by Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann
Jesus came to save, not to condemn. Thus, his church is about conversion, not about condemnation. The following are a few conversion stories of medical doctors and other abortion industry personnel who left their jobs of killing innocent preborn children to experience the joy and peace of living the “Gospel of Life.”
In 1975, Dr. Beverly McMillan opened the first abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi. McMillan had interned at Cook County Hospital in Chicago, where she nightly cared for patients suffering from serious infections resulting from a botched abortion. This experience disposed her to perform abortions when she began her medical practice.
One day, while reassembling the body parts of a baby she had just aborted to make certain that nothing remained in the mother’s uterus that could cause infection, McMillan began to marvel at the beauty of the baby’s arm. This caused a scientific insight that coincided with a spiritual awakening. It was impossible for her to deny the humanity of the babies that she was aborting. In a short time, she stopped doing abortions and simultaneously began to practice her Christian faith again. Later, she discovered that a group of Christian women had been praying for her conversion for several months.
Dr. Bernard Nathanson was one of the founders of the National Abortion Rights Action League. He was a leader in the efforts to legalize abortion in the United States. Nathanson presided over 60,000 abortions. Nathanson, while ethnically Jewish, identified as an atheist.
Nathanson helped to formulate what abortion advocates termed the “Catholic strategy.” The plan was to divide Catholic laity, especially Catholic women, from their bishops and the Catholic Church’s clear teaching on the evil of abortion and the sanctity of human life.
In the 1980s, Nathanson took a sabbatical from his medical practice in order to study more thoroughly fetology, the study of unborn human life. His scientific studies convinced him of the humanity of the unborn child. Nathanson stopped performing abortions and became an outspoken pro-life advocate. Eventually, inspired in part by the witness of Mother Teresa, Nathanson became Catholic.
Dr. Noreen Johnson began performing abortions while completing her medical training as a California hospital resident. A friend and neighbor who was also a hospital resident encouraged her to supplement her income by performing abortions. With the burden of her medical school debt, she began performing abortions as a way to make a lot of easy money. Johnson introduced her future husband, Dr. Haywood Robinson, to the financial benefits of moonlighting as an abortionist at local clinics.
Before their marriage, Noreen told Haywood that she did not want to have children. Much to her surprise, she became pregnant shortly after their marriage. She informed Haywood that she intended to abort their child. Noreen approached her neighbor friend, who had introduced her to the medical world of abortion, requesting that he abort her child.
She was stunned by his response. He said: “There’s no way I’m doing an abortion for you. It’s one thing when I do one as a service for women who come into the clinics. That’s just business. I know nothing about their personal lives or their reasons for wanting an abortion, and I don’t want to. But this — this would be personal. This would be my good friend’s baby. I don’t get the reason you don’t want to keep it. This baby has everything going for it. You’re married. You’re both doctors, so money isn’t a problem, and you can provide whatever this baby needs. No. I won’t do it. I love you. I don’t want to do anything to harm you.”
Noreen had never heard her friend talk about abortion in this way. His reaction made her pause and reverse her decision. As it turned out, Haywood did not want their baby aborted. Fortunately, Noreen gave birth. She is forever grateful that she did not kill her child.
A couple years later, Haywood and Noreen both had profound religious conversions. During their Christian conversions, they realized the need to repent for all the abortions that they had performed. They both became strong pro-life advocates. Haywood is the director for medical affairs and education for Forty Days for Life.
Perhaps the most well-known convert from abortion-provider to pro-life advocate is Abby Johnson. Johnson began volunteering for Planned Parenthood when she was a student at Texas A&M in College Station. She eventually began working for Planned Parenthood, counseling women to have abortions. She became the Planned Parenthood clinic director in Bryan, Texas, and in 2008 was named Planned Parenthood employee of the year.
Johnson began to question the motives of Planned Parenthood because of the pressure they placed on clinics to increase the number of abortions. It confused her. If Planned Parenthood was truly about choice for women, why did they appear to push abortion over other possible options?
The final straw for Johnson came when she was asked to assist with an ultrasound- guided abortion. While operating the ultrasound equipment, she was horrified to witness the child attempting to escape the suction machine.
Johnson left Planned Parenthood immediately. She eventually became an eloquent pro-life advocate. Johnson wrote “UnPlanned,” a memoir describing her conversion from Planned Parenthood clinic director to pro-life advocate. The book eventually became a feature-length movie. Having left the abortion industry, Johnson also underwent a spiritual conversion that led her to the Catholic Church.
Johnson founded and currently leads a pro-life ministry — And Then There Were None — helping those who, like her, worked in the abortion industry, to transition from the dark and dreary world of killing unborn children to the abundant life God desires for them.
Dr. William Yates was a Navy doctor and self-proclaimed humanistic existential agnostic. As a young resident doctor, Yates had performed more than a dozen abortions.
After performing what was his final abortion, he informed the sister of the mother of the aborted child that the surgery had been completed. The sister asked: “Was it alive?” Yates did not know how to respond. If he said “no,” he would be lying, while saying “yes” was an admission that he had killed another human being. Yates never performed another abortion.
Yates married a devout Catholic. Inspired by the virtue and goodness of his wife and his own religious study, Yates became Catholic. He and his wife gave life to eight children.
At significant financial sacrifice, Yates moved his family from Maine to Nebraska to accept a yearlong fellowship under the renowned Dr. Thomas Hilgers at the Paul VI Institute in Fertility Care and NaPro Technology in Omaha, Nebraska.
Two of his daughters became Sisters of Life, dedicating their lives to proclaiming the “Gospel of Life.” Yates died from cancer on Dec. 28, the feast of the Holy Innocents.
These are stories you will not find in the mainstream media. Why? Because they do not support the cultural lie that abortion is health care and benefits women. Remember these stories when you are in the voting booth.
Recently, the Wall Street Journal ran a front-page article entitled: “Countries fail to reverse the baby bust.” It described the unsuccessful efforts of some European countries to provide financial incentives to increase their national birth rates. The world’s most affluent nations are experiencing population declines that are creating a demographic winter.
Cultures that embrace the deception that killing our own children is health care and celebrate abortion as a woman’s right will not endure, much less flourish. This is a case where population decline inevitably follows moral decline.
These conversion stories I have shared with you give hope to what God’s grace can do when we open our hearts to his love and mercy. More than 700 abortion industry employees have responded to Abby Johnson’s invitation to leave their abortion jobs. Johnson is committed to walking with former abortionists to help them break free from the dark and dreary world of abortion and discover the peace and joy God desires for all his children.
