“I just felt that it was strange that they would all make the same decision. Independent of their individual circumstances, they had all made the decision to have an abortion, no matter how old they were or how many children they already had. We found that almost unbelievable. And when we started asking more questions, in order to find out their individual motives, because we were suspicious, they stopped coming to us altogether, for any services."

"If a woman gets pregnant, and does not abort the child, then they are declared a suppressive person. Because, it kind of started out gradually. At first, the thing was, the Church of Scientology International did not want to pay for child care," said Bolstad.

P.1 In particular, Plaintiff complains that she worked long hard hours for illegal wages, was forced to have abortions to keep her job and was subjected to violations of personal rights and liberties by Defendants for
purposes of obtaining forced labor.
P.2 3) The goals of this case include stopping the practice of ordering female employees to have abortions, stopping the practice of oppressive child labor and clearing the path for workers of Scientology organisations
to obtain the compensation due them under state and federal labor laws. Plaintiff seeks payment for her work at minimum wage, overtime pay, a permanent injunction against forced abortions and other remedies authorized by law.
P7. In the course of, and by reason of her employment with Defendants, Plaintiff was ordered to have abortions, at her expense, and in fact coerced and intimidated into having abortions to keep her job with Defendant. Plaintiff is informed and believes that Defendants continue to ignore labor laws and coerce pregnant workers into forced abortions.
P.11. In 1994, while working for Golden Era Productions of CSI, Plaintiff became pregnant. She was nineteen at the time. Having children was against the dictates of top management at Scientology. Plaintiff had witnessed two other employees refuse to have abortions. They were demoted and ordered to perform heavy manual labor for months. Plaintiff was concerned about the potential consequences of doing hard labor while pregnant and quite reasonably was reluctant to suffer the punishment of manual labor for
being pregnant. At age nineteen, Plaintiff had only her job at CSI and was dependent upon CSI for support. Plaintiff had been working for far less than minumum wage, had no money, had no place to go and no medical insurance or coverage as an employee of Golden Era Productions/CSI. Plaintiff felt
trapped and without viable options. She had an abortion to keep her position at Golden Era/CSI and not risk the adverse consequence of having her baby.
P.12. 26) In 1996, there was a second forced abortion. Plaintiff had been transferred from CSI to Defendant RTC. She was sent to Clearwater, Florida to be trained for her new position at RTC. Plaintiff was given a pregnancy test and found to be pregnant. Plaintiff was not allowed to communicate with her husband, friends or family about her family. She was not allowed to contact her husband, Marc Headley, for advice, console or his input on aborting the baby. She had no money, no insurance, no housing, no
credit, no high school diploma and no job prospects except for her employment at RTC. To keep that employment on which she was dependent, Plaintiff was forced to have a second abortion at her expense.

At Int Base, I know of several female staff members that were absolutely pressured into having abortions. I know one girl who had four abortions in a five-year period. And when somebody goes to the eye doctor
goes to see a physician anything, any medical thing, they're usually driven by one of the medical liaison office staffers. When these girls are going off to get abortions they are going to the planned parenthood facility in Hemet, going with a carload of girls and it even got so bad that the Planned Parenthood place was like, “What the hell is happening? This is just not right, we are seeing girls come in here every week and not only that sometimes we are seeing the same girls back again months later”. And they actually
had to go to different Planned Parenthood centers all over the England Empire because they were creating a public relations situation by having so many abortions performed on church staff members. So, it really is. If you don't get an abortion then you are basically saying I don't want to be here, if you don't get the abortion you have to leave so, I mean...

[48:00]

DO: It's not an official policy, it's an unstated rule.

MH: No. It's an official policy that you cannot have kids while you're at the Int Base property. That is an official rule. There are no kids allowed, period. If you do have a child, then you get sent to some other facility where you no longer in the Sea Org and you become like a staff member and I think that the last person that actually did that was in 1992. It was a girl who got pregnant, held her ground and said “I'm having the baby”. I can't remember any other females from 1992- forward at the Int Base that actually didn't get an abortion and have their baby. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of abortions not just like ten, twenty. We are talking about every week, girls going to the Planned Parenthood center getting abortions.
[49:00]

DO: Is there any way, we can investigate that particular, scenario?

MH: That's the thing with everything at the Int Base. That's the thing with the beatings. That's the thing with the abortions. That's the thing with the people being held there against their will. If you go there today and say "Hey, are you being held here against your will?", they are going to say “No, I love it here, it's a Paradise!”

15. In late 1991, my wife Monika became pregnant and although we were elated, she was ordered to abort the child. The reason for the abortion order is that Sea Org members were not allowed to have
children. The order devastated both my wife and me. Our dedication as Sea Org members clashed violently with our intentions as parents and we went through a personal nightmare with me opposing it, to no avail. She got the abortion and afterwards she was not the same. She was devastated at the impact of what she did and that was when she told me she wanted to leave. We fled, with the organization close behind us, trying to find us. They finally did and convinced us to return so we could "leave properly."

