Planned Parenthood coerces women into abortion by playing on their fears

Planned Parenthood has been America’s abortion corporation for decades — and despite the scandals it has faced, it still holds the support of countless Americans who believe the abortion giant cares about women and offers women choice. However, former Planned Parenthood staff have long made it clear that Planned Parenthood has a financial incentive to coerce women into abortions they don’t want. One of its tactics is to play on fears and self-doubts to convince young women and teens that they are not ready for motherhood because of educational or career goals.

In the book, “Bad Choices: A Look Inside Planned Parenthood,” former Planned Parenthood worker Lavonne Wilenken described how staff coerced teenage girls into abortions through biased counseling. Though Wilenken told her story in 1992, it remains relevant because Planned Parenthood has promoted abortion as a solution to teen and unplanned pregnancy for decades. Planned Parenthood executives have incentivized abortion, offering awards for affiliates who met abortion quotas; in 2013, a facility in Aurora, Colorado, received a certificate that was “awarded… for exceeding abortion visits” over the previous year.

Play on the emotions

Wilenken explained Planned Parenthood’s coercive tactics:

The counselor would say to the teenager, “Well, where’s the $250,000 that it takes to raise a child in society today?” And “What are your parents going to say when they find out that you’re pregnant?” And “What is your boyfriend doing? Is he going to help you? Where is he?” and “How are you going to finish your education if you have a baby? Don’t you know you can’t go to school if you have a baby?”

Things like that, very subtle things that will push the girl over and make her decide.

Then they sort of do a “Mutt and Jeff” routine. First will come those questions. Next will come the very motherly, the very soothing, “But we can help you. We can help you out of your problem. Your parents don’t have to know. We can help you with the money. You don’t have to have any money and we can help you out of your situation because we know that you don’t want to be pregnant. You just want to be not pregnant and we know that you know that you can’t take care of a baby right now. You know that you’re not ready and we want you to do these things when you’re ready.”

So they play on the emotions of the young girl who scared, frightened, doesn’t know where to go, but she’s been told this is the place to go to get help.

READ: Detransitioner was only 16 when Planned Parenthood gave her testosterone

Former Planned Parenthood manager Annette Lancaster said that it is just a part of the job to coerce women and teens into having abortions.

“[S]ometimes women would come in and they would say, ‘you know, I’m not really sure if this is what I want to do.’ And we were taught to tell them this is the best thing for you,” she explained. “It’s good for this time in your life. You either need to continue your career or continue your schooling or it will be the best thing for the children that you already have. You’ll be able to have children again in the future. This is just not the right time for you.”

She added that it “bothered me a great deal because some women would cry.” They weren’t sure they wanted an abortion, but the staff steered them in that direction and they would ultimately go through with it.

“[T]hey weren’t given enough time to really think,” she said. “It was very quick. We would ask them a lot of questions, but the counseling was not really counseling.”

Physical force

Wilenken shared that Planned Parenthood staffers even physically forced girls into abortions:

Once when I was working in the family planning clinic where also the abortuary [abortion clinic] inhabited the same building, I was in a room with a counselor and a young woman. One of the family planning assistants came – burst in the room and said, “Please, you’ve got to come quick! She’s trying to back out of the procedure and everything is all ready!”

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.

The same pressure exists today, as it has been successfully ingrained in women that mothers cannot successfully complete their educational goals or achieve their career objectives.