Herschel Walker’s financial support of his former girlfriend’s abortion would be laudable if he weren’t running on a no-abortions-ever platform. As a former abortion counselor, I am not surprised at his hypocrisy. Anyone who has worked in an abortion clinic knows that people who claim to be against abortion get abortions for themselves when they need them.

When I worked at a Washington, D.C., reproductive health clinic, my job was to counsel a woman before she had an abortion, to make sure that it was the best decision for her — and that the decision was hers alone. Counselors had the authority to cancel a scheduled abortion and refer a woman for more counseling if it seemed that she had been coerced into the decision by a partner or a parent, or if she were ambivalent for any other reason, or hadn’t considered the decision enough.

Sometimes a woman would return with new confidence in her decision to have an abortion. Sometimes she would decide to continue the pregnancy. Occasionally we got baby pictures from women grateful that we helped them realize that what they really wanted was a child, not an abortion. Helping a woman choose the decision best for her was what abortion counseling was all about.

The most difficult cases, for me, were the anti-abortion patients. I regularly counseled women seeking an abortion who protested outside of abortion clinics or worked for anti-abortion organizations — women who tried to prevent other women from getting abortions. These women were subject to extra counseling, as I assumed they were grievously torn about their decision, and I was worried that they would suffer emotionally after the procedure. (Although anti-abortion people claim that abortion causes depression and suicidality, studies have shown that that is not true. However, a woman who undergoes an abortion that she does not want, or who has an abortion impulsively without considering all options, can definitely suffer regret and emotional distress.)

Oddly, the “right-to-lifers” scheduled for abortions were the least ambivalent patients I had. Every single one was absolutely resolute in her decision. Often defensive, they told me that they had a contraceptive failure, or couldn’t afford another child, or did not want to raise a baby alone, or that they were already overburdened with caretaking responsibilities, or that continuing a pregnancy meant they would not be able to pursue a cherished dream. Variations, in other words, of stories I heard every day.

What was different was the attitude: The anti-abortion women felt they had nothing in common with the other women with whom they waited for the procedures. One woman told me that the other women in the waiting room, unlike her, were sluts. No matter how hard I tried, anti-abortion patients stayed somewhat disassociated from their decision, perhaps to avoid facing the contradiction of having an abortion one day, and then insisting no woman should have an abortion the next.

It was my job to make sure that women were resolved in their decision to have an abortion, were not being coerced in any way, were well-informed about the procedure and were emotionally prepared to have the abortion. The right-to-lifers I counseled passed that bar. If anything, they were less upset over having an abortion than the pro-choice women with whom they waited — the women they felt no community with, the women for whom they had no empathy.

No woman enjoys having an abortion, but sometimes it is the best option among limited options. It’s too bad that some people obtain abortions when they need them, but work to prevent other people from having the same right. It was galling to know that some of my patients would return to protesting outside of clinics after they themselves had had an abortion.

Women who are against abortions get an abortion when they need one themselves, and men who are against abortion are not always against abortion for a pregnancy they caused. Abortion providers can hardly reveal their anti-abortion clients, but rest assured that Herschel Walker is not alone — there is plenty of hypocrisy to go around.

Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman is a professor in the Department of Pharmacology and Physiology at Georgetown University Medical Center.

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