Skip to content
The Catholic Leader
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute
No Result
View All Result
The Catholic Leader
No Result
View All Result
Home News Australia

US abortion provider invited to speak at Brisbane event calls coercion of any sort “appalling”

byEmilie Ng
22 March 2018 - Updated on 1 April 2021
Reading Time: 3 mins read
AA
Dr Alexandra Doig, Dr Leah Torres and Dr Bryan Kenny

Engaging dialogue: Dr Leah Torres (centre) joined by Brisbane physicians Dr Alexandra Doig and Dr Bryan Kenny for a panel at the Abortion Rethink summit in Brisbane. Photo: Emilie Ng.

Share on FacebookShare on Twitter
Dr Alexandra Doig, Dr Leah Torres and Dr Bryan Kenny
Engaging dialogue: Dr Leah Torres (centre) joined by Brisbane physicians Dr Alexandra Doig and Dr Bryan Kenny for a panel at the Abortion Rethink summit in Brisbane. Photo: Emilie Ng.

ABORTION provider Dr Leah Torres has told Australian lawmakers and campaigners for better care of women regarding reproductive health that she has nightmares about performing terminations “on somebody that doesn’t want one”.

Dr Torres, a gynaecologist and obstetrician who for nine years has provided abortions as well as maternity care, prenatal care and other reproductive health procedures in her Utah clinic, said at a national summit on Australian abortion law reform in Brisbane that performing terminations on someone who was coerced into making that choice haunted her.

“One of my nightmares is that I am doing an abortion on somebody that doesn’t want one, that they’re being coerced,” she said.

“I’ve actually had that nightmare, so it’s something that haunts me.”

The American doctor was invited to speak at the Abortion Rethink summit on a panel with Brisbane specialist gynaecologist Dr Bryan Kenny, who as a Christian is against abortions.

The summit was held to give a “360-degree look at abortion law, policies and practices in Australia” and encouraged dialogue between different sides of the abortion debate.

Lawyers, psychologists, crisis pregnancy support activists, politicians, social workers, several members of the Queensland Law Reform Commission and experts in counselling post-abortive women attended the event.

In her brief address, Dr Torres strongly called out against any forms of coercion, saying it was “appalling” that Australian women were forced into abortions.

“Any sort of reproductive coercion is appalling and it needs to stop and I need to figure out how to work together to ensure that coercion of any sort – financial, romantic, parental, whatever it may be, is not happening,” she said.

Dr Torres said she was “gobsmacked” to hear the personal testimonies of two women at the summit who were forced into having an abortion against their will.

Related Stories

US states start banning abortion following historic Supreme Court ruling

Archie’s beating heart means he is not dead, according to a Catholic institute

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

“I’ve seen here that there’s sort of an opposite side of the coin to what we face in the United States which I feel is a regret of coercion of forced birth and I was gobsmacked to hear the stories from the brave women earlier about being coerced into having an abortion,” she said.

“It’s appalling.”

Emma McLindon, a mother who has had eight abortions in her life, spoke of the “unhealthy, obsession desire” she felt to fall pregnant numerous times after having her first termination at 16.

She said she was coerced, forced or abused into having an abortion “and then all of them left me alone to carry the grief and the trauma myself”.

“It’s been about twenty-eight years since my first abortion,” Mrs McLindon said.

“I was a naïve sixteen-year-old who got ushered to an abortion clinic by my boyfriend and his father,” she said.

The pain she suffered left her with a desire to “replace my baby” which she said was “an all-too-familiar cycle for many post-abortive women”.

“I found myself having gone from a super-fit, healthy and happy teenager to an obsessive alcohol and drug-taker leading a promiscuous lifestyle still desperately trying to fill the void of that lost child.

“But no drink, pill or man could ever replace my babies, ever.”

Mrs McLindon revisited abortion clinics eight times before having a “very, very slow” journey of healing.

