We're back with another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emil Jasanski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST.
Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts into the premium version of
our website as well. Today we're joined by doctor Heywood Robinson along with his
wife, doctor Narene Johnson. He is out with a new book called The
Scalpel and the Soul. As a former abortionist who became a dedicated pro life
advocate, doctor Robinson presents in this book a unique and thought provoking perspective that
is sued to generate deeply insightful and engaging dialogue for your audience. According to
his publisher, doctor Robinson, thank you for joining us. It's a blessing
to be here. Thank you for having me. Yeah. You know,
obviously, the part of your bio that I just read that probably grabbed a
lot of people's attention is the former abortionist element of it, and I know
that plays a huge role in the book. Can you tell us a little
bit about your background. Folks should of course buy the book and get the
full story. But you could tell us a little bit about your background and
how you ended up in the position where you were a medical professional performing abortions.
Well, let's do our best to do a reader's digest version for a
couple of minutes. Basically, worn and raised in southern California, wanted to
be a physician ever since I was about four or five years old. I
don't know where that came from because none of my family was educated. I
went through high school, college, medical school, turned to my community to
do residency and family medicine and on the family medicine rotation or the obg N
rotation of the family medicine residency, abortion training or learning to do the procedure
that's the DNC. It's something that you learned. Now. Many of the
people in the audience may have had dncs for a miscarriage to empty the uterus
of the products of conception so there's not bleeding and infection, but the same
procedure can be used to destroy a normal pregnancy. I met my wife,
my late wife, and residency training. As a matter of fact, she
was part of the team of physicians that taught me how to do this procedure,
and she eventually was the cists just say, seduced into the abortion cartel,
the abortion industry. And when we became involved socially and also professionally,
she partnered or welcomed me in to work with her, moonlighting on that we'll
be working after hours weekends or after hours during the week at abortion facilities from
southern California. Now, I just like to remind our audience that even though
I do scientifically that a preborn child is indeed human, is indeed a developing,
a live human being is just not born. Yet I still bought it
into the culture or the lie that the sanctity of human life or the importance
of that life was not as important as one that was born. But what
helps the individual except the lie that this class of people is not worthy of
the same right to life that we enjoy, is that money is the key
variable that helps blind one and lead a blind eye to help you continue in
what I referred to in the book and what we referred to in the book
as the de humanization and desensitization of the preborn child, so that that child
is not valued at the same value that we are. But the Lord saved
me, I became a follower of Jesus Christ, and when that happens,
he makes you a new creature. I was transformed by the renewing of my
mind, so that the simple truth of the sacredness of human life and we
being made in the image of God is the way I saw things. But
so now I understand the sanctity of human mind from God's point of view.
I understand it when I read the Framer's documents about how we're endued by certain
and alienable rance for our creator. You can argue pro life and the sanct
of life from any major paradigm politically, scientifically, and spiritually. So the
Lord switched us around. We became pro life warriors and working in the movement
since the late nineteen eighties, and the book will give you some very interesting
insight on that walk. When we put together the material for this book,
it's kind of like sweeping up a dirty realm and seeing how which sin can
pile up over the years. It's one thing when you look back and well,
I did this on one day, or I did that on another day.
But when you sweep it up and you put it in notes and you
start compiling a book, you really recognize what a wretched individual you can be
without the Lord Jesus Christ. So here I am today, redeemed, set
free, hoping that this book will change hearts, that will make people understand
that this abortion holocaust, which is a global holocaust that is killing right now
more than sixty million babies worldwide a year, a million and a half or
so in our country, that this is unprecedented spilling and shedding of innocent blood.
