect partnership.”

ATTWN will send the sister some ideas of what they can write so they know the proper resources to share with the workers, but then they can add any additional messages.

“They fill in other things that they would like to say, different spiritual things that they feel led to say,” Johnson said. Their messages are “from their hearts and are just so prayerful and beautiful.”

After the sisters write the Christmas cards, they are “put on the altar, they’re blessed, they’re prayed over, and they’re sent in.”

“We always make sure that we send them a card that has the image of the Holy Family on it. We just want to remind them that that’s what God wants for them, and this is what Christmas is about — it’s about the Lord.”

The image is a reminder that “this is what we’re designed for,” Johnson said. “We’re designed for families, and God wants families for them as well. He wants families for the women who are walking into those clinics.” 

“He created us for good, for family, for love, and for creation, not for destruction. We make sure that the cards that we send in have an image that really defines that.”

Johnson plans for ATTWN to continue to send the annual cards from the sisters. “For so many of these convents, being pro-life is a part of who they are. It’s part of their charism,” she said. “So we would love to have as many as we can participate.

Read More