My Love Louder Journey

Working with Jennifer Christie, the Pro Life Movement and Sexual Assault Survivors: A Testimony

Hi Friends, 

Wow. What a few weeks it has been.

I’d like to share my Love Louder story with all of you. 

I know that I don’t have much of a platform. I’ve never been in this to have a platform.  I have always been in this to walk alongside fellow survivors, reminding them that they aren’t alone and to encourage women and families to choose life for themselves and their children even when the odds seem stacked against them. I want to see women thrive and NOT put into positions where they truly believe that they NEED abortion in order to do so. 

That is what drew me to Jennifer Christie. (Brierly) 

Jen and I met when we were moderating another PL group together. We became fast friends and when I was in need of booking a speaker for my banquets as a PRC director, I was strongly considering Jennifer. You see, it is easy when you are trying to raise money for a PRC to bring in a “name” that people follow and utilize their platform to generate money for your nonprofit. We see it all the time- that is why speaker bureaus exist. I didn’t want to do that. I wanted the people who were interested in supporting our centers to understand that I wasn’t just here to satiate their political desires, to fuel their zealousness for a cause and to generate a politicized frenzy in order to generate finances from it. NO. My goal was to truly get people invested in the work of the PRC, which involved providing support and resources to women and families. It was about parents being confident that they COULD get through a pregnancy and they did not NEED abortion and the encouragement that they were capable, supported, competent and that hope existed. Jennifer’s story was so much of that- despite the horror that she’d endured, her testimony was one of hope, healing and restoration. She talked about how the ugliest and most desperate moments in our lives do not have to define us and that God can bring beauty from the rubble and the ashes. As I reflected on the women I encountered every day across three centers, I knew that this was the story our communities needed to hear. 

Jennifer was an incredible speaker for our events, despite the chaos of Covid-19 and all of the disruptions that came with it. Despite the gossip being circulated otherwise, Jennifer did not share graphic, horrific details of her assault story. She shared very little of the actual assault and the bulk of her testimony focused on healing and hope.

I joined the Love Louder team in the Spring of 2021, after a year of close friendship and year(s) of acquaintanceship. I initially came aboard to volunteer on the hotline- which I did. Two days a week. I also began to contribute content for our social media and donor base. We met our clients where they were and did not demand they follow a prescribed format in order to receive our services. We saw each client as an individual, assessed her situation and needs and moved forward from there. We matched clients with volunteers as best we could, and ultimately Jennifer ended up working with a significant number of clients who are deaf while myself and two other volunteers took the bulk of the rest of the clients. It is important to note here that we had another team member for a time- Pro-Love had two individuals on the LL board due to their affiliation. One, the ED of ProLove, was supposed to be helping the new startup set up for success. The other was specifically supposed to be serving in a volunteer capacity as treasurer and on the hotline. In my time with love louder I did not experience any team interactions with the ED of pro love and Love Louder that offered any element of support to Love Louder to set the organization up for success. In fact, when I joined the team there were numerous aspects of nonprofit operations that the Love Louder team was not aware of. The ED of prolove would obviously be aware of all things required for nonprofit success and was specifically on the board to help serve those purposes, but the only real guidance she had given the Love Louder board was to ensure that Love Louder had an identity apart from Jennifer- which we were pursuing in having multiple members of the team present on Social Media and in communications. Some of the most basic information had not been communicated to the team. 

While these pro love representatives were still on the team, I demonstrated to the chairman of the board (SF) how to create a budget, how to use google docs, google sheets and how to scan and track receipts. She had been in and out of the team since I had joined due to things going on in her personal life, which I will not disclose here because I highly value confidentiality, and the entire team- especially Jennifer- was trying to be supportive and extend grace to her as she navigated these difficult circumstances.  

When the pro love representative who was supposed to be serving as a treasurer was approached about her difficulty keeping up with her responsibilities, she agreed that she could not keep up and was in over her head. She willingly stepped down. From there, the Chairman of the Board stated that she was going to use the budget spreadsheet and reconcile the accounts. Over the course of months, that did not happen. I have seen the budget spreadsheet that she attempted to make and it is a jumbled, disorganized mess. 

