“Anti-choice” is an antagonistic label that pro-abortion activists use to demean pro-lifers. It’s meant to paint us as fanatical individuals who trample women’s so-called “right to choose.” They may claim to give women choice, yet, hypocritically, when it isn’t for abortion, you’ll most often find “choice” is nothing more than an illusion. Abortion is transformed from being an option to being portrayed as the only option.
According to research conducted by the Elliot Institute, 64% of post-abortive women claim they were pressured by others into having an abortion. This pressure can come from partners, parents and even the facilities where women go for help.
Tactics typically begin with persuasion or coercion but can cross the line to becoming aggressively forceful. Just this week, a 15-year-old girl was reportedly locked inside a New York abortion facility after changing her mind about having an abortion. When she asked to see her ultrasound, they refused. This set off red flags in the young girl’s mind and she told them she wanted to leave. They wouldn’t allow her to leave the room and locked the door. The girl’s mother had been waiting for her and became concerned. She demanded to see her daughter, and they then kicked her off the premises. Thankfully, the girl was able to text a pro-life friend and was rescued.
A case in Michigan resulted in a more tragic outcome, and Caitlin Bruce has filed a lawsuit following a forced abortion. As the procedure started, she asked the abortionist to stop, but he and his assistants held her down. “I was screaming and trying to pull my legs together,” Caitlin described. After the abortion was completed, she lay by herself on the table horrified.
At a Planned Parenthood in Ohio this week, police had to break up a physical fight between a mother and her 15-year-old daughter. The mother wanted the child to have an abortion, but the teen refused.
So-called “pro-choice” actress Ellen Barkin once said, “I am the mother of a 12-year-old girl and I can tell you unequivocally that if my daughter was pregnant, I would take her kicking and screaming to have an abortion.” Even President Obama has chimed in that he “wouldn’t want [his daughters] punished with a baby.”
Whose choice is it really?
Some of the most outrageous violence is committed against pregnant women by their partners. The stories are the makings of nightmares. In one case, a man held his girlfriend at gunpoint demanding she have an abortion. In even more extreme situations, the violence can escalate and lead to death. Murder is actually the leading cause of death for pregnant women.
The increased accessibility of the abortion pill has provided an additional tool for forced abortions. In Florida, John Andrew Welden tricked his girlfriend into taking the abortion pill, misoprostol, by disguising it as an antibiotic. She woke up with extreme heavy bleeding and at the hospital they discovered it was not a natural miscarriage. Andrew was tried for killing his unborn child and sentenced to 14 years in prison.
The Florida legislature just passed a bill making it a crime when men use violence or trickery to force their partners to abort. Believe it or not, pro-abortion Democratic Party Chair, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, opposes the bill. “Florida Republican lawmakers have wasted taxpayer time and money by passing these extreme bills that further limit women’s reproductive rights. It is senseless and it’s wrong.” In other words, according to Schultz, forced abortion trumps a woman’s right to choose life for her baby.
Vice President Joe Biden had the opportunity to address China’s brutal one-child policy, which results in countless forced abortions. But here’s what he said. “Your policy has been one which I fully understand —I’m not second-guessing—of one child per family.” He actually said this while tens of thousands of Chinese women are being physically dragged to abortion mills against their will. What’s pro-choice about this policy?
Within Obama’s circle is John Holdren, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology. He co-authored a book advocating for compulsory abortion. It reads, “Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger society.” The book goes on to discuss requiring single women to marry or have abortions and even government required sterilization.
It’s no surprise that pro-abortion activists have such extremist views. Planned Parenthood founder, Margaret Sanger, has been quoted as saying:
- In America Needs a Code for Babies, she remarks about the distribution of babies, stating it’s to “protect society against the propagation and increase of the unfit.” She also promulgated the concept of requiring issued permits in order to have children.
- “Women of the working class, especially wage workers, should not have more than two children at most,” according to her statements in Family Limitation of 1918.
- “The most merciful thing that the large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it,” as quoted from Woman and the New Race.
Abortion’s far from being the “choice” that it’s promoted as. The truth is there’s a malicious agenda behind the pro-abortion movement, essentially dictating there are those who are deemed not worthy of having children. It’s crucial that the reality of forced abortion be exposed. “The Right to Choose Includes Saying No to Abortion” is a revealing episode of our pro-life TV program, Facing Life Head-On, where we tackle the issue by providing legal perspectives, professional insight and personal experiences. Please watch and share this thought-provoking program. Above all, we must help abortion-vulnerable women know that both they and their babies have meaning, value and unlimited potential in their lives.
Choosing LIFE,
Bradley Mattes
Executive Director
Life Issues Institute
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