St. Petersburg Times: Coerced Abortions in Scientology

ThePepsiSyndrome · Jun 12, 2010

Some people prefer to call it "forced" abortions but I have always thought that "coerced" was a more accurate word.

There is lots of information to read and videos to watch in the following links about my favorite UFO cult. Their hypocrisy is almost beyond belief.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/church-of-scientology-no-kids-allowed/1101759
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/dieckman.shtml
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/headley.shtml
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/pereira.shtml
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/pdfs/1488_001.pdf
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/project/pdfs/2010-06-01-Enclosures.pdf
http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/scientology-and-abortion/1102036
http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/church-of-scientology-the-headley-lawsuits/1102038

ThePepsiSyndrome · Jun 13, 2010

Gawker comments on this story:

http://gawker.com/5562256/the-church-of-scientology-hates-kids-allegedly

Scientologists just can't catch a break. People were angry when John Travolta dropped them off in Haiti to touch people. They are accused of covering up child rape. And now, former members are saying they were pressured into having abortions.

The St. Petersburg Times, whose reporters have investigated Scientology for years, have an exhaustive report out today about several former church members who say, as teenagers, they were pressured into having abortions because having children would interfere with their work for Scientology's religious order, the Sea Organization. Since 1996, the Sea Org has had an official "no kids allowed" policy.

Today's story features several women who have filed federal lawsuits against the church and have given sworn depositions saying, among other things, that working conditions within the Sea Organization are equal to human trafficking, and that abortions were forced on them by the church. If true, these would be some of the most damning allegations made yet against the church—an organization has seen its fair share of accusations.

One of the women interviewed, Laura Dieckman, was 12 years old when she left her home, with her parents' blessing, to work for the Sea Organization in California. Four years later she married another Sea Org member and less than a year after that she was pregnant. When she told her bosses that she was pregnant, and planned to keep the baby, she says her boss told her, "Chill, Laura . . . the baby is just tissue at this point." Under pressure from her bosses in the Sea Org, Dieckman says, she had an abortion and was back on the job the next day. These charges are denied by church spokesman Tommy Davis. He confirms the Sea Org's no children policy, telling the paper that "the policy evolved out of respect for families and deference to children,'' because children are "viewed as interfering with the productivity of Sea Org members.''

The Sea Organization—whose members dress in sailor outfits and sign billion year contracts—gets its name from the days when church founder L. Ron Hubbard ran the organization aboard ships. Today it has about 6,000 members, 150 of whom are executives, like Davis.

The Church of Scientology is a frequent target of disgruntled former members and whistleblowers, and the church keeps busy countering the many claims. If the forced abortions are true, well, damn. Below is a video interview with several of the women who are claiming they were forced to give up their unborn children.
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ThePepsiSyndrome · Jun 13, 2010

St Petersburg Times, June 14th: Taking Her Daughter

Twenty years ago, when Natalie Hagemo was 19, pregnant and working for the Church of Scientology, she couldn't wait to be a mother.

She was near the end of her first tri*mester, she says, when colleagues in Scientology's military-style religious order, the Sea Organization, began pressuring her to get an abortion.

Two high-ranking officers said terminating the pregnancy would allow her to keep working. They berated her when she said no.

Supervisors told her to hide her expanding belly lest co-workers start thinking it was acceptable to get pregnant. Friends and colleagues shunned her.

Hagemo stood fast and, with her husband at her side, delivered Shelby on Aug. 20, 1990.

Hagemo left the Sea Org but remained an active parishioner and raised her daughter as a Scientologist.

When Shelby was 14, a recruiter came by the local church and signed her up to serve in the Sea Org for a billion years. Hagemo put aside her doubts and allowed it, figuring her daughter would want to come home soon.

A week or so later, Shelby called home in tears, wanting out. Hagemo called a church supervisor to discuss the discharge procedure. She remembers his anger:

You have no say in this. How dare you interfere. You are suppressive.

She reminded him that Shelby was 14; she was still her legal guardian. He told Hagemo the Sea Org didn't have to follow the law of the non-Scientology world.

Angry and worried, Hagemo flew to Los Angeles to get her daughter out. She said it took two weeks.

Church spokesman Tommy Davis said Hagemo's account is "false and denied." He said she was "never pressured to have an abortion," the Sea Org is not hostile to pregnant women and, when Shelby asked to leave, the church helped her "route out.''

Not until this year did Hagemo tell her daughter what happened 20 years ago, and how several colleagues submitted to pressures to get abortions.

"I look at you and I think how many more like you there could have been. And I think about the moms and the dads who had to go through that. And for what?"

The church, she says, wanted it both ways. In the womb, Shelby was a problem, easily discarded.

"Well, the problem became a commodity. She could now work all these hours in the Sea Org, be a cog in a wheel. She was now worth something.

"In my head I was thinking about the irony of it all. Fourteen years later, the child I would not abort, the Sea Org is now trying to keep from me."
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Much more including a new video at the link.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/scientology/article1102159.ece

ThePepsiSyndrome · Jun 15, 2010

June 15th St. Petersburg Times Editorial,

http://www.tampabay.com/opinion/edi...contrasts-with-pressure-for-abortions/1102372

Scientology's family-friendly image contrasts with pressure for abortions
Among the beliefs listed in the "Creed of the Church of Scientology": "All men have inalienable rights … to the creation of their own kind" and "no agency less than God has the power to suspend or set aside these rights, overtly or covertly." Yet a very different picture emerges from women who became pregnant while working for the church. They relate painful stories of intimidation, shaming, shunning or outright coercion by the church until women agreed to abortions or were forced out. It is yet another example where the church's cultivated image does not match reality.