4. Within a month or so of joining staff I discovered that I was pregnant. At the time I was approximately 22 years old, upset and uncertain as to how to handle this. I was afraid and needed someone to turn to
so I confided in Melanie, thinking I needed to let my ex-boyfriend know, as I truly did love him very much and we did have intentions to marry in the future.
5. Melanie’s very strong advice and pressure was to abort the baby. She had gone on to say that at this point in my life it is better to do the greatest good for all. That spending my life “clearing the planet” which means basically to get the planet saved from insanity, would be the greatest good, in other words, a far more noble endeavor than leaving staff to raise a child.
6. She went on to tell me that the spirit doesn’t enter the baby’s body until the baby is born. She made the point that all I would be “killing” is a piece of meat essentially. We discussed this for a couple of days and she showed me definitions in the L. Ron Hubbard Technical Dictionary to persuade me to have an ABORTION.
7. I made the decision to go through with the abortion, even though I was raised in a Catholic home where abortion was never an option. I can remember the state of mind I was in at the time; I was completely shut-off emotionally. I felt numb through the entire procedure of going to the clinic and getting the abortion procedure done. I detached myself completely from the responsibility that I was about to kill a living human being so I could be on staff and do scientology. The Executive Director of the Org, my direct senior had convinced me, that this foetus was lifeless, therefore it was ok to kill it, so I could help Ron save the planet. As though it were a mole or something I was removing. I felt no remorse after the ordeal, which is very, very unlike my true nature.
8. I want to mention here that Melanie, the E.D., was also trapped in the bizarre beliefs, falsehoods, hypocrisy and lies of the Church of Scientology and that I don’t see her as a bad person today. During that period I witnessed first-hand the same pressure given to others, especially when married couples on staff wanted to have children. It was looked down on as not productive for the group, or the greatest good, etc.

Said Astra Woodcraft: "I remember thinking wait a minute, I never agreed to this. I am 17 years old, I haven't made a decision that I'm not going to have children." Two years after the policy was established, Astra Woodcraft learned she and her husband were expecting a baby.
"A very high-level Sea Org member one day saw me and asked me what I was doing and I said I was leaving and I said I was pregnant and he said, Oh, is it too late for an abortion?," Woodcraft said. "I didn't even know what to say in response. "
In a San Francisco Chronicle article from 2001, Church leaders said that the Church has no policy on abortion, leaving the choice up to individual couples.

42. Approximately 1½ years before I left, a new rule came out stating that if you got pregnant, you had to either get an abortion, which was heavily pushed, or leave. The rule had previously been that if you got
pregnant, you had to get an abortion or be sent to a small and failing lower organization where you had to fend for yourself and your baby. I had to handle any staff that disagreed with this new rule. I myself disagreed with it because I wanted children and was told I would be able to have them when I was first recruited. However, I never said anything for fear of getting into trouble.
I got to the point of being suicidal because I was so unhappy, but I never said anything because I would have gotten into big trouble and been looked down upon.
43. In September of 1997, my grandma in England died. I convinced my seniors that I had to go to her funeral in England. They did not want me to go, but finally relented and let me take an 8-day leave. When I returned I realized that I could not take being split apart from my family any longer. I decided to get pregnant because if I tried to just leave, I would be made to do heavy labor and confessionals for 6 months to a year and be called a "degraded being" by the other staff. I got pregnant in January of 1998
and on February 23rd 1998 I left without permission, got on a plane and went to stay with my aunt and uncle in England. No one knew up until then that I was pregnant and I was really sick and had to get away. My seniors in Scientology threatened me that if I didn't come back and receive a confessional I would be declared a Suppressive Person and my family would never speak to me again. My mother who is still in the Sea Org called me on a continuous basis telling me to get an abortion and return.
44. I returned on April 1st, 1998. Jeff Porter told me that if I left again, I would be declared immediately.
I told the security staff there that I would stay with my father and come in every day for my confessional, explaining that I needed proper nutrition and they couldn't provide it. They told me that I had to stay in their berthing or I would be put under a non-enturbulation order, which means that if I caused further trouble, that is if I still refused to stay in their berthing, I would be declared suppressive.
I then agreed that I would stay there for four days, which is how long my confessional was supposed to take. The Security Chief wrote me a letters stating that if I was not done with my confessional within four days, I could stay with my father until I finished.
45. Four days later I was not done, but I was told that they had only written the letter to get me to stay in the berthing and that it was not valid. Therefore, I had to continue to stay in Sea Org berthing and eat micro waved meals even though I was suffering from morning sickness. I had to sleep on the floor in a small room while waiting for my confessionals. I was there for 1 month.
46. It took a lot less time for me to leave because they didn't want any of the other staff to know I was pregnant, so they were trying to get me out quick. A staff member from the Religious Technology Center (The Sea Org's highest organization) came up to me one day while I was in the process of routing out and asked me what I was doing. I told him that I was pregnant and leaving and he said to me "Oh, too late for an abortion?" I personally knew of three other girls who got pregnant and were convinced to get
abortions.
One was my sister-in-law who was 16 weeks pregnant when she was convinced to abort her child although she was strongly against it. My mother told my sister and I that it was good that she got an abortion.
...snip...
I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America and the state of Florida that the foregoing is true and correct.
Executed in Clearwater, Florida this 24th day of January 2001.