“You find yourself playing out the exact same scenario of an unplanned pregnancy to a man who doesn’t want a bar of being a father,” she said.

“So while I want the baby, time and time again I found myself back at an abortion clinic, the last place I wanted to be, so why couldn’t I get out of this horrible cycle?”

Mrs McLindon said the community needed to support women and “show her that having a baby is something she can do”.

ShareTweet
Previous Post

Federal and state parliamentarians encourage pro-life Queenslanders at March for Life rally

Next Post

High school dream now reality with senior classes open at Ambrose Treacy College

Emilie Ng

Emilie Ng is a Brisbane-based journalist for The Catholic Leader.

Related Posts

US states start banning abortion following historic Supreme Court ruling

US states start banning abortion following historic Supreme Court ruling

27 June 2022
Archie’s beating heart means he is not dead, according to a Catholic institute
Hot Topics

Archie’s beating heart means he is not dead, according to a Catholic institute

22 June 2022
Myanmar military burns houses, destroys a village
News

US bishops applaud San Francisco prelates pastoral response to Pelosi’s decades of abortion advocacy

24 May 2022
Next Post
New Ambrose Treacy College senior school

High school dream now reality with senior classes open at Ambrose Treacy College

John Vitek

Co-author of US study into why young Catholics leave the Church praises Australia's efforts to evangelise in schools

St Ursula's students celebrate 100th anniversary

St Ursula's celebrates 100 years

Popular News

  • Man of faith: Newly-ordained priest Fr El Louie Jiminez with Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral on June 29. Photos: Alan Edgecomb / Purple Moon Photography

    Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Australian Plenary Council aims to avert Church ‘moment of crisis’

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Fr Josh braves ‘freezing’ June night to raise awareness for homelessness at Vinnies Sleepout

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Archbishop Coleridge unveils new cross at Banyo church

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
  • Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer

    0 shares
    Share 0 Tweet 0
Search our job finder
No Result
View All Result

Latest News

Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer
QLD

Sunnybank’s ninth Multicultural Mass unites 16 languages in prayer

by Joe Higgins
1 July 2022
0

SUNNYBANK parishioner Ross Frassetto loved to see so much involvement from parishioners in the parts of the...

Evarist D’Souza

Archbishop Coleridge unveils new cross at Banyo church

1 July 2022
Netball Superstar: St John Fisher student Jayden Molo.

St John Fisher College student selected for the Australian Netball U17 Squad

1 July 2022
Plenary task: “Reveal the face of Christ”

Australian Plenary Council aims to avert Church ‘moment of crisis’

30 June 2022
Man of faith: Newly-ordained priest Fr El Louie Jiminez with Brisbane Archbishop Mark Coleridge at St Stephen's Cathedral on June 29. Photos: Alan Edgecomb / Purple Moon Photography

Fr El Louie Jimenez ordained

30 June 2022

Never miss a story. Sign up to the Weekly Round-Up
eNewsletter now to receive headlines directly in your email.

Sign up to eNews
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Contact
  • Contribute
  • Jobs
  • Subscribe

The Catholic Leader is an Australian award-winning Catholic newspaper that has been published by the Archdiocese of Brisbane since 1929. Our journalism seeks to provide a full, accurate and balanced Catholic perspective of local, national and international news while upholding the dignity of the human person.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader
Accessibility Information | Privacy Policy | Archdiocese of Brisbane

The Catholic Leader acknowledges Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the First Peoples of this country and especially acknowledge the traditional owners on whose lands we live and work throughout the Catholic Archdiocese of Brisbane.

No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • News
    • QLD
    • Australia
    • Regional
    • Education
    • World
    • Vatican
  • Features
  • Opinion
  • Life
    • Family
    • Relationships
    • Faith
  • Culture
  • People
  • Subscribe
  • Jobs
  • Contribute

Copyright © All Rights Reserved The Catholic Leader

0
    0
    Your Cart
    Your cart is emptyChoose another Subscription
    Continue Shopping