A New Opportunity to Stop

Coerced & Unsafe Abortions

By Jim Day

Abortion providers and those who support abortion never mention it. And, they definitely don’t want the public to start talking about it. But the truth is that every day hundreds of women are being pressured, forced, or coerced into having an unwanted abortion.

“That men have long coerced women into unwanted abortion when it suits their purposes is well-known but rarely mentioned,” writes ‘pro-choice’ bioethicist Daniel Callahan, director of the Hastings Center, “but it is remarkably difficult to find much pro-choice probing into the reality of coerced abortions. It is as if there is an embarrassed, sheepish silence on what would seem a matter of obvious concern for those committed to choice.”

But, in recent years, leaders of post-abortion ministries, which assist women in their spiritual and emotional recovery following an abortion, have begun to draw more attention to the problem of coerced abortions. According to Dr. David Reardon, Ph.D., a researcher who has published over a dozen peer reviewed studies on the aftereffects of abortion, women who feel pressured to have an abortion are significantly more likely to suffer more severe grief, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, sleep disorders, and other emotional problems associated with abortion.

“The best available study has found that 64% of American women who have had abortions felt pressured to do so from other people,” said Reardon. “In some cases, the pressure to abort may be expressed only by signs of disapproval or lack of emotional support. In many other cases, however, a woman will be openly threatened with abandonment by her partner or parents if she refuses to do ‘what is best for everyone.’ Plus, if she makes ‘the wrong choice’ she may face a loss of her home or other economic support she needs.”

In many cases, coercion can lead to violence. In a special report entitled Forced Abortions in America, the Stop Forced Abortions Alliance describes numerous cases of physical violence against women who resisted having an abortion. Indeed, numerous studies have shown that the leading cause of death among pregnant women is homicide.

If the new Stop Forced Abortions Alliance is successful in its efforts to pass the Prevention of Coerced and Unsafe Abortions Act, however, Missouri women may soon be at less risk of undergoing unwanted abortions. The proposed law would remove a loophole in the current law that prevents women from being able to sue abortion providers for negligent pre-abortion screening, including the failure to ask questions about whether the woman is feeling coerced to undergo an unwanted abortion.

Paula Talley, one of the group’s organizers, said, “This is a very pro-woman law.  If it had been in place in 1980, I would have been spared the years of grief and depression which followed my own unwanted abortion,” said Talley.

Talley says she was pressured into an abortion which went against her moral beliefs by her employer. She also says she was at greater risk of more severe emotional reactions to the abortion because of her prior history of sexual abuse and depression. “The abortion counselor never asked if I was being pressured nor did she inquire about my psychological history,” said Talley. “If she had, she should have known that in my case abortion was medically contraindicated. This law would help to prevent other women from being victims of negligent pre-abortion screening.”

According to the Stop Forced Abortions website, women like Talley are vulnerable to injury because “Most abortion providers have abandoned any effort to screen for coercion and other risks in order to reduce costs and maximize profits.”

Talley says the group is hopeful that legislators will pass the Prevention of Coerced and Unsafe Abortions Act in the regular 2008 legislative session. But if they do not, Stop Forced Abortions is prepared to put the measure before voters in November in the form of a ballot initiative.

The ballot initiative has already been approved for circulation by the Secretary of State. Talley says the group is looking for volunteers and activists to collect signatures and become involved in lobbying, education, and other activities.

Meanwhile, Missouri’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood, has filed a lawsuit to block the Secretary of State from accepting the signed petitions. The suit alleges that by exposing abortion providers to liability for negligent screening the initiative would in essence erect a “ban on most abortions,” which they insist is unconstitutional.

“This proposed law actually doesn’t ban even a single abortion,” said Reardon, a St. Charles County resident who is also active with Stop Forced Abortions, “it only empowers women to hold abortionists properly liable for negligent screening and counseling. In fact, if abortion is as safe and beneficial as Planned Parenthood and others are constantly assuring us, this initiative will have no effect on abortion rates. If only a few women are being coerced into unwanted abortions, this initiative will help those few, which should please everyone of good will. The only way this measure will result in a precipitous decline in abortion rates is if abortion is much more dangerous, and much more frequently coerced than Planned Parenthood has ever before admitted.”

According to Reardon, the proposed law actually just helps women themselves to enforce a little talked about provision of Roe v Wade. According to Roe, “basic responsibility” for ensuring that abortions that are performed are safe and medically advisable rests on the shoulders of abortion providers, not their patients.

“The current situation is exactly analogous to this,” said Reardon. “A woman walks into her doctor’s office and says, ‘I have a lump in my breast and need a mastectomy.’ The doctor says: ‘Sure, jump up on the table and we’ll take it right off.’ That’s not practicing medicine. That’s a prostitution of medical skills, simply doing whatever a patient asks...even if she’s being coerced by others to ask for it.”

“Certainly Roe expects physicians to listen to their patients, but it also expects doctors to evaluate whether what the patient wants is medically well informed, ill informed, or even dangerous. It is for this very reason that the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that the abortion decision must always be made with the advice and consent of a physician who has reviewed and understands the woman’s circumstances and risks. The problem is that loopholes in the current law make it hard, or even impossible, for women to subsequently hold abortionists liable for negligent screening.”

At the group’s website, StopForcedAbortions.org, the organization describes its effort to build support among people on both sides of the abortion issue for the common sense goal of reducing the risk that women will be abandoned to coerced and unsafe abortions. Reardon is optimistic that the vast majority of voters will support the initiative.

“The only people who could oppose the reasonable provisions of this initiative are those who care less about women than they do about the profits of the abortion industry,” said Reardon. “While abortion may be legal, far too often it is practiced with the ethics of the back alley. As long as the woman has the money, the abortionist will do the abortion, no questions asked. And without reforms which allow women to hold abortionists properly liable for negligent screening, this abuse, and the injuries which result, will continue.”

Reardon believes Planned Parenthood’s lawsuit ‘speaks volumes.’ He says the Stop Forced Abortions Alliance has polling data which suggest that 70 to 85 percent of voters—including most people who consider themselves pro-choice—would readily support provisions making it easier for women to hold abortion providers liable for negligent screening.

“Planned Parenthood doesn’t want to talk about screening standards or the problem of coerced abortions,” said Reardon. “They know most people would prefer to protect a woman’s rights than the profit margins of an abortion provider. So, to even have a hope for a close contest, Planned Parenthood has made the risky decision of portraying our initiative as a ‘ban on abortions.’ That’s a risky strategy because Missouri is a very pro-life state which might actually approve an outright ban. Planned Parenthood knows full well that they must cloud the issue and distract voters from the fact that the abortion industry thrives on coerced abortions and negligent short cuts in pre-abortion screening if they are to stand a chance of defeating this common sense legislation.”

Reardon and Talley encourage readers who support the efforts of the Stop Forced Abortions Alliance to contact their Missouri State Representative and State Senator (not your Congressman or U.S. Senator) and request that they sponsor and pass a form of the initiative as a regular bill in January of 2008. “If the governor and legislature step up to the plate to protect women from unwanted, unsafe, and unnecessary abortions,” said Reardon, “that will save us the trouble of taking this initiative to the voters in November. But we’re not going to be caught flat footed if they fail to do so. We’re fully prepared to collect the 90,000 signatures to put the initiative before voters in November if that is what is required.”

Publisher’s Note

Readers can also learn more about the initiative, and sign up for updates and as volunteers, at www.StopForcedAbortions.org. To find out who your State Representative and State Senator are go to www.senate.mo.gov or www.house.mo.gov.