A woman who says she was mistreated at Dr. Henry Morgentaler's Harbord St. abortion clinic has told a Toronto reporter a sanitary napkin was forced into her mouth to stop her screaming in pain.

And, she says, she was not given sufficient time to recover after she had an abortion.

But Morgentaler says the woman is an immigrant from Central America who has been threatened by police and "coached" to make statements to discredit the clinic.

The woman, 27-year-old Sylvia of Toronto, is the patient Dr. Morgentaler said was harassed by police last Monday after they followed her from the clinic and later took her to Women's College Hospital.

Her identity is being withheld by the clinic and by police. But yesterday, a police reporter from radio station CFTR aired an exclusive interview with Sylvia.

She told the reporter she was not give a painkiller when the abortion procedure began and she "jumped" in pain. But Morgentaler said the patient received a painkiller and intravenous Valium to calm her down.

Sylvia says she told him: "'Stop it, stop it. I don't want you to do this (abortion) any more. Please don't do it.' " But Morgentaler said the patient was calm and cooperative during the abortion.

Sylvia said she screamed and a female assistant forced a sanitary napkin into her mouth. "I went, 'No, no, don't do that.' She got the Kotex and she put it in my mouth so I couldn't scream," she told CFTR.

Morgentaler said she was offered the sanitary napkin to bite on and she accepted willingly. It is a common practice, he said.

After the abortion, Sylvia said, "They were trying to hurry me out of the waiting room. They didn't even ask me, 'Do you feel like lying down?'"

"We took good care of her," Morgentaler said. "She spent an hour lying down and eating cookies and tea under a warm blanket. When she left, she gave me a big hug and said how well she was treated."

Sylvia's advice to other women was: "No, not to go there at all, believe me."

Said Morgentaler: "I don't know how the police have influenced her. The police have threatened her and she is intimidated. She is afraid of the police and she is being coached to tell this story. It is a concocted story."

Her English is limited and Morgantaler said he spoke to her partly in Spanish.

Clinic staff member Sharon Levy-Hardaker, who counselled Sylvia before the abortion, was amazed to hear the charges.

"The story you are getting from Sylvia now is a story from a hysterical person," Levy-Hardaker said.

She said Sylvia had been physically abused by the man with whom she was involved and that by discrediting the clinic she may be "trying to justify to the male involved that she was forced to go through with it (the abortion)."

But Laura McArthur, president of the Right to Life Association, said Morgentaler and his staff "have been lying through their teeth all along." McArthur said she believes Sylvia's story "100 per cent."

Police chief Jack Marks said earlier yesterday that he felt Morgentaler has manipulated the media repeatedly since the clinic reopened and Sylvia's story was one example of the truth being told.

But Marks was not available for comment to comment of Morgentaler's charge that Sylvia was "coached" before making her comments. Members of the police morality squad, which is handling the investigation, were also unavailable for comment.