Pressure and deception: Abortion counselor told woman her baby was a ‘micro-dot’
“Counseling” in abortion facilities has been reported by many women as a one-sided sales pitch for abortion. In a book about post-abortive women, two women described how they were pressured into abortions.
Wendy didn’t want an abortion, but her boyfriend was pressuring her. She described what happened at the abortion facility:
During the group counseling session prior to my abortion, I questioned my choice to have an abortion. I said I didn’t want to abort but my boyfriend did. I was struggling because I couldn’t afford to raise a child on my own.
The counselor quickly told me that meant I wanted to have an abortion. She told me it was not right to have a child if you don’t have money. I figured she probably knew what should be done because she was a counselor. I was too emotional and scared to think for myself.
A week after I had my abortion, I wondered how she could possibly have let me do it, when I had expressed so many times that I wanted my baby.
Had Wendy gone to a pregnancy resource center, the counselor there would have told her about resources that could help her have her baby. Pregnancy resource centers provide material help and baby items to women who want to have their babies but are struggling financially. Even though the “counselor” at the abortion facility knew Wendy didn’t want to abort her child, she gave her no hope or resources and instead steered her into an unwanted abortion.
Jane was also pressured by an abortion worker. She was lied to about the development of her preborn baby:
I remember raising many questions before my abortion. All my questions were brushed aside as “nothing to worry about.” I asked how far my baby had developed. The counselor pressed her pencil on a paper, making a micro–dot. That’s my pregnancy – this was such a lie!
As I learned the truth in nursing school, I can’t tell you how betrayed I felt! The new information also made me completely sick. I almost dropped out of nursing school because of my grief. Thinking about that little baby… how in God’s name I could’ve destroyed it.
Sadly, Jane knew nothing about fetal development before she had her abortion, and the abortion worker refused to tell her the truth. After all, abortion facilities are profit-making companies, and they make no money if a woman chooses against abortion. Therefore, abortion “counselors” often lie. Knowing fetal development facts could cause a woman to choose against abortion, and then the abortion facility loses money.
In fact, the deception of the abortion industry is so common that a pro-life group submitted an affidavit to the Supreme Court with the stories of over 3,000 women who said they were lied to in abortion facilities.
Beyond financial gain, there is another reason why abortion workers pressure women to have abortions. Former abortion worker Rita said she encouraged women to have abortions because when they went through with their abortions, she felt better about her own abortion:
I was completely driven to help other women to obtain abortions. I was totally invested in keeping abortion safe and legal. I never recognized how pushy and one-sided my counseling was until I became pregnant and wanted a child. Everyone around me was so critical of my own pregnancy. I realized then that I had been the same way toward every pregnant woman who entered our clinic.
It’s almost like we needed them to abort so that we could feel better about our own abortions. I was too busy justifying what I had done to be aware that I carried any grief about it.
The need to justify a past abortion is another possible motive that causes abortion workers to pressure ambivalent women into having abortions.
Source: Teresa Burke, David C Reardon Forbidden Grief: The Unspoken Pain of Abortion (Springfield, IL: Acorn Books, 2002) 36, 37-38, 43
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