Unwanted and Coerced Abortions

Unwanted and Coerced Abortions in America

• A 2026 Heritage Foundation compilation, Abortion Pills, Coercion, and Abuse, lists publicly documented allegations of women being coerced into a chemical abortion. The cases involve allegations of abortion pills crushed into food or drink, swapped pills, or coerced consumption and abuse.^[1]
• In 2026, Heartbeat International established a central clearinghouse of allegations of coerced abortions involving the abortion pill that can be found here: https://pregnancyhelpnews.com/tracker-abortion-poisonings. Heartbeat International’s Abortion Pill Rescue Network (APRN) has seen an increasing number of women reporting that they have been coerced or forced to begin a chemical abortion, as well as reports that they were slipped abortion drugs without their knowledge.^[2]
• In 2023, a Cureus study found that for two-thirds (67%) of women with a history of abortion, the abortion was “unwanted, coerced, or otherwise inconsistent with [the woman’s] own values and preferences.”^[3]
• A 2021 published analysis of blog postings (98) by women with a history of chemical abortion on the website www.abortionchangesyou.com, between October 2007 and February 2018, revealed that “52 women (53%) reported that the father to their child or other family members (e.g., parents) negated women’s own desires to keep the baby.”^[4]
• A 2017 Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons study of 987 women with a history of abortion, most of whom had contacted a crisis pregnancy center post-abortion, found that:
  58.3% obtained the abortion to make others happy;
  73.8% admitted that they experienced at least subtle pressure from others to abort;
  28.4% obtained the abortion because they feared they’d lose their partner otherwise.^[5]Although these findings cannot be generalized as representative of all women seeking an abortion, they indicate that many women abort because of pressure from others.
• Forced abortions among victims of sex trafficking is equally disturbing. A 2014 study of sex trafficking victims, published in the Annals of Health Law, reported that “[M]ore than half (55.2%) of the sixty-seven respondents who answered reported at least one abortion, with twenty respondents (29.9%) reporting multiple abortions. Without accounting for possible underreporting, this subset of responding survivors reported a total of 114 abortions. . . While only thirty-four respondents answered the question whether their abortions were of their own volition or forced upon them, more than half (eighteen) of that group indicated that one or more of their abortions was at least partly forced upon them.”^[6]
• A 2004 Medical Science Monitor study found that 64% of American women with a history of abortion felt pressured by others to abort.^[7] 7/20/2026