Understanding The Nature of “Choice”

For over 20 years, Life Dynamics provided litigation support services to attorneys who sued on behalf of women who had been killed, injured or sexually assaulted while having abortions.

As a result, we have had direct contact with thousands of post-abortive women and, during these encounters, three things have become apparent.

Here are Three Observations:

First, the abortion lobby has masterfully sold the concept that unborn children are the enemies of their mothers. Sometimes this message is delivered subtly and sometimes it is delivered with a sledgehammer. But one way or another, it is always delivered because it is the message that puts customers into abortion clinic waiting rooms.

Second, they have convinced a significant percentage of American women that having the ability to legally kill their babies is the cornerstone of women’s rights. They accomplished this despite the fact that, with almost no exceptions, pioneers of the women’s movement were outspoken opponents of legalizing abortion. They saw it as patronizing and paternalistic and considered it to be nothing more than a safety net for sexually predatory and sexually irresponsible males.

The third, and most important, observation made in talking with post-abortive women relates to the environment in which abortion decisions are made. When you listen to these women, there is no denying that a certain percentage of them are simply heartless. Some admit they know they murdered their own baby but that, if they got pregnant today, they’d do the same thing again. Others have shared about having had several abortions despite knowing that they were snuffing out the lives of their own children.

The fact is, there are men and women in our society who will kill their children for no reason other than to make their own lives better or to avoid the consequences of their immorality and poor decisions. However, that is not the norm.

In the case of abortion, it is far more common for women to make this “choice” because they are convinced that they have no choice.

In almost every one of those instances, someone else is pressuring them to abort. For younger girls, this pressure is generally exerted by one or more members of her family. In a surprising number of cases, it comes from teachers or from a relative of the boy who got her pregnant. Of course, this coercion will often come from the person who impregnated her – especially if she is a minor and he is an adult. (Check out our Child Predator Investigation)

It is also common for women to be threatened with physical harm unless they submit to abortions, usually by the men with whom they are sexually active and who want to dodge the repercussions and responsibilities of their own sexual promiscuity. (See our Report: Under-the-Radar Violence i
n the Conflict Over Abortion.)