Category: Truth Aborted

Anna Runkle is a former Planned Parenthood abortion counselor who wrote a book giving advice to women considering abortion. She says:

“When I counsel pregnant teenagers who are leaning toward parenting, I often find they have unrealistic ideas about babies, their future, and their male partner. “I know my boyfriend is going to be there for me,” these girls will typically assure me. “I’m pretty sure we’ll get married and have a nice house.” The short time period during which girls must decide about their pregnancies is no time for denial and vagueness… 80% of teens who have their babies drop out of high school… If you’re thinking about becoming a mom, ask yourself honestly if you have the family support and self-discipline to devote almost all your waking hours to classes, studies, and caring for a baby.

No matter what your boyfriend says, you should know that relationships between mothers and their male partners almost never last, no matter how good the relationship is now. Girls should never count on support from their male partner. Precious few even participate financially in the child’s life, even though they are required to by law.”

Anna Runkle In Good Conscience: A Practical, Emotional, and Spiritual Guide to Deciding Whether to Have an Abortion (San Francisco: Jossey–Bass Publishers, 1998) 128

This one-sided advice encourages teens to choose abortion. By telling young girls their boyfriends will leave them and they will drop out of school, Runkle is encouraging them to choose abortion for their babies.

A pro-life activist who spoke to hundreds of post-abortion women said that:

“In American abortion clinics, it is almost universal that customers are required to pay for their abortions in cash at the time they sign in at the front desk. This can be a coercive factor in the woman’s decision whether to have the abortion. We have interviewed many post-abortive women who told us that – before the procedure began – they had changed their minds but went through with it only because, “I’d already paid my money and I didn’t think they’d give it back to me.” In fact, some women have told us when they told the clinic staff that they were unsure about whether to proceed, they were actually told that they would not get their money back or would only receive a partial refund.

Mark Crutcher Siege: Pro-Life Field Manual (Denton, Texas: Life Dynamics Inc., 2015) 138 – 139

Women are, therefore, discouraged from changing their minds.

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.

Ellen J Reich, who interviewed former abortion clinic workers for her article in The American Feminist, says:

Planned Parenthood [had the] practice of never referring clients to crisis pregnancy centers, even if the woman had no interest in abortion. Dana, with Planned Parenthood in St. Louis, heard this message loud and clear. She worked in administration for four months and soon realized the “Resources” notebook was woefully out of date. When people called asking for help when they planned to keep their babies, Dana referred them to the Thrive Women’s Clinic across the street. When her boss heard her one day, she got “chewed out.” We don’t do that here,” she was told.

Ellen J Reich “An Insider’s Look into the Abortion Industry” The American Feminist Fall/Winter 2016

Late term abortionist Dr. Warren Hern says that some women who are about to undergo abortions change their minds at the last minute. In an interview:

Q. Do your patients ever reconsider?

Hern: Between our two centers, that happens maybe once a week. There’s a patient who changes her mind or becomes truly ambivalent and goes home to reconsider, then might come back a week or two later.

Capital Words, A Project of the Sunlight Foundation, volume 142, number 130, September 9, 1996