Former abortion staffer exposes inner workings of lucrative industry
A former abortion worker shared her story with the National Catholic Register, including dark details from behind the closed doors of Tampa Women’s Health Center, where she worked as the director.
Key Takeaways:
- Noemi Padilla worked at Tampa Women’s Health Center as the recovery room nurse and then the director.
- Padilla said she had her own abortion at age 17 when she learned she was pregnant with twins.
- She revealed that Tampa Women’s Health Center was unsanitary, bought lunch for staff if they reached 12 abortions in one day, and gave major incentives to get workers on board.
- After a heartbreaking experience with one patient, Padilla knew she had to leave the abortion industry and reached out to the pro-life group for former abortion workers, And Then There Were None.
- Today she works for Oasis Pregnancy Care Center, helping women choose life for their babies.
The Details:
Noemi Padilla was tired of her long bus ride to her job as a night shift nurse at a county jail in Florida when she stepped off the bus and into an abortion business to ask about a job. It was just a five-minute walk from her apartment, which at that moment sounded much better than her usual bus ride. Within minutes of walking in the door, she had secured a job at Tampa Women’s Health Center.
Bribery and Conditioning
“The executive director interviewed me on the spot and then introduced me to the doctor, and 20 minutes later, they offered me a job and asked if I could start that same day,” said Padilla. She would later come to understand how difficult it is to find skilled and trained staff to work at an abortion business. The director even offered her a $500 sign-on bonus and she agreed to work as the recovery-room nurse beginning right then and there, even though she had just come off a 12-hour shift at the jail.
“The bribery and conditioning started immediately,” said Padilla. “We began to see patients around 11 a.m. The support staff got excited [because] once we saw 12 patients we got free lunch, usually pizza or sandwiches. If we saw 24, we would get the ‘good lunch,’ Chinese or Jamaican food. That day, we ordered Chinese.”
In addition, the abortionist on staff offered to buy her a new phone saying that hers “wasn’t cool” and that “their clinical nurse couldn’t be seen with such an outdated phone…”
Padilla said, “I thought to myself, ‘What a productive day: new job that pays really [well], with lunch provided, in walking distance, new phone and a $500 sign-on bonus, so this is not a bad deal.”
Why “Quitters” Speak Out
Although she had been raised Christian, Padilla didn’t think of her job as one in which babies were being killed, but one that allowed her to help women. She herself had undergone an abortion after learning she was pregnant at age 17.
“I remember … the nurse shaking me to wake me,” she told the National Catholic Register. “She said I cried and screamed a lot. I lied to them and said my boyfriend was outside and they let me go.”
Even with that experience, she said she had “no clue of the atrocities that happen behind closed doors at abortion clinics.” One of the first things she learned was that there is no ‘choice’ at abortion businesses. They offer abortion, sometimes coerced and forced.
“That is not common knowledge,” she explained, “which is primarily why we ‘quitters’ speak out. We share the truth about what goes on inside the abortion clinics so that no one else gets fooled by them. That is our goal.”
Within a few weeks of taking the job, Padilla was offered the position of director. “I was … told that it came with a pay increase that would make it worth my time. Enough said, I took the job. I actually thought that as the director I could make changes and implement policies that would make it better and safer for women and make the clinic a reputable medical facility,” she said. “I could not have been more wrong. Every change I tried to make was denied [by the owner].”
Still, Padilla attempted to implement new rules, including forbidding anyone from coming to work under the influence of drugs or alcohol and insisting on proper attire. She also wanted to make the facility safer.
“The staff were so inappropriate and unprofessional. When I approached the executive director with my concerns, she certainly did not respect or appreciate my feedback,” Noemi wrote. “They didn’t care about germs or unsanitary conditions in the clinic.”
Many staff members quit when Padilla took over, and when she had to hire new ones, she realized it was not easy.
“I had become a part of the cult of coercion of new staff members,” she said. “We had slim pickings. I hired young ladies fresh out of school with horrible grades, desperate and willing to work in any circumstance. These were the type of women I trained to assist with surgical procedures.”
Prayers answered
Slowly, and thanks to the prayers of sidewalk advocates and her family, Padilla’s eyes were opened to the horrors of the work she was participating in.
“I was convinced God did not know me or see me so I could fly under his radar and keep doing what I was doing. God was not allowed into the abortion clinic, literally. We were not allowed to wear any religious jewelry. We weren’t allowed to say his name or speak anything religion-related. I also felt my actions in life were beyond redemption so I may as well make money and not worry about God,” she admitted.
But God had other plans.
Although not many people knew she worked at an abortion business, the ones who did were not happy about it, including her brother. He is a chaplain, and he would call her every night to pray with her. She said he was always peaceful and non-judgmental, never asking details or chastising her.
Then, an experience with a patient and her baby changed her. Read more about her experience at the National Catholic Register. That experience led to her leaving.
In an essay she explained, “The experience broke me. On Monday morning I lay in bed unable to move. Then I heard a voice, ‘You don’t have to go in,’ it kept saying. Suddenly I found myself starting to consider it.”
Padilla decided to quit and also began encouraging the staff members she had hired to quit. Every day outside of the facility were sidewalk advocates, praying and offering help to women and staff workers. Abortion staff began speaking to the sidewalk counselors about getting out of the industry.
“It took two years to get them all out…” she said. “That very day I called And Then There Were None (ATTWN). They told me they’d been praying for me since the other women who’d quit the center had told them about me.”
She added, “On the day I quit, my brother admitted that every prayer we had together he ended with a petition for God to guide me out of the abortion industry. We cried together, and I thanked him for his unconditional love, patience and faithfulness.”
Healing and Hope
Today, Padilla works for Oasis Pregnancy Care Center, where she has encountered women whose babies she has helped to abort. “I have been blessed with the opportunity to sit face-to-face with women [whose children] I have aborted and apologize to them. I totally did not know what to expect, but we cried together, healed a little together, then hugged! If that is not God-ordained, what is?” she said.
She also now acts as a liaison between people quitting the abortion industry and ATTWN.
Padilla is healing from her time inside the abortion industry, but she’s also healing from her own abortion of twins and the scars it left — emotionally and physically. Severe scarring from the abortion means she has been unable to become pregnant again.
She finds happiness and hope in helping her sister raise her three children. “They are my blessings and have given me the honor of parenting,” she said. “God never fails us, and he has allowed me to experience all joys and hurts, ups and downs of children.”
The Bottom Line:
One study found that 64% of women who have undergone an abortion said they were pressured to do so, while a separate study of women who have sought post-abortion counseling found that nearly 74% of those women felt some form of pressure to have an abortion.
“Abortion horribly impacts every woman that has had one. It may not happen immediately, but there comes a day that anger, regret and guilt kick in. Thank God that there are many programs and resources available to post-abortive women today,” said Padilla.
[Editor’s note: This story originally was published by Live Action News.]