December 3, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – During my decades working as a family physician, I’ve delivered hundreds of babies. To this day, there is nothing in this world that compares to seeing a mother cradling her newborn moments after birth. The hours following the babe’s arrival are equally precious; from the photographs to the taking of footprints, and the child being passed around for hugs and kisses from all, there’s just nothing better than an infant’s birthday. I’m privileged to have witnessed and played a role in a plethora of these days.
Because of this, because of the unparalleled purity and joy I have experienced time and again with the birth of a baby, I was beyond horrified when I discovered the services offered by one Dr. LeRoy Carhart, a man who has blasphemed the beauty of a child’s first day on earth. Dr. Carhart provides abortions into the third trimester, after which he allows the family to hold their aborted baby and take family photos before the child is disposed of.
“Many patients request a remembrance of their baby to take home,” reads a brochure on Dr. Carhart’s website. “[Y]ou may want to consider a token of the precious time…you and your baby had together.”
Yes, for $10,000, Dr. Carhart will kill your baby and provide you with a “remembrance certificate.” The brochure depicts a memory box containing a terminated child’s abortion certificate, footprints, a baby beanie, and a stuffed ducky. In addition to providing mementos of his victims, Dr. Carhart also refers for funeral services, cremation, and religious services from pro-abortion clergy.
Dr. Carhart makes no attempt to hide the fact that every abortion he performs ends an innocent human life. He doesn’t try to dehumanize the child with focus-group-tested euphemisms. He admits that he’s killing a child and makes no apologies. It’s an attempt to portray abortion as a natural part of life. But science shows us that abortion is anything but natural – it’s harmful.
Late-term abortion is a grueling three- to four-day procedure that is dangerous or even deadly for the mother as well as the child. It’s some of the worst physical and emotional torture a woman can experience.
Dr. Carhart didn’t have time to provide Jennifer Morbelli’s widower with a memory box celebrating the couple’s precious time together. That’s because the kindergarten teacher died the day after Dr. Carhart aborted her baby 33 weeks into pregnancy.
The risk of such deadly complications is why many states are enacting legislation requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a local hospital. Such laws ensure that an abortion provider cannot simply abandon a patient, send her to the emergency room, and have another doctor manage complications sustained during the procedure.
Even countries in post-Christian Europe don’t allow gruesome third-trimester abortions. Only five countries worldwide allow elective abortions after 24 weeks of gestation: the United States, Canada, Vietnam, China, and North Korea.
Incremental desensitization and dehumanization
The truth, however, is that I can empathize with Dr. Carhart’s doings. Early in my career, I performed abortions. It’s understandable how the desensitization and dehumanization required to continue working in this industry leads one down a path like his. There was a time in the not-too-distant past when the medical community would not have tolerated the shedding of innocent blood. After 46 years of broken hearts and 60 million lives lost, abortionists and other pro-abortion physicians must admit our role in the most significant civil rights crisis of all time.
Abortion is not medicine. Pregnancy is not a disease.
There’s a saying in medical training: “You see one. You do one. You teach one.” The first abortion I witnessed troubled me…the second, not quite as much. I was experiencing incremental desensitization and dehumanization. By the time I finished my residency, I was more than happy to perform abortions for some extra money. Abortion is a lucrative business. It’s fueled by money and greed. “The love of money is the root of all evil.” But now I’m here, on the pro-life side, delivered from darkness to light. I’m living proof that the truth can break through the desensitization, the dehumanization, the monetary addiction, and the ideological commitment to legal abortion.
Our country was founded on the affirmation that all human beings are created equal and are entitled to equal protection under the law. It’s a principle that has guided our country beyond a myriad of social injustices, and it will lead us to the end of abortion as well. And so, this is my plea to you, Dr. Carhart: remember the reason you became a doctor in the first place—to minister and heal. “First, do no harm.”
In laying down your speculum and using your medical expertise to save lives rather than end them, you could become an impactful human rights defender and possibly save tens of millions of lives. You might even turn the tide of history.
Please come home. It’s not too late.
Dr. Haywood Robinson the Director of Medical Affairs & Education for 40 Days for Life. He attended college and medical school in Southern California and received specialty training in family practice medicine and performed abortions until 1981.