Special Report:
Coercion and the Abortion Industry

The Selling of Abortion

The Ideas Behind the Abortion Industry's Deceptive Counseling Practices

The article below is excerpted from the classic book Aborted Women, Silent No More, by David C. Reardon. This excerpt describes how, in the 1970s, the abortion industry's approach to counseling  was developed.

Like most other commercial businesses, the abortion industry has a specialized sales force and a carefully defined marketing strategy. The sale force is composed of abortion counselors who "help" women decide about abortion. Their marketing strategy is to tell their clients as little as possible -- and never anything negative -- about their product.

[As far back as the 1970s,] the sales and marketing divisions of the abortion industry were described in lurid detail in [a] Chicago Sun-Times abortion expose.  In that series, undercover reporters charged that at "Michigan Ave. abortion mills, women who are hired to counsel don't -- they're paid to sell."  And the selling of abortion, they observed, included "sophisticated pitches and deceptive promises."¹

Continue reading ...

back to top

Women Speak Out

Women Who've Been There Describe "Counseling"
In the Abortion Industry

Many people assume that if a woman or girl goes to an abortion facility, she wants an abortion. But many women and girls who have been there say that they were looking for information and help -- often help to continue a pregnancy or stop someone seeking to pressure or force them to abort -- rather than abortion.

Sadly, this is not what they usually get. A survey of women who had abortions found that 79 percent of American respondents said that they were not given information on alternatives to abortion, 84 percent said they did not receive adequate counseling and 67 percent said they received no counseling before abortion.

As women's rights advocate Melinda Tankard Reist pointed out in Giving Sorrow Words,

Concealing information relevant to a woman's decision-making and future health should be recognized as an act of coercion. Deceptive information presented as fact; for example, that post-abortion trauma is a "myth," also acts coercively on a client. If a woman chooses abortion without having been apprised of the facts about potential harm and suffering, she has not chosen freely: the decision-making process has been rendered defective. (p. 167)

The United Nations has stated that, "Coerced abortion is explicitly recognized as a violation of basic rights and principles." The women quoted below are just some of the many whose basic rights were violated by coercion.

Continue reading ...

back to top

Learn More, Share More, Help More

Links to Important Information and Resources

Additional Resources

• Visit www.AfterAbortion.org for research, news and commentary, and to post comments

• Visit www.TheUnChoice.com for free, user-friendly resources and educational materials

• Visit the world's largest online bibliography of studies on the effects of abortion at www.AbortionRisks.org

• Join the Church Awareness Project

• Read back issues of this e-newsletter

   

Pregnancy and After-Abortion Help

• Help During Pregnancy

• Help For Those Struggling After Abortion 

Get the Latest Information, First

Not receiving this e-newsletter? Want to be the first to get the latest information on research, outreach projects and more? Sign up for our e-news list here.

Be A Partner in Our Work
The Elliot Institute conducts original research on the impact of abortion and  provides many free educational resources to individuals and groups. However, we need your help for this work to continue. Please consider supporting our work with a tax-deductible donation.

Contact Information

Contact the Elliot Institute at elliotinstitute@gmail.com

back to top

Please Forward this Email to Your Friends and Associates.
 But if you do forward it, you should remove the unsubscribe link at the bottom or they may unsubscribe YOU by mistake.