During this time, Jennifer’s speakers bureau was approached by someone claiming to believe that Jennifer was untrustworthy and therefore must be lying. This woman claimed to have known Jennifer for “over 25 years.” In fact, this was someone that Jennifer knew 25 years AGO. There is a significant difference between knowing someone FOR 25 years and knowing someone 25 years ago. The difference is like my best friend- we’ve known each other FOR 15+ years and know the core of one another’s souls and my ex’s sister. We knew each other 15+ years AGO and I’m sure she would tell dramatically different stories about my trustworthiness than my bestie would. We began, as a team, to discuss how best to handle these allegations. 

Jennifer’s speakers bureau spoke directly to me. Jennifer’s representative stated that on the 10th there was no snow, but she did not want me to tell Jennifer that “because then she will change her story.” She then told me that there WAS snow on the 28th, not the 10th, but she didn’t want Jennifer to have those dates. She repeatedly reiterated her desire that Jennifer not know about the weather reports, lest she “change her story.” She also said that she had spent hours reading Jennifer’s blogs and testimonies all over the internet and her actual story had remained consistent for years, but this “didn’t add up.” She lamented the history of speakers within her bureau lying and exaggerating their stories in order to get more attention and told me of times they have had to cancel speakers or ask them to edit their testimonies in order to stay on the speaking circuit. At least one of those speakers is still working with that bureau. 

This was my first big red flag. This Christ-centered speaker’s bureau had made up their minds that she was lying simply due to a 2 week date discrepancy and a weather report. This indicated a significant lack of understanding of trauma from the very beginning of all of this. 

It is well known to anyone who has any background in trauma- or even a basic understanding of trauma (which anyone representing speakers who talk about abortion, rape, surviving abortion, surviving abuse, etc. SHOULD understand) that memory in survivors is fragmented. The memory of a survivor encodes whatever had the individual’s attention at the time. Obviously, for someone experiencing a rape that led to the creation of a child as well as a plethora of medical conditions the attention would not be focused on creating a linear calendar of events. The attention would be focused on sensations- experiences like wind, for example. Or snow. The feeling of a big coat wrapped around her, fumbling with her bags, the confusion about his face- how he looked so innocent. Fear affects the way that time sequencing is encoded into the brain. This is why, when we experience traumatic events, it feels like time slows down or speeds up. It feels like 2 weeks last a month, 2 hours of waiting for test results feel like a day and why a survivor may genuinely believe that she spent months locked up in a dark room when it was really only a week. Time doesn’t make sense when the brain is working through fear- and this affects not just short term memory, but also long term memory. 

That’s why I was not surprised at all by my call with Jen after I spoke with her speaker’s bureau. Her response was EXACTLY what one would expect of someone whose memory had been affected by trauma. She didn’t immediately go into problem solving mode. She didn’t start trying to “find a way out of the lie.” No. She began to psychologically tailspin. I’ll never forget that phone call. It is seared into my memory forever. 

“What do you mean there was no snow?” She asked.

“It didn’t snow on January 10th,” I said. 

“Yes it did snow. There was snow. If I remember anything, I remember the snow,” She replied. 

“The weather reports confirm there was no snow on the 10th, babe.” I told her. 

“There was snow though. I know there was snow. I KNOW there was snow. Call the weatherman. Tell him he’s a fucking liar, because I know it was snowing. Cass. It was snowing. Don’t tell me it wasn’t snowing. Please, Cass,” and she began to cry. 

“I know I remember the snow. It’s the clearest part. I know there was snow. Nooooo.” She began to sob.

I cannot write this without crying. 

“Jen,” I said. “I believe you. You remember the snow and that is important. Our brains are funny things and they do all sorts of confusing stuff in the moment during trauma. We just have to figure this out, because we need to decide how to handle *NAME REDACTED*” 

“But it was snowing, Cass,” she sobbed 

“I know,” I whispered. 

“I can’t do this. I can’t go back there. I can’t… It was so cold. It was snowing.” 

