As the upcoming anniversary of Roe V. Wade approaches, I am always reminded of the horror I lived for 2 years, thanks to that fateful decision of our Supreme Court.  My name is Kirsten Breedlove-Salzano. My name is forgettable, but my story is not.  Salzano is new; I am now happily married to a wonderful Christian man, and have a beautiful daughter, a true gift from God, considering, when I became pregnant, I deserved no gifts from God, or so I thought. 

 When I was Kirsten Breedlove I was a young, naïve, and greedy nurse. I was not a Christian. I had gone to Catholic school, but only because my parents thought the more money you spend on education, the better you would receive. I learned nothing about Jesus in my school, only just how to get by. At nineteen years old, I met a man who had expensive jewelry and a Mercedes. I wanted to be whatever he was, to afford me that lifestyle.  Little did I know Satan had just come to me in the form of an abortionist, a doctor who had taken the oath to heal, but decided it better afforded his lifestyle to kill.  That is not how abortion was described to me. As a matter of fact, he was willing to let me work for him, at A-Z Women’s Health Clinic. The name itself was a farce, the only letter of the alphabet we covered, was A. Abortion.  I remember now that even at nineteen years old, how taken I was with the amount of money they were willing to pay someone like me, smart, caring, and completely devoid of the feeling that babies were dying every day.  I must have sensed that, because I became heavily involved in drugs, just to get through my everyday life. I never started with “gateway drugs, like marijuana” as the world teaches. My first drug was cocaine, it eased the pain of my job. Needles in the clinic, much like controlled substances, were not counted, so I injected the drugs. I also took Nubain, the drug we used to give the patients. It is much like Morphine, and it didn’t completely kill my pain, but it almost killed me.

 Daily there would be a member of an annoying group called “Operation Rescue” out there to irritate me and the patients. They had the nerve to ask me over and over again to pray with them, to change my life. Ha! My life was perfect. I had all the money I needed to buy the drugs I needed to be able to stomach the fact that we were doing later and later term abortions. Only a couple of times did a full baby come out, or a cervix was punctured having the young girl go to the hospital. The one I remember was 19, she ended up having to have a full hysterectomy due to complications of that abortion. She would never have a child of her own to hold. We took care of that at the clinic, we burned her chart. Sometimes I would try to hit the OR counselors with my car, for fun. Or, have a very dedicated man thrown in jail for praying too loud. The police always backed me, calling them a “nuisance”  

The day I did a sonogram and saw a 15 week old baby in a woman’s stomach was a shock to all but God Himself. My heart was so hard from years of drug abuse, being abused as a child and witnessing what happened inside the clinic, I never thought I would find my way out. All of a sudden, all I wanted to do was show this young lady there was a baby in there. When I did, she wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was. She thought she had made her decision. The Holy Spirit had made its way into that death house, and had given me back my conscience. I walked her to the gate where the faithful OR counselors were waiting, and asked them to help her. I think they thought I had taken too many drugs that day! This was the first, but certainly wouldn’t be the last. I began to take most of the clients out there. Months before, I had hired the lady I had come to respect, for giving women the right to choose, Norma McCorvey. She simply quit and went to work for another clinic. But, God had plans for her too. On March 18, I asked the Operation Rescue workers to pray with me. I can imagine their fear of walking towards my car, with as much as I had done to them, but they came quickly, and I received Christ, in my clinics parking lot.

 Obviously, having power of attorney over the clinic, it didn’t last long, because I walked every patient to the fence, until there were no more patients, and the clinic went bankrupt. I take no glory in that place closing, because I now know Jesus sometimes finds you at a fence, and that is where I found Him. He did the rest. I have yet to fully describe things that I witnessed in that horrible place. I have been quoted as saying “It was like a scary movie, you would see hands and feet in a bucket” That is true, but it was worse. I still struggle with forgiving myself, but I do know Jesus saved me. He used the most annoying people in my life, and then made them my family. I still call upon Flip, Mark, Rusty and several more when I am in need. I learned one thing; they really did love me, despite of me. I am forever grateful. I am also FREE. No longer a slave to those things that once held me. God is so good. My daughter is proof that one can survive such a painful past and make a life for their family.

                                                           God Bless You,

                                                            Kirsten Salzano