Pushing back against the pressure to abort?
Pregnant women can feel enormous pressure to abort a pregnancy. This pressures can come from a multitude of angles. Research show women feel pressure from husbands, unmarried partners, parents, peers, school, and employers may also pressure women to abort. Serrin Foster, FFL President states “More stunning perhaps is that coerced abortions are happening here in the USA. Instead of a government mandate, it is more cultural—and secretive”. To read more click here.
In addition to the pressure to abort an unplanned pregnancy there is also pressure to abort planned pregnancies. This pressure comes in a surprising way. As ultrasounds have become more and more detailed they are "detecting abnormalities". Quoting from an article by Barbara Katz Rothman "Prenatal screening for conditions which have no solution but abortion is routine. And routinely unacknowledged. People do an ultrasound scan for the joy of ‘seeing the baby.’ But the ultrasounds weren’t introduced for fun, aren’t paid for by insurance companies for fun, aren’t done as routine medical care for fun. Ultrasound, along with maternal blood tests, are being done to diagnose conditions in the fetus, and those conditions are not treatable.
Abortions following prenatal testing are nothing like abortions to get ‘unpregnant,’ abortions to just return oneself to normal after an accidental, unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. These abortions, abortions because this particular fetus should not become one’s baby, are experienced very differently. In THE TENTATIVE PREGNANCY I showed how painful this was for the women involved, women who were told how lucky they were to have choices, but often experienced themselves as horrifically trapped." You can learn more here.
LB606 can help women work through these pressures by offering different viewpoints and supportive care.
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