I know, love. We’ll get through this. Okay? Talk to Jeff.” 

She did not immediately backtrack. She immediately spiraled. She did not immediately try to “preserve her story by changing details.” She got stuck in the sensations of those awful moments- something completely reasonable and expected if someone was, in fact, assaulted. It was not until later, when the team began to put together pieces of what happened, that the date of the 28th came up. I didn’t initially bring it up, either. I didn’t tell her to “change the date to the 28th to coincide with the snowstorm.” That date came up a few days later, after Jennifer recovered and was in a psychological place where she could begin to look at some of the information from that time in her life. 

We assembled as a team to figure out how to proceed. The speaker’s bureau was asking for Jennifer’s police report and medical records and the entire team was uncomfortable for a variety of reasons. We discussed the reality that most survivors of sexual trauma don’t have reports and Love Louder existed to support all survivors as well as bringing to light the difficult realities surrounding surviving assault. There were also very personal reasons why we did not believe this was wise- namely that just going back to the details of that time was extremely traumatic. Police Reports and Medical documents from rape intakes are extremely detailed and invasive- I know- I have been in the room when a rape kit was performed. These reports would outline- in a very detailed way- exactly what had been done to Jennifer’s body. Every scratch, every bruise would be described and likely photographed. That would also include descriptions and photos of her breasts, anus, vulva and even the parts of her vagina that are able to be seen via speculum exam. At least, this is what I experienced when I was a part of a rape kit examination here in IL. This is NOT information that ANYONE is entitled to. Providing this information to anyone- even her closest inner circle- would have been yet another violation of Jennifer’s privacy and her body. There is a reason that this information is considered closed and confidential and at Love Louder it was very important to us to prioritize the confidentiality of survivors- to communicate and set the example that survivors are not- should not- be expected to allow their bodies to be violated yet again in order to be believed. There was only one member of the team who expressed hesitation regarding this approach, and she still ultimately agreed that this was the best approach. This member of the team was also the least active, the most uninformed and untrained regarding trauma and the most inexperienced when it came to sexual assault and trauma. 

While we were in the middle of a Zoom meeting discussing this exact thing, Abby Johnson showed up. She popped in, interrupted everyone else and declared that she can shut this down quickly. She reminded us that she IS ABBY JOHNSON and all she needed to do was call the pregnancy resource center that the accuser volunteered for and served on the board for. She stated that she’d just go to them, tell them she had all of Jennifer’s reports and tell them they’d better rein her in or else she’d be speaking out publicly against the PRC. Please note that Abby did not have any reports. She was just going to threaten them and use public defamation as her weapon of choice in order to demand her way. She encouraged Jennifer to do nothing and let her handle it by throwing her name around, due to our affiliation with Pro Love. 

This made the call that they were un-affilating with Love Louder even more shocking. Jennifer believed that Abby was going to fight for her- that they were friends and she was supporting her. In private conversations Abby had begun to pressure Jennifer to go ahead and just release the reports. She was saying that she wished she had a police report or records to “prove” her story is true. She pushed and pressured Jennifer repeatedly to make the reports public- to send them not only to the organization that was accusing her of lying, but also to her accuser. 

Please note that Abby’s testimony has been under scrutiny for years. It is well documented that she was a disgruntled employee immediately prior to becoming a pro-life advocate and speaking out against planned parenthood. There is no evidence of the ultrasound guided abortion that is the crux of her testimony. She can prove nothing except that she once worked for planned parenthood and quit in the midst of disciplinary action. Yet the organizations and folks coming after Jennifer with pitchforks? None of them are demanding that Abby “prove” that her story is truthful or she be excommunicated, have all of her materials pulled and have her children publicly ridiculed. Why? Could it be because Abby gets paid approximately $20,000 per speaking engagement because she generates a significant amount of money for the events she speaks at? In fact, if you google “Ambassador Speakers Bureau,” Abby’s name pops up immediately. The reviews on Ambassador state, “This banquet was the largest attended and that reflected in giving…” 

Abby proving herself would not involve re-traumatizing her, making her relive the greatest violation of her body. It would not put countless other rape and SA survivors into a tailspin, believing that their stories cannot be shared and are not safe because they do not have reports to back them up. No, Abby’s “proof” would not violate confidentiality or harm countless other survivors but it isn’t demanded because ABBY brings in the money. While she is busy accusing Jennifer of fraud, she is raking in tens of thousands of dollars for organizations based on a testimony that she, herself, has never “proven.” She brings in more money in one event based on her unproven testimony than Love Louder brought in during its entire existence. Literally. 

