Category: Abortion Counseling

One former abortion worker said in a webcast:

“Often times what would happen was patients would come in and say, “Oh, yeah, I did speak with someone. I don’t have my paperwork and we wouldn’t have their paperwork, but my regional director would say something to the effect of, “Well, can you show me in your cell phone where you had a phone call from a private number? Or show me in your cell phone where you have a phone call from an unlisted number or a 1-800 number, and we’ll just say that that was the phone call, and we just forgot to put it in the system.

So often times, we really didn’t have 72-hour informed consent, but we would still go ahead and see the patient.

There were even other times where the patient was truly adamant that she really wanted to have her abortion, if she came from far away, traveled a far distance and had a hotel room, there were many instances where we knew – we were not directly told to do this, but what we were told was, the number of abortion patients that we say that day is the number of 72 hour consents you should have at the end of the business day.

So basically, without saying it we were being told to forge, that we saw 35 patients, but we only had 30 consents, you need to make up those other five so you would have the correct number at the end of the day.”

Sarah Terzo “Former abortion worker: We ‘often’ skirted the law on waiting periods” Live Action News November 27, 2018

One teenager who had an abortion said the abortion worker told her this when she was crying before her abortion:

“What’s wrong with you? Who told you about the procedure for terminating a pregnancy? Has someone been telling you this is wrong? It’s no big deal. It only takes about three minutes and that’s it. Three minutes and it’s over. Why are you crying?”

Julia C Loren The Note on the Mirror: Pregnant Teenagers Tell Their Stories (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1990) 63

A book meant to train abortion counselors remarks on how many abortion facilities have somewhat unpleasant rooms for women to sit in while having abortion counseling. The book says:

“Often…the counselor will be seeing a woman in a clinical setting, a stark room which is multi-purpose. Any agencies or purchasers of counselling services need to ask themselves, “Would I feel comfortable in this setting to talk about painful feelings connected with pregnancy?”

Joanna Brien, Ida Fairbairn Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling (London: Routledge, 1996) 62-63

A textbook for abortion workers to help them counsel women says:

“….everyone has their own individual way of seeing a foetus.

Individual descriptions [of the baby] range all the way from saying, “it’s only blood, isn’t it?” to others talking of a fully-fledged baby complete with gender and personality. An abortion involves letting other people physically invade the client’s body and take away whatever the client has constructed as being her pregnancy.”

Joanna Brien, Ida Fairbairn Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling (London: Routledge, 1996) 57

A book written for abortion counselors says:

“Many women requesting abortions are married and want to use abortion to aid in child spacing or to prevent additional children after the desired family size has been reached…

Unlike an unmarried teenager, a mature married woman may be able to afford another child and would suffer no social stigma if the pregnancy were carried to term. With circumstances so favorable to pregnancy, choosing an abortion takes courage and strength. Here the counselor might be a valuable ally in helping the woman follow through on her own feelings and needs.

If she feels her infant care days are blissfully over, if she is savoring freedom from family responsibilities, if she feels her family’s finances or energies are already stretched thinly enough, the alternative of abortion may be her preferred choice and should be supported.”

Robert R Wilson, ed. Problem Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling (Saluda, North Carolina: Family Life Publications, Inc., 1973) 42