We've got to win this war. I believe that we, as we
follow God's leading in this movement, that we're going to win, and the
class of a preborn will indeed enjoy their right to life, liberty, and
the pursuit of happiness. I love that you said transformed by the renewing of
your mind, the one from the Book of Romans. And I'm fascinated that
you went on this journey with your wife, and I wanted to hear if
you could tell us just a little bit about what that was like about your
wife and about the moment. I'm sure it was more than just one moment,
but the season in your life when you both started to turn to each
other. And wonder if the profession you dedicated yourselves too. Was not just
helpful as you thought as a physician obviously that was practicing abortion, but actually
quite the opposite and was harmful right well, as you said, it wasn't
just one moment. Everyone has a who's a believer has a testimony, just
as we have a DNA or fingerprints in retina that are unique to our individuals,
Solves. I went to a Christian contemporary creation music concert on March second,
nineteen eighty six. Leon Partilo was performing, and he prayed during the
intermission of his concert and said something to the effect those that want things to
be one hundred percent right with God to stand up. Well, I didn't
really know the gospel, basically spiritual laws, all the other things that I
had, you know that we know now as believers. But I stood up
because you know who doesn't want things right with God? And I prayed what
I recognize now as a sinner's prayer, and I took it to heart.
But I didn't realize until as a few weeks progressed that I had been,
indeed gone through my Damascus Road experience. It's just that I wasn't aware of
the process at the time. Over the next several weeks. So it just
so happened that our youngest child was about to be born, and my roommate
from medical school was coming to be at that delivery, and he just happened
to be the son of the Pentecostal preacher, and he started sharing the gospel
with me and actually told me that he and his wife had been praying for
my wife and I too. So Lord just took that particular time in our
lives to show us the truth about abortion, and to make us His disciples,
and to turn us around so that we could indeed be a part of
When I believe it's the most noble cause in the history of human kind.
There has never been a war likeness. There has never been the magnitude of
bloodshed on any level, particularly innocent blood. We have a I believe,
a holy calling to come to the aid of these innocent people and children who
have no voice, who have no political power, who have nothing to get
us except for their love if they're allowed to be born. So I'm calling
on the conscience of medicine, the conscious of Americans, the conscious of individuals
all around the globes, that they become aware of how serious this war against
babies is. And I'm curious now that a year has passed since the Supreme
Court rendered its decision in the Bob's case. How you think you know?
Obviously we know I've seen an estimate of some twenty five thousand babies lived this
year who before Dobs would not have and it sort of harkened a number on
that. But we've an a estimate is staggering. But in the last year,
how do you think this conversation has shifted? If you think it's shifted,
is it for the better? Is it for the worst? What lies
ahead of us as we look at a year post Dobs? Now, I
believe it's a good thing that the Supreme Court reverse it's horrible decision. Of
course, it goes right along with Dress Scott Pleather versus Ferguson to illustrate that
the Supreme Court is made of human beings, and human beings make errors,
And of course the versus Way decision was a great error, the overturning of
but I think it did more for the reputation of the Supreme Court than it
does for pre one children. People need to recognize that the overturning of Rovie
Wave was nothing like what happened after the Civil War with Emancipation Proclamation, etc.
What happened during that time. Slavery essentially was ended at that time.
Not so with abortion because of the way was made. We still have a
large number of states doing abortions. We still have a great, great fight
to go forward with. We have a few states that are abortion free,
other states that have limitations, but we have a large number of abortion going
more that we've only cut down the number of abortions, as you've mentioned,
Maybe it's hard. Maybe the number of abortions just gone down twenty percent,
it maybe thirty percent, but that's not acceptable that we have the number of
abortions that are still going on. Our fight is continuing, so at least
the decision that was made when those nine men who in nineteen seventy three donned
the black robes and called themselves supreme made a horrible decision that has led to
a death toll of close to sixty something million babies killed in the United States
and seventy three. Yes, it's good that decisions overturned, but the effect
of it and the unfortunate agreeing with that decision in medicine to be the executioners
of this death sentence that continues, and now we have so much propaganda,
so many lives that are happening now that are trying to make people think that
there's, oh, there's so many women out there, they just can't find
abortion here. That's just not true. They may have to travel a little
farther for it. The other factor that we need to make very clear is
that the medical abortion, the abortion pill, has made abortion far more accessible
for a large number of women and a lot more unsafe environment because there's basically
no pre procedural assessment for gestational age at topic, etc. So there are
lots of women we just can't how can we possibly count or keep up with
the babies who are killing with chemical abortion. So there is no shortage of
abortion. There is no lack of access. Yes, they're in Texas.
