A former Planned Parenthood abortion worker named Anna Runkle counseled women at Planned Parenthood. In her book, a guide for women choosing abortion, she tells women considering abortion to ignore sidewalk counselors outside abortion clinics.
Many sidewalk counselors hand out leaflets that inform women about fetal development and abortion’s risks. This is information they probably won’t get in the abortion clinic. Sidewalk counselors are often connected with crisis pregnancy centers which can help a woman with all kinds of things – free or low cost medical care, housing, counseling, maternity clothes and baby items, all free of charge.
Runkle says the following in her guidebook for women having abortions:
“Picketers can scream, yell, show you ugly pictures, and make you very uncomfortable…. Many will shout at women entering clinics – some begging women not to have an abortion, some asking them to come over and talk, a few offering support for alternatives to abortion. But there are usually one or more troublemakers who delight in humiliating women and making a big, embarrassing scene. By all means, if you feel bad about your decision and these antiabortion messages are something you want to hear, it’s okay to talk to the picketers. Keep in mind, though, that their goal is to stop you from having an abortion, so if you talk to them and then go ahead with your appointment, they may increase their shouting, begging, and humiliating behavior.
If you do not feel that you will benefit from talking with the picketers, ignore them. Don’t get into a conversation with them, even to yell back at them.”
Anna Runkle In Good Conscience: A Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Guide to Deciding Whether to Have an Abortion (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass Publishers, 1998) 109
Very few people outside abortion clinics actually yell at women. Runkle tries to intimidate her readers into not talking to sidewalk counselors, claiming they will shout, beg, and humiliate women if they give them an opening to talk.
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