Cyny Recker for the Canadian Abortion Rights Action League. She responded to the claims of several women that they were misled in abortion clinics she said that the clinics do give information. The author described the pamphlet she handed him, which was called
“Pre-natal development” and was produced by Childbirth by Choice, a national abortion rights organization.
“The pamphlet showed only the very early stages of fetal development. The drawings actually seemed to be of human embryos, not fetuses. [under 8 weeks] What’s more, the pamphlet also contains drawings of guinea pigs and monkey embryos placed strategically alongside the human ones. Sure enough, they all look alike at the early stages. Insofar as it dehumanizes the fetus, the document is top notch propaganda and assuredly brings great relief to women harboring doubts about their abortion.”
Leonard Stern “Abortion Wars” The Ottawa Citizen Sun 28 May 2000
Live-action presented video where Planned Parenthood counselor discusses abortion with a woman who was 6-8 weeks pregnant:
6-7 weeks
patient: what comes out?
PP: well, you’d miscarry at home so the entire – whatever fetal matter is there.
Patient: so you see the baby?
PP: There’s not a baby at this point. You wouldn’t be able to identify any part of the fetus whatsoever.
Patient: What’s a fetus?
PP: The fetus is the developing embryo inside of you. But at this point there’s nothing developed at all. There’s no legs, no arms, no head, no brain, no heart. At this point is just the embryo itself.”
Feminist writer Wendy Simonds observed at an abortion clinic and interviewed clinic workers for her book, Abortion at Work. She interviewed one clinic worker:
Mira said, “we don’t counsel women here”; private consultations were the exception rather than the norm.… Clients met in groups with one health worker before their abortions.”
In these groups, the women were told the basics of the abortion procedure.
“During group meetings, health workers displayed a small three-dimensional pelvic model, along with various instruments that the nurses or physician would use. They showed laminaria that the nurses used to dilate clients’ cervices (in second trimester abortion groups); they showed the stabilizer, dilators, forceps (forceps are only used during second trimester procedures), and cannulae (plastic tubes) that doctors use. They did not show the needles used to inject the cervical anesthetic or, in the case of second trimester abortions, especially large dilators or forceps or the needles used to inject digoxin into women’s uteri.”
Wendy Simonds. Abortion at Work: Ideology and Practice in a Feminist Clinic (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1996) page 65
They also showed no model of the unborn baby or gave any description of what would happen to him or her. This abortion clinic did abortions up to 26 weeks.
A pregnant woman tells the following story, which is very revealing of the way Planned Parenthood counselors feel about those who carry their babies to term.
When Darla was 17, her mother took her for an abortion. She tells her story:
“I didn’t want to do it, but it was like I was being dragged. The first thing they did was an ultrasound, and I think I was 24 weeks pregnant. So I had a week legally left. I saw her [the baby] actually on the ultrasound, of course. I was 17 years old, I wasn’t going to say, “Turn the machine around; I don’t want to see.” And when I saw her, I knew that I wasn’t going to do it.
So we spent the whole day over there, crying and arguing with the doctors and staff like that. When it came down to signing the piece of paper that said I could die during the procedure, I said no, I wouldn’t do it. We went all the way up to the director of the clinic. They were saying it was best for me, because I was young. My mom was really pushing for it too, so they stood by her. Maybe she was trying to get people to convince me. …They were trying to convince me that it was safe, that in years nobody had died or whatever, that it was relatively safe.
I went in thinking that I was going to do it, but when I saw it on the ultrasound, I couldn’t do it.… So what ended up happening was that they wanted me to sit in on a group where they explained stuff. I guess they thought they were going to trick me and take me in and do it. I don’t know, I remember a lot of stuff that just doesn’t seem right now. So I sat through the group and they said, “Okay it’s your turn; the doctor’s waiting for you.” And I said, “No I’m sorry, I’m just sitting in on this group and I’m not going to go in.” And I asked where my mother was. They stalled for a minute, and I just got up and walked out and said, “I’m not going to do it.”…
24 weeks
So we sat outside for about an hour and a half, and three or four nurses came out at different times and said, “The doctor’s waiting, you’re ready, let’s go in, come on,” and they would take my hand and try to pull me in. And I said no, that I could not do it.”
Rita Townsend, Ann Perkins Bitter Fruit: Women’s Experiences of Unplanned Pregnancy, Abortion and Adoption (Alameda, California: Hunter House Inc., 1991) 39-40
Darla had her baby. It’s easy to imagine most 17-year-old girls caving in to that kind of pressure.
One woman talks about the counseling she received at an abortion clinic:
“The day of the abortion, my future husband was a real sport and drove me to the clinic and paid for the procedure. That is what it became known as that day. He left and said he would pick me up later. I stared around the waiting room and saw a lot of young girls, some alone, some with a boyfriend, a husband, a friend, not many with a mother, all of them looking scared. A young woman called me and made me take another urine pregnancy test. She showed me into a “counseling” room. She came back and told me that I was pregnant, took out a plastic model of a uterus and explained how they would remove the tissue lining of the uterus. There was never any mention of a baby, or fetus, just the tissue that lined the uterus and how it would be removed.”
A bill was proposed in Virginia that would’ve mandated the following:
“The bill would require the abortion clinic or hospital to provide a woman with information on the probable age of her fetus and details of the abortion procedure and to offer her information about the pregnancy and other options available. Unless her life is at stake, the woman would then have to wait 24 hours before having the abortion. The information could be given by phone or in person. “
Planned Parenthood oppose this law and lobbied against it, spending a great deal of money to defeat it. According to one pro-choice politician:
“I just think it is patronizing and unfair to women and women’s health.”
Stephen Dinan “24-Hour Abortion Wait Progresses in House” The Washington Times: February 3, 2001: 8