We have I haven't been speaking to you from access in the Gulf. They
have from what I understand, an abortion boat where you can get on a
boat and go for little cruise or whatever and have your abortion. We have
employers in certain parts of the country that will pay for women to go get
their babies killed. Isn't it interesting that when you've ever heard an employer who
would take care of an employee who needed some heart disease, taking care of
or any other medical matters. But when it comes to abortion, it's just
so important that now we see employers say they'll even relocate employees if they feel
that they have to have an abortion. Are baby killing facilities are that are
close to them? It's just an absolute horrid situation. Want to win a
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for tuning into tech it Out on your favorite podcast platform. And as somebody
who used to, one of the more interesting things you mentioned earlier was sort
of getting sucked into the social milieu of your job, which is easy for
everyone, but probably a very different thing when you're performing abortions professionally. And
I wonder how you in retrospect. Think other people who are in that industry
justify it to themselves, you know, when you're outside of it. It's
probably one thing to look from the outside in. But how people justify actually
making money off of the chemical abortion drugs, How they justify working day in
and day out to snuff the life out of unborn children? What does that's
a process like just on a human level. And I alluded to that a
bit earlier. It's a process as I look at how I was enticed,
desensitized incrementally, how you incrementally dehumanize the preborn child, and that the humanization
actually goes back to the physician. Also, it starts pretty much the same
way an individuals starts smoking. If those of us who tried to smoke a
cigarette at once recognize our experienced that the first reaction was that you started coughing.
That was because your body recognized the smoke as a noxious, unwelcome agent.
And that's normal. But all you have to do is continue to smoke,
and you can become addicted to it. So with respect to abortion,
the first time I was exposed to if you have somewhat a bible to call
a cerebral queasiness, so to speak, if there be such a term,
you say, it's just maybe something not so quite right about this. But
the next time you watch an abortion, you're desensitized to get a bit,
you know, the eyes of the window to your soul. Then the next
thing, you know, a week later, a month later, it becomes
a routine. You no longer see it as a woman who's losing their child.
You're no longer see it as a baby that you're killing. You're just
instead of killing a baby, you're you're performing an abortion. You see,
you're not killing a baby. You're just exercising the woman's reproductive rights. Let's
change that, you know, let's use the euphemisms that they that they use,
but they're all are related to dehumanizing individual. You know, a woman's
reproductive rights doesn't mention the child. If we look at businesses in the cartel
like Planned the Parenthood, their name is alive. They don't plan to help
people become parents. Okay, So it's from the loeu of lies that you
live in that creates a false construct a reality of life. And that it's
amazing that all of us who are in line went through a stage of life
where we were free born and just as vulnerable as the babies that are in
the world right now, we see great injustices, racial disparities. Now I'm
a Black American, I can tell you that the founder of Planned Parenthood,
Margaret Singer, who was a eugenicist, clearly stated that there are certain races
of people's, certain individuals, which are human weeds and should not proliferate in
the population. And she had a vision of that being realized, in other
words, controlling certain population groups. And what we see now is an actual
and then actualization of her vision. If we look at New York, there
are more black babies that are killed by abortion than there are born alive.
The most dangerous place in the United States, or really in the United States,
and for sure in New York is a black womb. Approximately one third
of all black pregnancies will end an abortion, and that is genocide. And
that is the manifestation of the eugenic policies that were started to actually way back
in the early nineteen hundreds, late eighteen hundreds with the eugenics movements. And
as you went through or as you have gone through this last period of oh
Man, that you would know this much better than I do. The recent
turn towards chemical abortion, which has been a hard pivot something that's been around
for a while, although not in the scope of human history. It's a
very very new technology to be able to kill your child so easily with a
pill. But it's a pivot that the left has made very intentionally, the
abortion industry has made very intentionally. But from your perspective, is that really
making it easier? Easy is an interesting word? Is it? Is it
a method that does, to your point, further condition people to accept and
normalize the evil of what's happening? Are what are the dangers going forward as
more and more abortions are performed with pills? Yeah, sure it does.
Of course it does, because now the doctor is usually not even in the
picture. So but what it does It creates a situation where a woman is
truly alone, going through a horrible pain, bleeding many times at home,
doing basically a do it yourself abortion. What it does it makes it so
easy for a person to suppress the reality well I'm going to take this pill
and I'm going and it's going to take my baby's life. It is it
does make it easier because then it isolates a woman. It puts them in
a situation where, yes, I can do this all by myself. I
don't have to tell anyone. It's going to be an easier kept secret.
