Disclaimer- This page is written by a Scientologist who goes by the nick of E.J. Though I host E.J.'s pages on my domain, bernie.cncfamily.com, to allow moderate Scientologists a way to express their views, it represents E.J.'s view only. I do not censor the page in any way nor do I necessarily endorse or agree with it, and reciprocally. Bernie.
BROKEN FAMILIES AND FORCED ABORTIONS:
Critics often claim that Scientology members they know personally, or have heard about, have been forced to have abortions or divorce their spouses. The stories are as common as urban myths in critical circles. But when you challenge a critic to provide evidence of a Church policy forcing abortion or divorce, they can never seem to come up with anything. Suddenly, they will say "Well, it's an unwritten policy!"
I, of course, have to point out item number one on HCO PL 9 FEB 1979R "How to defeat verbal tech checklist":
The critics then turn to their old standby 'Fair Game' or talk about members being declared a Supressive Person (SP) and their spouses being forced to disconnect.
"When an Ethics Officer finds that a Scientologist is PTS [Potential Trouble Source] to a family member (PTS Type A), he does not recommend that the person disconnect from the antagonistic source. The Ethics Officer's advice is to handle." - [L.Ron Hubbard, Introduction to Scientology Ethics, page 146, 1989]
Then there is this business of abortions. L.R.H. describes a person at 1.1 (Covert Hostility) and 0.5 (Apathy) on the Tone Scale:
"At 1.1 [Covert Hostility], a mother will attempt the abortion of her child; and any woman who will abort a child, save only if the child threatens her physical life (rather than her reputation), lies in the 1.1 bracket or below. She can be expected to be unreliable, inconstant and promiscuous; and the child is looked upon as evidence of this promiscuity."
"At 0.5 [Apathy], we have abortion with the specious reasoning that the world or the future is too horrible to bring a child into." - [L. Ron Hubbard, Science of Survival, page 131, 1989]
So, we can see that L.R.H. considered those who practice abortion to be very low-toned.
So what's really going on here?
OK, first off, you'll find that these stories almost always involve either staff or Sea Org members - not the public Scientologists who make up the majority of members. These people have devoted their lives to the Church. These are religious people. Typically, their jobs, friends, etc. are all related to the Church in some way.
When you come across these stories, there is rarely enough information to make an informed judgement about the circumstances. But the critics quickly assume the worst anyway.
In reality, people make choices. People grow apart. If a devoted member's husband becomes antagonistic to Scientology, you can expect there to be a breakdown in their relationship. If our hypothetical disaffected husband no longer wants anything to do with Scientology, he may find his other pro-Scientology friends harder to get along with. This is quite natural and hardly evidence of some sinister plot.
When you point out to the critics that people have the right to make their own choices, they will usually claim that the member is 'brainwashed' and cannot be trusted with these decisions. And at that moment the elitist critical attitude comes into full view.
You see, because a Scientologist makes a choice that the critics don't agree with, they feel the only explanation is mind-control. Of course, this kind of thinking leads quickly to activities like Forcible Deprogramming, because they no longer think that other people have freedom of choice.
On a personal note, I have not been asked to disconnect from anyone in the roughly thirty years I've been a Scientologist. I have many non-Scientologist friends, some of whom are even mildly antagonistic to the Church. Admittedly, I haven't been on staff or in the Sea Org, and that seems like a more likely place for such a situation to arise.