I am so grateful now that we not only did not obtain Jennifer’s reports, but they were never shared in the Love Louder team discussions. It hurts my heart to see how much confidentiality has been abused in the last few months. It is devastating and truly demonstrates a deviation for God’s heart for his people. I don’t know when Abby began to communicate with others about Jen, spreading gossipy speculation. I do know that is what is happening. Had we obtained these extremely sensitive documents, there is no way to know that their confidentiality would have been preserved. There are members of the previous board that are actively breaching confidentiality, sharing voice and text messages that have all context removed from within those discussions. They are also sharing private information publicly about Jennifer’s medical conditions, her family life and her assault experiences- her memory, her mental health, etc. Her previous boss- who is an attorney- is sharing video of her prior to a suicide attempt in a very clear cry for help. All of this is in an effort to not only try to discredit Jennifer (as if proving that a survivor of significant trauma has mental health difficulties somehow proves she is lying about the assault) but also in an effort to harm her close relationships. Audio and text clips are being sent to people to try to alienate Jennifer’s relationships- audio and text clips that Jennifer believed she was sharing in a closed, confidential space. 

Please note that venting can be healthy, when done appropriately in a space that is confidential, full of empathy and safety. Many of the texts and voice clips being sent around to people in an effort to undermine her relationships were shared in a space comparable to that of a Bible Study group or a Recovery group. She believed that she was in a safe, confidential space where she could process what she was experiencing and thinking regarding a variety of things happening- including her relationships. These previous board members are taking these confidential messages outside of the original context and sharing them. Not only is this inappropriate and violating to Jennifer, it also needlessly harms others for the sake of furthering a slander campaign. They have shared her medical conditions, her children’s medical conditions, gossip and slander about her marriage and now her actual license plates. 

When Jen refused to do as Abby said and make her confidential legal and medical information public, all hell broke loose. First, Pro Love cut their affiliation with Love Louder. The entire board was in an uproar over it because just weeks prior Abby had been saying she was going to leverage her clout to lie about having Jennifer’s records to protect her. Both Ambassador Speaker’s Bureau and Focus on the Family spoke of someone “well respected within the movement” who was questioning the veracity of Jennifer’s story and making accusations. Could this “well respected person within the movement” be the same one generating thousands of dollars in revenue FOR the movement? The one Jennifer said “No,” to and held her boundary? 

Focus on the Family did ask for a packet for verification. One of their representatives was aware that we had made a decision that her police report and hospital record from the day of her assault would not be included. We have correspondence from their representative stating that this should be adequate for them. They only changed their minds AFTER speaking with this “well respected member of the pro-life community.” The information that we included in this packet is the type of information that one would present to a court of law. Since then, the medical professionals who included information in this packet have been harassed by those involved in the smear campaign. Jennifer even asked if this (the book deal) would change if the police report was sent with significant redaction OR a police report number was sent. She was not sure she’d want to do that, but she wanted to know. When this happened, they began to reference a deadline that had never existed. When all of this happened, we discussed it as a team and Jennifer decided not to fight for the book deal. She knew that with the previous documentation, the lack of an actual deadline given etc. that she probably could fight, but she decided she didn’t WANT to publish with them. She concluded that this platform was not the ideal platform to use when discussing trauma and rape if this was how these conversations were going to be handled. We, as her team, supported this decision.

