Jesus Saved This Post-Abortive Mom From Suicide. Now She Helps Others Find Healing.

All was going according to Sarah Johnson's* plan.

Her unsuspecting husband had left for work at the usual time without incident, and her baby girl had drifted peacefully to sleep in the backseat. There was just one more element Johnson needed to fall into place.

Her eyes scanned the two-lane road ahead until, finally, they found what she was looking for. Heart pounding, she jerked the steering wheel to the left, placing herself and her baby into the path of an oncoming semi-truck.

Then, moments before impact, a thought entered her mind.

"It was something from a sermon that I had heard years before, when I was forced to go to church, that this pastor had mentioned—that there's one unforgivable sin and that's suicide," Johnson told Restoration News.

Panicked by that thought, she careened back into the right lane.

"I ended up going off the road, and I stopped the car, and I just remember saying to God: 'I can't do this. I don't know what to do anymore. I can't live like this, and if you are there, I need help,'" she recalled.

Johnson didn't know it then, but she was struggling to cope with years of repressed trauma from an abortion she had in college.

"I couldn't deal with the turmoil that this whole event was causing me, and I wasn't thinking straight to reach out for help," Johnson explained.

Her experience is not uncommon among post-abortive women plagued by feelings of guilt and regret. Despite that fact, abortion proponents often promote the procedure as a measure to protect a woman's mental health.

Johnson is a firsthand witness to the lie in those claims. She also knows that there is hope for those experiencing post-abortion depression, having received the help she prayed for. Now, as the director of the Illinois-based Restore After Abortion program, she helps others find healing and peace after abortion.

Saved by Grace

Like many post-abortive women, it took years for Johnson to connect the mental and emotional side effects of her abortion with the procedure itself.

"I wanted it," she noted. "I didn't anticipate that I would have struggles afterward."

Those struggles included discomfort with being around babies or being asked by family members when she planned to have kids. But it wasn't until years later, when she became pregnant with her daughter, that she began to understand the gravity of her decision.  

"I saw the very first ultrasound and I realized, oh my gosh, that is what I got rid of," Johnson said. "And from that point on, all the way to the birth, when they put the child in my hands, I couldn't feel anything towards that child. There was a complete emotional block on my part."

As family and friends gushed over her newborn baby, she felt as if she were trapped in a nightmare, haunted by the secret of the abortion she'd only ever discussed with her husband.

Over the following months, she spiraled into a deep depression. Consumed by that darkness, she hatched her plan. But by the grace of God, the day she tried to end it all ended up being the day the light broke through.

Psalm 34:18 "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Amen! 🙏 pic.twitter.com/OxkrbzEtXK

— The Bible Reels (@TheBibleReels) August 12, 2025

As Johnson sat there in her car, desperately crying out to God, a sudden peace fell over her. "I felt God literally touch my heart, and I could feel his comfort in my life," she recalled.

Soon afterward, God led Johnson to a Bible-believing church. It was there that she learned of the Restore program.

"One time, I was coming out of the service, and they were handing out brochures," she said. "I picked up the brochure, and on the front it said, 'Have you ever had an abortion in your past?' and 'Are you suffering from any of these symptoms?'"

The leaflet listed common symptoms of post-abortion depression, including regret, guilt, suicidal thoughts, and discomfort around pregnant women and babies. After scanning the list, Johnson realized she had experienced nearly every single symptom but never once connected them to her abortion.

She began attending the free program, where she received support from others who had experienced similar struggles. She processed and reconciled her emotions, learning to forgive herself and others while seeking God's forgiveness as well.

The process, Johnson said, "completely changed" her life.

The Mental Health Bait-and-Switch

One argument proponents make in favor of unfettered abortion access is that depriving a woman of the option to kill her baby could negatively affect her mental health.

Several states, buying into the fearmongering, have now carved out legal exceptions that allow abortions in cases where the pregnancy poses some threat to the woman's mental or general health.

Setting aside the fact that every pregnancy carries those risks, it is notable that the so-called "experts" who endorse such thinking never mention the significant mental health risk linked to abortion itself.

More than one in three women who have an abortion will experience depression, according to a 2023 analysis of studies from around the world. An additional study published this past July found induced abortion is associated with an increased risk of mental health-related hospitalization in the long-term compared with other pregnancy outcomes. Those findings also corroborate research published in 2005, which found that young women who had abortions in New Zealand experienced increased rates of subsequent mental health problems—including depression, anxiety, suicidal behaviors, and substance use disorders—compared to those who had been pregnant and did not have an abortion.

A new peer-reviewed study, “Induced abortion and implications for long-term mental health,” has confirmed what many women have quietly carried for years: that post-abortive women often face long-term mental health challenges such as depression – that often take decades to recover… pic.twitter.com/wXuZ35jbH2

— Dr. Leslyn Lewis (@LeslynLewis) September 8, 2025

Unsurprisingly, abortion giant Planned Parenthood offers no warning of the prevalence of such outcomes. In fact, the organization claims it's "rare" for an abortion to result in "serious, long-term effects on your mental health." If that were the case, however, the Restore program wouldn't exist.

"The program has been around for about 25 years now, and it started out with a bunch of people that realized that women were coming into the pregnancy centers and talking about their struggles," said Johnson, who has directed Restore for 11 years.

Initially, the program had only one part-time staff member at the helm. In 2008, the first director was hired, and then that person went on to train many more volunteers, "as we were seeing more and more of a need with clients that would reach out to the program to get help," Johnson said.

Finding Hope

Restore is open to both male and female participants affected by abortion. The most common issues participants struggle with, according to Johnson, are regret and a form of identity crisis.

"A lot of times, you'll hear that they're just struggling with identifying that that's who they are now—they can't separate the event from who their identity is," she said.

Abortion can also cause strife within relationships. If the procedure leads to a split or falling out, that's another loss an individual could be coping with, Johnson noted.

Still others may experience the same disconnect with following pregnancies that Johnson felt with her daughter.

"People always talk about how they can feel that connection with their child in their belly. I never felt that," a Restore participant named Lisette shared in a testimonial. "I thought, oh, when she's born, that'll change. And it didn't."

But one of the most common regrets Johnson hears from participants, besides the abortion itself, is that they didn't take more time to think it through.

"I've had so many circumstances where they've said, 'I found out on Monday I was pregnant and Tuesday I had the abortion,'" she said. "They didn't even wait 24 hours. They just panicked and had it, and then they're living with that regret."

Johnson stressed that women facing unplanned pregnancies should take the time to consider all the potential consequences before deciding to abort. Pregnancy, she noted, is a short-term condition. "It's not the rest of your life, and those months will give you time to prepare for whatever your fears are."

In that vein, she also advised against making decisions based on fear.

"Look ahead and think about, one year from now, how would you like to describe your life—with regret, or that you went through a very challenging experience but developed something out of it that was positive, like character, perseverance, or resourcefulness," Johnson said.

"And not only that, but you're gifted with an additional life that you can care for and help form," she added. "There is an incredible calling to do so with that situation and a great opportunity to help shape the future just with that one person that you get to live for."

Learn more about the Restore program and ways you can be a resource to those in need at RestoreAfterAbortion.com.

*Editor's note: The interviewee's name has been changed to protect her identity.

(READ MORE: The Nation Must Face the Abortion Pill Legal Monster)