Former abortion worker: Every woman just ‘a line item on our budget sheet’

In October of 2015, former Planned Parenthood director Abby Johnson shared the story of an abortion worker who quit. The worker decided to leave her job when she realized that the abortion facility was not helping women, but betraying them. The worker contacted Johnson’s organization And Then There Were None, which reaches out to abortion workers and offers them support when they leave the industry.

“We didn’t see her as a person.”

The worker gave her testimony:

Although the abortion industry claims to “empower women,” this worker’s facility does not sound like a very feminist place. The staff, and particularly the doctor, were dehumanizing women, not helping them. The abortionist clearly had great contempt for the women coming to see him. He is no champion of women’s rights.

“I remember feeling like I was on an assembly line.”

Many women have reported negative experiences in abortion facilities. They tell of workers who were cold and uncaring, abortionists who were rude, and facilities that rushed them through their abortions with little concern for their well-being.

One example is that of Annie. She describes her abortion experience:

The abortion was rushed and the staff was indifferent, essentially treating women “like cattle,” as some former Planned Parenthood managers have phrased it. There was no real care from any of the abortion facility employees. Instead, the women were left feeling isolated in the recovery room, each locked in her own private pain.

Former Manager: Planned Parenthood "Treated Women like Cattle"

Another woman who had an abortion gave her testimony. When she aborted her baby, she was only 16. She said, “I felt like a piece of meat at a slaughterhouse. They had it arranged that it would be like an assembly line.”

This woman kept her abortion a secret from almost everyone in her life. She shared her testimony anonymously. Only her husband and sister know. She now deals with trauma and grief for her aborted baby. None of the staff seemed to care about this woman’s welfare or even her personal health and safety as they rushed her through the facility.

“No counselors spoke to me.”

Another woman described the lack of counseling at a Planned Parenthood abortion facility:

Sadly, it is not unusual for abortion facilities to offer no counseling. (And, all too often, the counseling they do offer is biased and deceptive) No one took the time to ask this woman if she was sure she wanted an abortion or stopped to assess her mental state. She suffered tremendous guilt, grief, and despair after her abortion.

Former Manager: There’s only one option for pregnant women at Planned Parenthood

“I was made to feel so degraded and humiliated.”

Another woman left a Yelp review for A Preferred Women’s Health Center in Raleigh, North Carolina, and spoke of a shocking lack of compassion among the workers there:

She also noted the lack of respect for patients’ privacy:

The HIPAA law prevents medical facilities from revealing personal information about patients to others. The lack of privacy meant that the personal details of the woman’s situation were apparent to all of the other women and workers.

It is obvious that the workers at this facility had no concern for the woman as a person. They did not care about her well-being in any way. Like the facility employees in the former abortion worker’s testimony, they had no concerns for her personhood or dignity as a human being. They did not acknowledge her humanity, or her right to be treated with respect and compassion. We don’t know that those in the abortion facility saw this woman as “a tally on a budget sheet,” but they treated her as if they did.

“The abortion experience was like a cattle drive.”

Another post-abortive woman writes about her time in the abortion facility and the pain she felt afterwards:

In this case, the woman felt so guilty for having an abortion that she did not protest the shoddy treatment she got at the facility. With so many women reporting negative experiences when getting abortions, one might wonder if guilt of this nature allows these facilities to continue to function while dehumanizing women. If women feel too guilty to complain, or assert their right to be treated with dignity and respect, it allows the abortion workers to treat them in a dehumanizing manner.

Another woman remarked that she and other women were treated like “cattle”:

“The ‘counselor’ told me I was smart for taking ‘power’ and ‘control’ of my life.”

Another woman, who was pressured into an abortion, also remembers the cruel way abortion workers treated her:

This woman’s experience was far from empowering. Although the abortion workers told her she was expressing “power” and “control” over her life, she knew immediately after the abortion that she had made a terrible mistake. In the original testimony, the woman goes on to detail years of postabortion trauma. The procedure that was supposed to give her “control” over her own life led to depression and mourning. She ended her testimony with the words “abortion destroys lives.” She means it destroys the lives of babies, but also the lives of women who suffer guilt and grief after their abortions.

There are so many testimonies of terrible experiences in abortion facilities. In fact, the Silent No More website has over 2000 testimonies from post-abortive women who came to their site seeking healing.

Too many women have learned since Roe v. Wade how callous abortion workers can be. Too many women have experienced abortions that were dehumanizing, degrading, and humiliating.

There is hope, though – the abortion worker in this article realized the impact abortion was having on women and left her job. And Then There Were None has helped 430 abortion workers leave the abortion industry so far. There is hope both for the workers and for the women who suffer from post-abortion trauma. Groups like Project Rachel offer post-abortion support and healing for women, and many pregnancy resource centers have support groups where women can find comfort among people who understand what they’re going through.