Once again (and tragically) “Choice” is exposed as the myth that it is. Girls and women, especially poor, uneducated, and with limited resources, are coerced, threatened, and abused into having abortions. This is done by their boyfriends, husbands, parents, guardians, health care workers, and in this case, allegedly a caseworker, Cynthia Brown, with the Philadelphia Department of Human Services. Read about this news story here.
The caseworker in question is said to have told a young, pregnant teen in foster care that if she did not have an abortion, her toddler or her unborn child would be taken away from her. The teen had reportedly been happy about her pregnancy and had told her young child that she was going to have a little brother. After being threatened, the teen was driven to a late-term abortion facility by Brown, where the unborn child was killed by the injection of a feticide. Heroically, the teen’s social worker, Marisol Rivera, had refused to take the girl to get an abortion and was quoted in the Philadelphia Daily News as saying, “They hired me to work in child protection, not to kill children.” Additionally, Rivera said she was fired for refusing to take the girl for an abortion. The Philadelphia Daily News reported that the DHS has tried to keep the whole affair quiet. Indeed!
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, who is now pro-life but was a co-founder of NARAL, claims to have coined the terms “pro-choice” and a “woman’s right to choose.” He also says that these were merely slogans and not based in any truth or reality. If organizations such as Planned Parenthood and NARAL were truly “pro-choice,” why are they silent regarding the human rights abuses in, for example, China, where women are forced into contraception, sterilization and abortions, or even about their “one-child policy” in general? Women in China are not permitted to freely choose how many children to have. Or why don’t they stand up for any women when they want to choose life, but are coerced or threatened into having abortions? Or why don’t they ever promote adoption as a valid and compassionate choice? Because the truth is, these organizations are not “pro-choice.” They have an agenda that promotes less poor, uneducated people in the world and more of the strong, resourceful people. In other words, less of the “have-nots” and more of the “haves.” And also, quite frankly, because they profit from more abortions and more “reproductive rights” programs being promoted around the world.
True, some women do choose to have abortions independently—for reasons of selfishness, convenience, or concerns about the health of the unborn child (revealing a misguided sense of compassion and a poorly formed conscience). But the truth is that many, many women have abortions because they feel that they had “no choice.” So much for the mantra.
