Female police officers from Washington D.C. revealed that they were forced to choose between aborting their babies or risk losing their career.
The Christian Headlines said Karen Arikpo and Metropolitan Police Department Youth and Family Engagement Bureau Assistant Chief Chanel Dickerson have gone public on being forced to have an abortion when they were still cadets. Both officers were given the spotlight by Fox 5 D.C. in two separate reports.
Dickerson gave a testimonial about her ordeal with abortion during the Unity Baptist Church of Washington D.C. community gathering on October 19. She revealed that she was given the "ultimatum" to have abortion or be removed from the MPD cadet program. She expressed feeling forced to do a private decision by her employer.
"When I was 18 years old, as a police cadet, I was told I had to have an abortion or be fired from the MPD cadet program. Wow. My choice to have a baby was personal, and it should've been mine alone and not...with an employer ultimatum," Dickerson said.
Arikpo echoed Dickerson's statements by revealing that police cadets were actually required to get an abortion or face termination from their work. She recalled being told of such a requirement by one of the police academy's female sergeants.
"If we were pregnant, we need to get an abortion or we would be fired," she quoted the female sergeant in saying.
Arikpo then disclosed that she obeyed and had an abortion only to regret doing so until now. She shared that she could no longer conceive despite wanting to have a child of her own, and expressed sorrow for making that one-time decision for her work. She lamented that if she could return to that moment she would have chosen to continue with her pregnancy than with the police academy.
"I've never been able to have a kid," she divulged.
"I did this for a job," she added, "And then to want kids and can't have them. How do you tell people that?"
Dickerson is one among 10 African American female police officers who have filed a lawsuit against the MPD for discrimination on the basis of gender and race. Dickerson and her companions are demanding $100 million from the MPD in line with the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges discrimination on two levels. One, on the basis of "the MPD's employment policies, practices and procedures towards Black women police officers" being "unlawful discrimination and retaliation."
The other on the basis of the Metropolitan Police District Equal Employment Office Head--who is a man--repeatedly expressing "hostility to women officers, and who colludes with management to crush Black women who complain about race and gender discrimination and sexual harassment." Ironically, the Equal Employment Office is the department that handles internal problems on discrimination.
Female police aren't the only ones who are forced to have abortions to continue in their career path. Previously, female athletes have also come to the fore regarding being forced to have an abortion to sustain being part of their team or university scholarship.
The athletes similarly allege that it is a policy of universities that female athletes are prohibited from becoming pregnant to retain their scholarship. The female athletes will automatically lose their university scholarship once discovered they are pregnant-unless they have an abortion.