The public image of the Church of Scientology is family-friendly. But inside the organization's 6,000-member work force called the Sea Org, young women who became pregnant faced a barrage of tactics clearly designed to weaken their resistance to abortion. These women were victims, swayed by an organization that already controlled their lives and in effect denied them free will to make their own decisions about their pregnancies.

In reports Sunday and Monday, St. Petersburg Times staff writers Joe Childs and Thomas C. Tobin told the stories of women who said they as well as other women they knew were pressured to have abortions while working for the Sea Org. Those workers toil long hours for little pay and are subjected to punishments if they are not productive or try to leave.

In some cases the women joined the Sea Org while still children themselves, recruited by the church and lured into signing billion-year contracts. Separated from their parents and often married as teenagers, they naturally wanted to start their own families.

Laura Dieckman joined the Sea Org at 12, married at 16 and was pregnant at 17. But her disapproving supervisors pressured her to end the pregnancy, she said. Claire Headley joined the Sea Org at 16, married at 17 and was pregnant at 19. She felt pressured enough to have two abortions while a Sea Org member. Sunny Pereira, who joined the Sea Org at 15 and married at 21, also had two abortions.

The prospect of motherhood should have been a joyful time for them, but instead it became a grueling test of loyalty. Continuing their pregnancies, they were told, was an unacceptable distraction from the church's mission to "save the planet." Ending the pregnancies would prove their loyalty to the church and keep them in the fold. Women who continued their pregnancies were taunted or shunned by other Sea Org members, isolated from their husbands or assigned to long hours of manual labor, the women said.

Church spokesman Tommy Davis denied all of the allegations by the women. Yet the church acknowledges that children are discouraged because they get in the way of the group's work. Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard, who wrote the Scientology creed, was a father of six. After he died in 1986 and David Miscavige, who has no children, assumed the top spot, Sea Org members who wanted to have children were shunted off to work at small, unproductive Scientology churches where they could not earn a livable wage. In 1996, Sea Org members were banned from having children. Those who became pregnant were forced to leave.

Davis told the Times that the policy that now prohibits having children "evolved out of respect for families and deference to children." That's the height of hypocrisy, coming from an organization that recruits children into its labor force, requires them to sign billion-year contracts, separates them from their families and subjects them to 18-hour workdays.

No woman should be coerced into making this painful decision, which only she can make — even by powerful bosses inside a church. The stories of pregnancies terminated by vulnerable young women under considerable pressure are one more fracture in the polished facade of the Church of Scientology.
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Check out the comments in the link. There are many, many people there calling these women all sorts of terrible names for daring to break their vows by getting pregnant, while they were married.

ElizabethB wrote:

Typical: The Times writes a bunch of slanted, biased and false "news" stories (most from around 10-20 years ago) and then follows with an "editorial."

Well, here is what another reader just posted under yesterday's "story":

There are the facts, and then there are the St Pete Times embellishments. Here are the facts (not my interpretation or "spin" -- these are just the facts ACCORDING TO THE TIMES, regardless of whether or not they are even true):

More than 20 years ago, a young married Sea Org member got pregnant. She knew this was in violation of her vows, but claims she was uneducated on the subject of birth control. Sadly, she had a miscarriage.

Less than a year later, she was pregnant AGAIN. [Surely, she is not claiming she was STILL "uneducated" regarding the consequences of unprotected sex.]

Some fellow church members "berated" her. Hagemo got upset because "I didn't do anything wrong." [Apparently forgetting she was a member of a religious order and had violated her vows - a second time - after the first miscarriage]

But despite being "berated", nobody forced her to do anything and she chose to leave the Sea Org and raise her daughter. In other words, in an article about "coerced" abortions, the star of this article simply said "no" and did NOT have an abortion. In her words, "I made the right decision." DECISION.

She remained a happy Scientologist FOR 20 YRS. She talks about the benefits of being a member of the church. Her daughter grows up, saying that church courses "helped her communicate better." She dreamed of becoming an auditor.

She then joined the Sea Org, with her mother's approval. She "had fun, but was homesick." She decided to leave. Some fellow staff members tried to persuade her to stay. She left.
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HannahH wrote:

The Times' articles have to do with people who had taken vows and became members of their religious order. Part of those vows were that they would not have children and somehow it is an outrage that they violated their vows? Could you imagine if a nun admitted to being pregnant? What reaction do you think there would be? She would probably be excommunicated!

Instead, the Times has attempted to use its special black brush it seems to reserve for Scientology and now, after however many pages of articles, is adding an editorial to the mix!

None of these women were "forced" into their decision - they all decided and all could have chosen otherwise. Why didn't the Times publish all the contrary information that they only included on their website?

What a waste of time and ink.
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As reprehensible as that is on the face of it, the truth is even worse. There are no such vows. When people join the Sea Organization they are told that if they want to have a family with their spouse it won't be a problem at all. They are lied to from the beginning and it pisses me off that they keep getting away with it.

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