Nelly Roach: ‘God Pulled Me Out’ of Planned Parenthood

At age 18, Nelly Roach sat in a Planned Parenthood clinic with $246 to pay for an abortion.

“I found myself there, as many many people find themselves, in a place where they don't feel that they have any options,” Roach says.

Roach was born into a Catholic family on the small island nation of Palau in the Pacific Ocean. When she was 13, her family moved to Missouri so she could receive a better education. She says she was raised with a sense of cultural responsibility to help and serve her family and her people, known as Palauans.

Waiting in the Planned Parenthood, Roach recalls, her mind raced. She felt she had to have the abortion for “the great good” of being able to help fellow Palauans one day, but also that what she was about to do was “wrong, but maybe I don't care.”

When her name was called, Roach stood up. “Had I turned left ... I would have had an abortion in a matter of minutes. But, you know, God pulled me out, and so I turned right [and walked out], and my baby is now 32 years old.”

After giving birth to her son, Roach entered the field of marketing and eventually had her own marketing company. For 25 years, Roach kept her story of nearly aborting her son private. In fact, her mother was the only one who knew she had ever visited Planned Parenthood.

But when her son was 23, she spoke at a marketing conference and was approached by a pro-life organization about how to reach more women who are considering having an abortion.

“I still believe that it was a divine conversation because it's such a polarizing topic. I wasn't talking about being pro-life, yet they felt comfortable coming to me,” Roach says.