October 24, 2025

Former abortion clinic manager speaks of conversion, hope at rally

REGIONAL
Story and photo by Carolee McGrath

SPRINGFIELD – Ramona Trevino, a former Planned Parenthood manager, spoke at a mid-point rally for the 40 Days for Life campaign, Thursday, Oct. 23 at Our Lady of the Blessed Sacrament Parish in Westfield. Trevino, who is from Texas, flew up to the Northeast to give support to local 40 Days for Life campaigns in New England.

“I believed the lie that I was helping women,” said Trevino, who worked at a Planned Parenthood abortion referral facility in Sherman, Texas for three years before she resigned in 2011.

“I think like a lot of people, I justified and rationalized working for Planned Parenthood because we didn’t do abortions where I worked,” she said. But she added that she did book abortion appointments for women who came into her facility for a pregnancy test.

“So many people have this idea, well I’m not personally involved or I wouldn’t personally have an abortion, but every woman has a right to choose. That was my mentality too. I wasn’t personally for abortion myself. But it was okay for other women to choose that. It was actually after a 40 for Life campaign, I had gone out and reached out for prayers. Upon reaching out for those prayers, it was like the floodgates of grace poured out and I started to see things more clearly and understood at that point, that I could no longer be someone who was complicit in abortions,” Trevino said.

She said before reaching out for prayers, she stumbled across Catholic radio which led her to back to the Catholic church. Both she and her husband started to attend Mass again. She went to confession, but said it still took time for her to finally leave her position.

“Seeds were being planted and God knew he had to plant those seeds before I would say, ‘I can’t do this anymore,’” she said.

Her resignation led to the clinic going out of business. Trevino, a mother and grandmother, is the outreach coordinator for the national 40 Days for Life campaign and a sought after speaker. She is also the author of “Redeemed by Grace: A Catholic Woman’s Journey to Planned Parenthood and Back.”

The 40 Days for Life fall campaign kicked off Sept. 24 and runs through Nov. 2. The ecumenical effort, which was launched in College Station, Texas in 2004, relies on peaceful, public witness in front of Planned Parenthood. Springfield is one of 1000 cities across the country participating.

Since the first coordinated 40 Days for Life campaign, 182 abortion clinics have shut down across the country and 275 abortion clinic workers have quit.

“I think my biggest encouragement for those who say ‘I am out here day in and day out, nothing I am doing is making a difference,’ I can tell you %100, it is making a difference. Number one, there are a lot of things that go unseen. For example, even for the impact that public witness has on the workers, the employees. I’ve been on the inside and I know how they react, how they respond to the presence of people being out on the sidewalk. That physical presence on the sidewalk pricks the consciences of those who work inside the abortion industry. That’s what we want, to be a reminder and leave the rest up to God,” she said.

“And we also have so much evidence of people who come back after the fact and years later or months later, come back to the vigil site where 40 Days for Life takes place and will tell the participants ‘I was coming here to get an abortion and you guys were out here praying and I couldn’t go through with it. Because of you my child is alive today,'” Trevino added.

Since the Diocese of Springfield began participating, there have been at least 26 women who didn’t go through with their scheduled abortion because of people praying during the 40 Days for Life Campaign.

The last week of the campaign, Bishop William D. Byrne will lead the Rosary, on Monday, Oct. 27 at 3:30. All are welcome to join.

To sign up go to https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0F4FAEA928A0FAC52-58845921-40days#/