The caption<\/a> says, \u201cIf abortion providers were obliged to ask women whether their decision was freely made, Charlotte Dawson might still be alive today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charlotte Dawson (pictured) was an Australian supermodel whose life spiraled into depression and ended when she committed suicide last week. Ms. Dawson\u2019s testimony as recorded in her 2012 autobiography is that her depression was connected to an abortion procedure which ended the pre-born life of the child she and her husband, Scott Miller had conceived shortly after marriage.<\/p>\n

Coercion to abort is common, but rarely receives any level of attention. In compiling research for their new publication, Complications: Abortion\u2019s Impact on Women<\/em>, deVeber Institute researchers interviewed 101 Canadian women and over two-thirds were pressured or coerced into having an abortion. One woman said,<\/p>\n

\u201cHe wanted me to get an abortion, and all, when I was pregnant…He was never around. When he was, he was hitting me and being abusive when I was pregnant.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another said,<\/p>\n

\u201cHe threatened to burn my house down and take the baby away after it was born.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Incredibly heart-wrenching, but also entirely preventable. As Barbara Kay puts it,<\/p>\n

\u201cImagine if at her abortion clinic Charlotte Dawson had heard a gentle voice say, \u201cI\u2019m obliged to ask, Ms. Dawson, if you feel you were in any way coerced into this decision,\u201d causing Charlotte to burst into tears, leading to counselling and the strength to follow her heart. If abortion providers were in fact obliged to ask this question and, if necessary, refer clients to supportive follow-up, I am morally certain Charlotte \u2014 and many other women similarly abused \u2014 would be alive today.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Informed consent laws for abortion should be mandatory. We can certainly do better for women who find themselves vulnerable due to an unplanned or unanticipated pregnancy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The caption says, \u201cIf abortion providers were obliged to ask women whether their decision was freely made, Charlotte Dawson might still be alive today.\u201d Charlotte Dawson (pictured) was an Australian supermodel whose life spiraled into depression and ended when she committed suicide last week. Ms. Dawson\u2019s testimony as recorded in her 2012 autobiography is that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3014,"featured_media":574,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[281,280,322],"tags":[79,568,92,567,346,373,306],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3014"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1892,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/1892"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.weneedalaw.ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}