The most recent episode of Live Action’s newest series, “Face to Face,” features a panel of people who have all been affected by abortion in different ways — and the various regrets they have.
In the latest video, several former abortionists met for a discussion with an abortion survivor, women suffering from post-abortion regret, and a former labor and delivery (L&D) nurse.
Do abortionists enjoy killing?
Jill Stanek, a stalwart in the pro-life movement, spoke about her experience working as an L&D nurse — which changed her life. “I went to work at Christ Hospital… on the southwest side of Chicago, thinking that I would be safe from moral and ethical dilemmas like abortion, because who would think that a hospital [using the name of] Christ could possibly be involved in such a thing?” she said. “But I came to work one night in my capacity as labor and delivery nurse, and heard in report two terrible blows. One was finding out that the hospital was involved in late-term abortions, and the second was finding out that there was a second trimester baby with Down syndrome being aborted that night.”
The baby was being killed through an “induced labor” abortion, in which labor was induced while the baby was alive, and the baby just left to die. Stanek was told that she didn’t need to be involved, but overheard an alarming conversation.
“One night, a nursing coworker was taking another little baby who’d been aborted because he had Down syndrome to the soiled utility room to die, which is where they went,” she said. “And when she told me what she was doing, I couldn’t bear the thought of this little child dying alone, and so I cradled and rocked him for the 45 minutes that he lived. He was 21 and a half weeks old, about eight ounces. And needless to say, that was a life-changing event, and just the trajectory was that I immediately became involved in the pro-life movement as an activist.”
She then directed a question to the former abortionists.
“I’d like to ask the former abortion doctors something that I’ve heard in the past — that at a certain point, committing abortions can become kind of like a bloodlust to certain abortionists, and they get some sort of, I don’t want to say thrill, but positive feeling from committing abortions,” she said. “And I wonder, not that you experienced that, but have you heard that? Have you seen it?”
Kathi Aultman, an OB/GYN and former abortionist, answered. “I felt I was doing something really good, and so I was very proud of what I was doing,” she said. “And I’ll have to say as I was, and it embarrasses me to say this, but when I was learning to do D&E abortions, it was such a challenge, you know, technically, that I felt really proud of what I was doing, and it was sort of, oh, the bigger, the better. It’s a terrible thing to say, but that’s how I felt.”
Another former abortionist, Anthony Levatino, referenced the late George Tiller, a well-known late-term abortionist who was assassinated in 2009.
“I’d never met George Tiller, so I can’t tell you exactly what [he was] thinking. But on the other hand, it was my understanding that George Tiller, who did a considerable number of late-term abortions, actually had a crematoria on his property, and he was the only one who would work that crematoria. I don’t know what his thought processes were,” he said. “I can’t even imagine that, but that’s the only thing along those lines that I ever heard.”
“I never felt any euphoria with it. I think I suppressed most of my emotion and just wanted to get through it,” Haywood Robinson, a retired family physician and former abortionist, added. “I was doing it because of the money and just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could. So basically suppressing the humanity of the child.”
Seeing the light
The group discussed the horrors of abortion, which led Stanek to ask what made them eventually change their minds. “I think what you’re talking about is like a blindness or something. And I’m guessing that that’s what you experienced,” she said. “Just what was the awakening like…?”
Emily Rarick, a woman who has had two abortions and said she lives with abortion regret, responded. “I never believed that what I was doing was okay,” she said. “I always felt that it was wrong, but I felt that I had to, I didn’t feel like I had another option. So for me, there wasn’t this moment of like realizing, oh, I killed, I committed murder. I think in my heart, I always knew that it was just finally coming to the point that I admitted it to myself. And that was when I saw the humanity of my son and learned about his development. And it was very, very hard. It was very shocking. And finally having to just come to terms with that was very painful.”
Another post-abortive woman, Gigi Davis, agreed. Davis has had five abortions, and said it took her 10 years to heal from the trauma.
“Yeah, that blind, I call it a blackout moment. Every time I would go into an abortion appointment, I would literally shut down my mind, my thoughts, my emotions. I would shut down my senses. Anyone that tried to speak to me in that moment, I just would block them out. I would like blackout, like as if, you know, someone gets really drunk and they just, they don’t remember what happened the previous night or whatever, so that I could get through the appointment and then just deal with the emotional, mental consequences later. And it would work temporarily, it will work,” she said. “And then when I would get through the emotions, however long that lasted, whether it was weeks or months, then it was somehow I went back to normal and then I was able to do it again. And it wasn’t until I broke free of the deception and I confessed what I was doing and I was honest about what I was doing that all the pain really hit.”
She added, “So I know many women, they go into these abortion appointments and it looks as if they are just okay with it. It looks as if they are, you know, they woke up that morning like, yeah, I’m ready for this. But I can guarantee most of them are blocking something. They’re turning off something in their heart so that they can go through that that horrendous act.”
How did abortionists see women?
Davis said that during her appointments, she was ashamed of what the abortionist thought of her. “If that would allow me to lead into the question, what did you think of the women that came in there?” she asked. “Were they all, you know, a certain type?”
Levatino, who said he now teaches medical students, said that this is an important part of his education today: that the decision to have an abortion is never trivial.
“I know a lot of people make it sound that way, and that’s not really the case,” he said. “Every single woman has her story and every single woman is worried about one or a lot of different things. ‘I’m worried about my future. I’m worried about my education. I’m worried about my finances. I’m worried about what my parents will think of me.’ And as an abortionist, I was the good guy. I was going to help you with that problem.”
He also added that abortionists experience a similar blackout feeling as the women undergoing the procedure.
“You shut down X, Y, Z to be able to get through it,” he explained. “Understand, the doctor does pretty much the same thing. I’m doing a service. I’m not stupid. I can see the arms and legs in the suction machine. Or if you’re doing a D&E abortion like I used to do, I’m literally tearing out arms and legs this long. And you have to shut yourself down to be able to do that. So what do we think of you? Not a whole lot. I’m there to help your problem. But in the end, we’re in a very real way where we’re both going through the same thing.”
