Task force delves into coercion
- Jan 7, 2008 - comment
JEFFERSON CITY – Coercion comes in many forms. That is what members of the Governor’s Task Force on the Impact of Abortion on Women learned when the group met for a study session Dec. 3 at the Missouri Capitol Building.
The two most prevalent items of discussion involved coercion and racial discrimination as experienced by women who are considering or have had abortions.
Kerry Messer, president of Missouri Family Network and lobbyist for Missouri Baptist Convention’s Christian Life Commission, chaired the meeting in the absence of chairperson Cindy Province, co-founder and associate director for The Center for Bioethics and Culture Missouri.
Connie Eller, coordinator/director of Missouri Blacks for Life, is on the commission’s sub-group investigating coercion. She discussed coercion from the standpoint of her own abortion and her 20 years of experience working with the homeless and 10 years working with homeless pregnant women.
Eller noted that, while coercion might come from family and friends, it also comes because of circumstances – loss of a job, loss of a house, drugs, and other factors.
Committee member State Rep. Belinda Harris (D-Hillsboro), who chairs the House Democrats for Life caucus, noted that some women feel coerced to have an abortion when trying to separate from an abusive husband.
She explained that no law says a woman can’t get a divorce while pregnant, but the decision is up to individual judges. In many cases, judges will not grant a divorce until after the baby is born or aborted.
She will be proposing legislation in the next session to require that a court not use a woman’s pregnancy as a reason for delaying a decree of dissolution.
Joe Dalton, director of Pregnancy Resource Center of Rolla, stated that he knew of six pregnant women currently in that situation, awaiting divorces from abusive husbands.
Harris also spoke of women who have told her of decisions they had made to abort when they were young and who now have regrets. She stressed the need to help a woman know that having the baby is an option.
Dalton cited coercion studies by David Reardon, founder of the Elliott Institute of Illinois, which indicate that 64 percent of abortions involve some type of coercion.
Messer noted that the task force has compiled a lot of anecdotal evidence but needs to come up with statistical evidence in order to make informed recommendations to the governor.
Commission members moved on to the topic of racial discrimination. Eller also serves on the sub-committee looking into discrimination in abortion. She said that death by abortion skyrockets beyond other causes of death in the African-American community including heart disease, cancer, accidents, AIDS, and violent crime.
Some black leaders, she said, refer to the abortion of black babies as black genocide. Statistics were cited to the effect that 35 percent of all abortions involve black women, a figure far exceeding the percentage of African-Americans in the United States population.
Among the other topics discussed at the study session were:
- The availability of counseling for those who have had abortions. Eller, who served on the counseling sub-group, indicated her group had learned of many organizations and programs that provide counseling for post-abortive stress. She presented a 23-page list of post-abortive counseling services with many more to be added to the listing. She indicated there is a need for public education on the symptoms of post-abortive stress.
- The need for more accurate abortion reporting requirements. Dalton said that the pro-choice Guttmacher Institute shows much higher abortion numbers than the figures from the Missouri Department of Health.
- The need for more information on the apparent relationship between prior abortions and later premature births with their attendant health problems and escalated cost, as reported in the Journal of Reproductive Medicine.
- The need for pregnant women to get a second opinion and be provided with adequate information when genetic testing indicates that a child may be born with special needs. The task force wants to make sure that genetic testing isn’t compulsory and that women have the benefit of knowing all their options when they are told they are carrying a special needs child.
After the task force concluded its agenda, Messer opened the floor to comments and questions from the audience, most of whom were pro-choice advocates. Several complained that the issue of pregnancy prevention was not addressed, that the group was made up of only pro-life advocates, and that prior meetings had not been publicized.
Messer explained that the task force could not go beyond the scope of its mission of assessing the impact of abortion on women, that the committee members serve without pay or reimbursement at the pleasure of a pro-life governor, and that most people did not know where to look for the meeting notices, which are posted on the Office of Administration (OA) web site.
No date was set for the next meeting, but Messer indicated it will be posted on the OA web site.
Two hours before the meeting, Planned Parenthood called for Gov. Matt Blunt to disband the commission.
Others on the commission are: Victoria Childs, Open Arms Pregnancy Resource Center director; Mary Chrismer, Vitae Caring Foundation; Susan Klein, lobbyist for Missouri Right to Life; Dr. Carolyn Martin, OB/GYN, board member, Greater St. Louis Crisis Pregnancy Center; John McCastle, CEO and president of Alliance for Life Missouri; Julia Myers, Pregnancy Help Center director; Barbara Quigley, co-founder and executive director of the St. Louis Center for Bioethics and Culture; Sen. Delbert L. Scott (R-Lowry City); and Nancy Valko, president, Missouri Nurses for Life, and board member, Missouri Right to Life.
This article is reprinted from the December 25, 2007, issue of The Pathway, the newsjournal of the Missouri Baptist Convention.
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