There has been a lot of discussion surrounding a “falsified ultrasound.” This is because there is an ultrasound where a date in one spot was changed from 2/15 to 2/25. I don’t know, nor care how or why this was changed because the ultrasound clearly shows what Jennifer’s testimony has stated all along- a tiny little pea- most likely a gestational sac. The top right corner shows the ultrasound date as 2/15. The ultrasound was done on February 15- the day after valentine’s day-Consistent with her story of discovering that she was pregnant ON Valentine’s day. The pregnancy also shows to be approximately 5 weeks and 3 days along, per the ultrasound. The due date in the upper right hand corner states that the due date was 10/15/2014. These dates are clearly unaltered. Using a basic pregnancy and conception calculator, one can conclude that the possible dates of sexual intercourse (in this case, assault)  that led to pregnancy are January 14-January 29th. These dates are consistent with the snow storm that struck in Wilmington. It is completely reasonable that there are not a bunch of news reports, etc. In fact, sexual assault and rape survivors rarely get news coverage. 

There are numerous accusations surrounding fraud. I have gone through the Love Louder bank account as well as Jennifer’s personal paypal account. There is no record of Jennifer scamming her nonprofit out of thousands of dollars. The love louder account shows what you would expect from a nonprofit startup. Costs for office expenses, travel expenses, marketing expenses. Jennifer’s personal Paypal shows numerous outgoing payments directly to survivors of sexual assault as well as outgoing payments that were used to finish off registries and pay for supplies for survivors. Note that these were NOT Love Louder funds. They were not donated to Love Louder. These were registries, financial assistance, etc. that Jennifer did on her own, through her public figure page for survivors in addition to the work she was doing through Love Louder. Some of these transfers go directly to the survivors’ Paypal accounts, others go directly to amazon, where the registries were being fulfilled. It is clear that Jennifer is not “getting rich” off of her story or off of donations from people who also want to support survivors. Instead, she is investing into survivors. She was using her voice and her story to impact other people who were hurting and struggling. Comments from survivors that Jennifer and Love Louder supported have been deleted from the platforms. This cultivates a narrative that everyone believes these allegations and that there is no defense to be had on Jennifer’s behalf. That is false. 

Since this all began, the accusations and gossip have snowballed. This tends to happen when we are dealing in gossip. Jennifer has been accused of faking her post-assault injuries and using them to profit. Comments from people who have seen her have seizures have been deleted. Comments from those who knew her immediately after the assault have also been deleted. Other board members and I have seen portal reports detailing her medical chart. I have seen the charges regarding her surgeries in the last year. There are accusations that she couldn’t have had a partial mastectomy because the charges in her bank account reflect that she saw a surgeon who does cosmetic procedures. This is absurd and a cursory amount of research regarding mastectomy treatment will show the need for cosmetic treatment as well. This is not a “boob job” and calling it one is a slap in the face to every person who has experienced treatment for breast lumps. 

The story continues to evolve, because apparently people are desperate to live inside of a Lifetime movie. Now it includes rumors that Jeff, Jennifer’s husband is abusive, Jennifer is having an affair, Jennifer is making up car accidents, and apparently is such an expert at faking injury makeup that I didn’t realize that her injuries were not real when my face was literally pressed against hers taking photos at the Pro-Life Women’s Conference. That since she had seizures when she was younger and battling an eating disorder, she must not have experienced a TBI after the assault. She must have been faking ALL of it. 

It’s absurd. 

The board members who exited Love Louder have their own stuff going on that played a factor in their decisions regarding all of this. Unlike them, I am going to choose not to air the personal information that they discussed and shared in our Love Louder team discussions publicly. Their decisions have probably been the most devastating of all for me in all of this because Jennifer was not the only one who trusted them with the deepest parts of her self. I did too. I believe that these individuals were overwhelmed with the disorganization of the finances (left a mess by none other than Abby’s own staff member, unsupported by Abby’s own executive director) and then were thrown off by the ultrasound. Because they were already vulnerable due to confidential factors I will not discuss, this sent them into a tailspin and these vulnerabilities were exploited. They didn’t wait to have any discussions or to try to navigate through it. They jumped at the worst-case-scenario…betrayal. From there? Confirmation bias is a real thing. And in this case it has led to gossip and slander that is so extensive it is now involving minor children and explicit photos. 