But it's a horrible way for women to go. It's an abortion. It's
not it's not natural. It's not normal for a woman to want to harm
their child, born or free. So the whole notion of getting a mechanical
abortion or a chemical abortion is still a great step. But yes, it
does make it easier if a woman, either by mail or by the worst,
by the internet, or by the web the web, gets a pill
and takes it. It also creates another market where there are human traffickers.
There are pimps that keep their own supply of the abortion pills so that if
one of their workers gets preyed it, they just go ahead and make them
take the abortion, the abortion pill, the chemical abortion. So it makes
it seem like you're just treating a headache, like you're just treating a bladder
infection. I'm just going to take this pill and my problem is going to
go away. And another thing on my mind right now is we're talking through
some of this is I imagine over the years, you've had people from different
perspectives or people with different perspectives on life challenge you, or you've been in
conversations with folks who disagree with you, and a lot of people, especially
from non religious backgrounds, definitely buy the argument that this is sort of the
right of the woman to make this decision because the baby is part of her
body. We're all very familiar with that line of argumentation. But as you've
been confronted with those in the past, and as somebody who's seen this up
close and personal, what do you say to folks who make that argument.
It's really very simple. First off, you have to make it very clear
the baby is not part of the woman's body. It's within the woman's body
and occupying a space within their uterus, And basically it's the baby wanting forty
weeks of least time to grow and then move out of the apartment. So
you need to make people aware that there's double mindedness with abortion, that you
can't have it both ways. All we need to do is look at laws
that we have on the books that protect preborn children. For instance, if
a woman goes to see her obstriction and the obstriction suspects or finds out that
that mother is taking drugs, that doctor is obligated by law to notify child
protective services because the state has an interest in the welfare of the child that
is now being affected by a mother's taking whatever drug That is. Another a
simple example is to look at say the Scott Peterson case. You have a
man who murdered his pregnant wife. He is on death row for two murders.
You see, you can't have it both ways. Where the state recognizes
the preborn child as a human being, that when it's killed, it's recognized
as a murder. But then if you take an individual who has a license
to practice medicine and they kill the baby, it's not a murder. You
can't have it both ways. So either Scott Peterson should only be on death
row for one murder and not two, so the state has a multitude of
laws that protect the preborn child. You cannot if I walk up to a
woman and hit her in the belly and they called as her to miscarriage,
to have a miscarriage, I indeed will incur illegal consequences to that assault on
the mother and on the child. You can't have it both ways, right
right, Well, as we're wrapping up here, doctor Robinson, is there
is there anything we haven't touched on that you think is just so important for
people to know that maybe they don't know about this important issue. Well,
I would hope that the scales of the people who would call themselves believers and
that the church would wake up. You see, the Church, and these
are the followers of Large Jesus Christ. So many of them turn a blind
eye to this. They think of it as a political whole issue. Now,
the taking of the innocent blood, the harming of innocence, particular babies,
is nothing new. Those that understand the Bible, those has read the
Bible know that for millennia, preborn children, our babies have been offered up
in sacrifice to God's moleac bail, etc. This is not new. But
what we also must recognize that this is a very very evil thing and God
hates it. So if we are a God fearing country, if you are
a God fearing individual, you have to be sensitive to the fact that this
is nothing more. It's nothing different than what went on in the Middle East
and thousands of years ago. They went on in Israel, and they were
severely punished for what they did by the worshiping of these foreign gods and the
sacrifice of their children will not be tolerated. But how we're supposed to be
a human race that understands the sanctity of human life and welcomes babies, not
kills them. We've got to stop thinking that a preborn child is something that
is not human and should have the opportunity to be born and enjoy the beauty
of a life, because God has a purpose for their life, and indeed,
each and every human being adds to the beauty of our world. The
Scalpel and the Soul is available now. It is a very powerful contribution to
your reflections on the decline of Row. I recommend you check it out.
Doctor Haywood Robinson, thank you so much for joining us. It's been a
blessing that you have a wonderful day. You too, sir, You've been
listening to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Joshinsky, culture
editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then,
be lovers of freedom and anxious for the fray heard the fames a reason
and then it faded away.