Coercion leads to 'nightmare' botched abortion of twins

(Pregnancy Help News) When I glanced at the young woman who came to the pregnancy center where I serve as a pregnancy counselor, there was no hint of the pain she’d been through.

Tiana* had been out for a walk with her 15-month-old son in his stroller. It so happens she lives in an apartment building right next to the local Planned Parenthood. 

As she walked past, someone praying outside handed her a flier for our center, suggesting she come to us for baby things.

As I was putting together clothes and diapers for her little boy, she started talking, saying she’d had a horrible experience at Planned Parenthood.

About two years earlier, she thought she might be pregnant and went to that Planned Parenthood for a pregnancy test. She thought maybe she could see an ultrasound.

The test showed she was pregnant, and the Planned Parenthood staff began looking for reasons for this mom to abort. 

They asked about Tiana’s life and discovered that the baby’s father had been in and out of jail for years. Her mother was very sick and probably dying (she has since passed away). They learned that Tiana provided care for her brother who had special needs and didn’t earn much money. 

The pressure to abort began.

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One by one, the Planned Parenthood staff listed the potential negatives of raising a child; how exhausting it can, especially with no support; how her mother is not going to be able to assist; how expensive day care is; the unlikelihood of getting child support with the father jailed.

Now is definitely not a good time for you to have a child, they said. Why don’t you just terminate, they suggested, and you can have a child when your situation changes?

While Tiana hadn’t given a thought to aborting when she went to Planned Parenthood that day, now she was considering what they said and thought they were probably right. 

She cared about her baby’s father, but he didn’t seem to be showing the motivation for a stable life – certainly not enough to be a father. As a felon, his employment opportunities were limited.

Within an hour, this young mother was persuaded to abort her first child. 

Sharing this story with me a couple of years later, Tiana still seemed shocked that they’d been able to overwhelm her natural instinct to have her child. 

She mentioned that she’d even had a dramatic pro-life experience in her own family. Her mother had become pregnant through rape years ago. 

“He’s my brother and we all love him,” she said.

Yet she went ahead and gave them her insurance card to pay for the abortion.

Over the next few days, Tiana was in increasing pain and began bleeding. By the fourth day, she went to the ER. 

She’d already begun to regret the abortion and now wondered if “they’d done something” to her insides. 

Tiana saw the look on the doctor’s face, and then he told her she was carrying a dead twin inside her - as well as the foot of the first baby.

No one had told Tiana she was pregnant with twins.

Finding out she was now the mother of two deceased babies was “like a nightmare,” she said. “How could they not have known that? How could they not tell me?” 

It was a horrible experience having to have the second baby’s body removed, along with the first child’s foot. 

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Four days after being pressured to abort at Planned Parenthood, the hospital doctors now told her it was unlikely she’d be able to have another child after this trauma to her body. That was another devastation. Tiana was just 27.   

After reality set in, Tiana talked with a lawyer about a case against Planned Parenthood based on her fertility having been destroyed. 

The lawyer told her to return to the abortion center to ask for a copy of her record.  Why the records weren’t subpoenaed isn’t known, but in any event, Tiana went back and asked the abortion facility for her records. 

When Tiana told them about the dead twin and that she would be filing a lawsuit, there was hesitation in finding her records. 

At one point someone there said to her, “Well it shouldn’t have happened like that, but you’re alive. That’s the main thing.” 

Then someone appeared with a checkbook and offered Tiana $15,000. 

It was implied that the payment would be in exchange for not pursuing a lawsuit. Tiana called her lawyer, and he told her not to accept it.

As the case was beginning to progress, something Tiana didn’t expect happened. She became pregnant again. Her lawyer told her that was the end of the lawsuit. 

At this point in our session at the pregnancy center, it occurred to me that some people might have gone and had another abortion at another abortion center, so they could proceed with the lawsuit claiming she was now unable to have a baby. 

This mother didn’t do that - just as she didn’t take that $15,000 Planned Parenthood offered her to go away. 

She was thrilled to be pregnant again, and her love for this little boy with her was obvious when we sat together. She continually held his hand, patted him on the head, adjusted his shoes and shirt, smiled and talked to him.  

Tiana says this child’s father has been a good dad so far. He’s working, although he doesn’t earn much, and does spend time with his son.

It was so great to be able to give her a pack & play, winter coat, shoes, toys, books, and a little scooter for her son, now 15 months. It all came from the kindness of donors. We gave her a few suggestions for a job, childcare, and other sources of assistance.

She was very grateful and said she wished she’d known about us for a pregnancy test for her first pregnancy.

We continue to pray for Tiana’s healing, for her son and his father, and for a change of heart for those who work at Planned Parenthood.

*A pseudonym