Even though abortion is called a woman’s “choice,” many women feel pressured or coerced to abort — by parents, loved ones, employers, or others. Former abortion worker Tonya explains what she saw when parents of minors tried to force their daughters to abort:
[T]eens, young adults, and minors who are still living at home with their parents or legal guardians, are sometimes being forced to have an abortion or even feeling like they’re being pressured into having an abortion by that parent or legal guardian. This happens a lot of times to minors and young adults…
On the day of the appointment, you can usually tell the minor who does not want to be there just by their facial expression. Being upset and very emotional. When this is noticed, I’ll pull that patient to a private room to have a one-on-one talk with them without the parent being present, and sometimes the patient will say, “Yes, I am being forced to do this, and if I don’t, my parents will put me out or send me away.” And in other words, just turn their backs on them. You have parents who try to convince their child….
Unfortunately, not all abortion workers show concern like Tonya did for girls and women who are coerced. Some even do coercing of their own.
READ: Shock report: Marie Stopes UK clinics coerced women to abort, threw babies in trash
Tonya goes on to say:
These parents will tell their daughter anything. They will even go as far as bribing them by telling them, “Just do this for mommy right now, and I will take you shopping, and I’ll get you whatever it is that you want, just please don’t do this to your mommy, you will have plenty of time to have a baby in the future when you’re old enough.” Parents don’t care about how their child feels, nor do they understand that a decision like this is no easy decision and that it can and will affect them in the future mentally.
You have these parents who don’t even think about what they are making their child do. All they are thinking about are themselves, what they are not wanting to deal with, so they think that this is the best way out of the situation, so they don’t even try to understand that young girl’s feelings about the whole idea of abortion…
The parents will sometimes deny that they are trying to force their child to have an abortion because they put them in the spotlight, and I have heard a child making a comment saying, “yes, you are, mama, I didn’t know that I was coming to an abortion clinic. I thought this was just a regular doctor’s appointment for my pregnancy.”…
READ: Michigan Governor Snyder signs abortion coercion bills into law
The problem of coercion has become serious enough that even some states, like Michigan, are imposing penalties for abortion coercion. Tonya says:
Sometimes the parent will try and ask for an employee’s advice to see if they can help them when their child has refused abortion…
Sometimes it gets me very upset when I get one of these minors that is in the situation because of their parents forcing, threatening, convincing, and persuading a minor into having an abortion. They should know that it is unlawful for any individual to force a woman or a minor to undergo an abortion. But these parents can care less, they will try anything to get these minors to have an abortion.
Pro-life feminist Frederica Mathewes-Green tells the story of a young woman’s forced abortion, in which her mother and a counselor conspired against her. She interviewed the woman for her book, “Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion”:
Becky says that she had at first resolved to have the baby. But her mother took her to a counselor, ordering her to wait in the reception room while the two of them conferred. When they called Becky in, she was told that the counselor and her mother had agreed that Becky should have an abortion. Her mom added, “If you continue this pregnancy, you can’t live in my house.” …
Eight years later, [Becky] is still grieving: “I was already attached to that baby.”
READ: Where can women like Candace get help when they’re being coerced to abort?
Planned Parenthood workers forced a 17-year-old to have an abortion against her will at the insistence of her aunt. Former abortion worker Lavonne Wilenken says:
The counselor left hurriedly down the hall and I followed to see exactly what was going on and what I saw in the hall was the counselor, a 17-year-old girl and her aunt, dragging her into the room as she was hollering, “No, I don’t want to go! Please don’t make me! Please don’t make me do this! I really don’t want to do this!”
They very hurriedly shoved her in the room where the procedure was to take place and slammed the door and the counselor came out afterwards with a sort of a, a peaceful smiling look on his face, and I knew what had happened. I knew that they had aborted her against her will.
Parents sometimes force their children to have abortions… and abortion workers are sometimes complicit.
- Tonya P From behind Closed Doors: “Abortions” (Xlibris, 2013) 27-29
- Frederica Mathewes-Green Real Choices: Listening to Women, Looking for Alternatives to Abortion (Felicity Press; 3rd edition, April 16, 2013) Kindle version
