Planned Parenthood to Pregnant Woman: Can’t Help You w/o Abortion

State   |   Susan Michelle   |   Nov 22, 2011   |   12:55PM   |   Houston, TX

A surprise pregnancy last month for 17-year old “Addison” led to an encounter of the truth behind the Planned Parenthood lie that it exists to help women. In fact, according to Addison, it exists to help women choose abortion and because she didn’t want one, they didn’t want her.

Addison is a student at the University of Houston, which is very close to the Planned Parenthood “abortion supercenter” on the Gulf Freeway in Houston. In fact, we took a Bound4LIFE focused Call there in January 2010 to pray and rally against the late-term abortion center being placed right in the center of a minority neighborhood near two universities. Resembling  a cash register, the abortion supercenter has a whole floor devoted to surgical abortions, which include late term abortions, yet it masks itself as a women’s health center, which is how Addison ended up there.

Away from home, she called her parents, afraid. Uninsured–and a victim of lie that Planned Parenthood is there to help people like them–her parents sent her to Planned Parenthood to get help, not realizing what Planned Parenthood was.  After a home pregnancy test told her she was pregnant, Addison and her fiancé headed to the Houston Planned Parenthood for a blood test. There were no freebies for uninsured Addison here; her fiancé had to pay $70 for the blood test, and they told her the charge first thing, she says. But that wasn’t the part that drove her off.

After sitting in the waiting room for  two hours, Addison was not allowed to have her fiancé come back with her for the test, despite telling them she was uncomfortable and hated needles. He had to stay in the front waiting room while Addison was taken to a back room, then an exam room where she waited another hour before a Planned Parenthood employee came in with a list of questions for her asking how many sexual partners she had, details of her sexual relationship with her fiancé, and other things. Then she asked Addison the magic question.

“Do you want to have an abortion if you’re pregnant?” When Addison told her no, the woman said:

“Well, you are only seventeen. You really need to make sure you’re ready for parenting and consider abortion.”

But Addison was opposed to abortion, and it had ever even occurred to her to consider abortion.

When they called later to confirm she was pregnant, they said, “We know you said you didn’t want an abortion in your visit today, but we wanted to make sure that is still the case?”

“I said I did not want an abortion and hung up.” Addison says. But she called back for help:

The same day I called them and told them that I had a blood test and it confirmed pregnancy, and I needed to see if I could see a doctor about prenatal care and what I could and couldn’t do, and what would keep the baby healthy. They then told me that unless I had a sexually transmitted disease or wanted an abortion that they could no longer help me. I said so y’all do not help pregnant women? They told me no that they didn’t have doctors for pregnant women.

Sadly, Addison discovered that the 6-story building that advertised itself as a women’s health center and claimed to care for uninsured women was really there for abortion, STD treatment and birth control.

She says she thought to herself,  “I thought this was Planned Parenthood, not once-you’re-pregnant-we-can’t-help-you.”

Ultimately, she ended up at a hospital with cramps, and found out she was 10 weeks along instead of the 4 she thought, but the baby didn’t make it. Addison lost her baby to a miscarriage later that month.

Addison grew up fast last month. Not only did she find herself a pregnant college freshman at 17, but she found out behind the name Planned Parenthood were a bunch of folks who only wanted her to plan her parenthood if it meant killing her baby. All the ads about health care for uninsured women went right out the window. “Choice” to these workers really meant “Choose to abort your baby or choose to stop seeing us for treatment.”

Addison’s eyes are opened now and she says

“I think normal people have a misconstrued view of what [Planned Parenthood] is. I am 100% against abortion. Especially when there are more options. I have seen so many people struggle to get pregnant and think adoption is an amazing thing. I wouldn’t give my child up because I have my fiancé and family to help, but if I didn’t adoption would be an option.”

Expressing deep gratitude for her family and her fiancé’s family, she knows she will make it, but how many don’t have that? How many will give into the pressure to abort when Planned Parenthood presents that as the clear option. Never once did Addison get counseled on adoption or have any offers to do anything but abort. Abortion, she says, was “offered to me several times.” [related]

Much criticism has been hurled at people who want to cut funding of Planned Parenthood, but this case is a perfect example of why it’s necessary. Addison is one of the women the abortion powerhouse claims to exist to help, but she was charged full price, despite being uninsured, and sent away when she didn’t want to consider abortion. It seems that the “women’s health care” provisions listed in the many Planned Parenthood websites really mean “we’ll examine you, give you birth control, and kill your baby if it fails.”

Twelve Planned Parenthood clinics in Texas have closed as the result of the Texas legislature cutting its funding because it provides abortions, and a 13th is shuttering its doors most days and looking like it’s about to close too. But are women really suffering because of this? Planned Parenthood would have you think they are the only option for uninsured women who need health care.

Addison would beg to differ.

LifeNews Note: This column originally appeared at Bound4Life’s blog and is reprinted with permission.