I have my personal views on what happened that led to Abby’s decisions regarding Love Louder. None of these are fact, all of it is speculation and I will not try to present it as anything other than that. However, here is what I experienced: 

• Love Louder created a platform that was reaching and interacting with survivors regularly. While Abby has quite a reach with donors, she does not have a significant reach with actual clients and relies on referrals from supporters to generate her clientele. 
• Love Louder began to speak about things that did not align with Abby, and because of that, ProLove’s point of view. We spoke at length about believing survivors, supporting women, victim blaming, the dangers of purity culture and how that impacted sexual assault in faith based spaces, sexuality and sexual behaviors in survivors and appropriate responses to these behaviors that are not rooted in shame, etc. My own content on Love Louder’s platform included writing about the dangers of closed systems, the reality that sexual assault and rape do not look the way people who haven’t experienced it expect it to and a focus on helping survivors find hope rather than forcing survivors into behavior modificiation style approaches. 
• Love Louder truly focused on empowering women and survivors. While Abby and ProLove claim to be pro-woman, a cursory glance over Abby’s own social media demonstrates a lack of respect for women as autonomous beings as well as a lack of understanding and acceptance of groups that have been “othered.” Love Louder embraced those who were on the margins. We worked graciously and empathically with women and survivors whose experiences are the very things Abby spent much of her time trying to refute even exist. Oppression. Marginalization. These are not experiences that Abby and ProLove set out to help people navigate, they are experiences that they denounce the existence of. It is my belief that Abby did not want to continue to be aligned with an organization that spoke hope and encouragement into those spaces rather than jumping on board her beliefs. She was already growing concerned about our deviation from her platform, as well as our rising interactions with prospective clients as opposed to just other pro-life personalities when all of this kicked off. 
• Jennifer not taking Abby’s suggestion to make the police and medical reports public enraged Abby. She wanted to control Jennifer’s narrative and when Jennifer placed boundaries around what Abby could and could not dictate, Abby couldn’t tolerate it. This is consistent with Abby’s long history of public defamation when she doesn’t get her way, her weaponization of her followers and most notably, her response to Planned Parenthood. Her carefully cultivated comments section further confirms that Abby is not interested in the truth, she is interested in a narrative. 
• Jennifer continued to not release the police report, so Abby continues to try to create situations that will force her hand. First by using her name to get organizations to try to force her to do so. Jennifer held her boundary. Then, when none of that worked and Jennifer agreed to leave the movement entirely, Abby lost all power over her. Jennifer’s page and Love Louder’s page had been down for quite awhile before Abby made her public post and Love Louder had already begun to dissolve. By creating a public scene, she hoped to force Jennifer’s hand. When that didn’t work she continued to spread what is CLEARLY libel in an effort to rope Jennifer into suing her. If she were to end up suing Abby, Abby’s lawyer’s could demand just about anything for discovery- including the police reports and medical records. There have been numerous claims that all of these investigations are happening- the FBI, the state, the fed, etc. Nobody on our team has been contacted regarding anything. IF there was an investigation and any wrongdoing was determined to have occurred then any board members that were on the board at the time of the wrongdoing could be on the line- including Abby’s own Executive Director and staff member who was supposed to be functioning as the Love Louder treasurer when all of this alleged fraud was happening. I do not believe Abby’s intention is to “bring the truth to light.” I believe it is to try to force Jennifer’s hand, to violate her consent and to force her to lose her ability to say “No.” To put her in an impossible situation where Jennifer believes she has no other choice but to give her most vulnerable information over to someone who is actively hurting her.
  • That, my friends, is abuse. 

References: 

Seizures

https://time.com/3625414/rape-trauma-brain-memory/

​​https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/fact-fiction-pro-life-celebrity-abby-johnson-unplanned/

https://www.salon.com/2009/11/03/planned_parenthood_2/

https://www.sagu.edu/thoughthub/the-psychology-of-venting

Pregnancy Calculator 

https://www.healthline.com/health/mastectomy-reconstruction