Abortion doctor speaks at pro-life conference and tells why he turned his back on life as a "paid assassin" after performing 1200 procedures
One of the world's most prominent abortion surgeons has flown to the UK to address a major pro-life conference this weekend.
US based Dr Anthony Levatino, has practised obstetrics and gynaecology since 1980, and during his career performed in excess of 1200 abortions.
But he has now become a foremost critic of the industry which has claimed the lives of more than 8.2 million babies in since the Abortion Act was introduced in the UK 50 years ago this year.
He is the keynote speaker at the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children's Youth Conference this weekend, and he will outline his views based on his experience to the over 200 delegates who will attend the event.
Dr Anthony McCarthy of SPUC said:
"This is a man who has been through the system and emerged at the other end.
"At one time he believed that his actions could be interpreted and explained as morally neutral. But now, with the benefit of hindsight and reflection he realises that we was actually doing was misusing his medical skills."
Fiorella Nash of SPUC, a prolife feminist writer and researcher, added,
"Dr Levatino is a man who truly respects both women and babies. His courageous work exposing the reality of abortion to the world is no doubt saving many lives. Whilst Women's Day is being used to sell abortion to the world, including at an abortion conference in London today, SPUC's Youth Conference is promoting the truth about abortion and offering ethical alternatives."
As part of his medical training, Dr. Levatino was taught to do abortions. In 1985 he stopped doing abortions and is now in private practice as an obstetrician gynaecologist.
Dr. Levatino told his story at the first Meet the Abortion Providers conference in November 1987.
Speaking of his times as an abortionist, Dr Levatino who worked in a partnership, has said:
"It was never a major part of our private practice. However, to this day I regret our group was just about the only group (in the area) that was performing late abortions, D & E procedures, Dilatation and Evacuation. And we received referrals from all over the area in our part of the state, even from neighbouring counties 70 to 80 miles away. We had a lot of patients.
"Why? There are many reasons. It's profitable, there's a lot of money in it! But there's philosophical things that come first. As I'm fond of telling people, if you are pro-choice and you happen to be a gynaecologist, then it's up to you to take the instruments in hand and actively perform an abortion. It's the most natural association in the world.
"There are other reasons; they're perhaps no less important. I've heard many times from other obstetricians: Well, I'm not really pro-abortion, I'm pro-woman. How many times have you heard that one? The women's groups in this country, they're not alone, but they've done a very good job selling that bill of goods to the population. That somehow destroying a life is pro-woman. But a lot of obstetricians use that justification to themselves, and I can tell you, a lot of them believe it. I used to. It's not hard to be convinced of it."
Explaining the reasons behind his decision to change his views he said:
"Yet, I was doing that at the same time that my wife and I were trying to have a child, and we were having difficulty with that. We had been married a couple of years at that point and no baby. Suddenly, we realized we had an infertility problem.
"I kept doing abortions, I didn't stop. But it was tough. We started desperately looking for a baby to adopt, and I was throwing them in the garbage at the rate of nine and ten a week. It even occurred to me then: I wish one of these people would just let me have their child. But it doesn't work that way. So the conflict was there.
"As a doctor, you know that these are children; you know that these are human beings with arms and legs and heads and they move around and they are very active. But you get reminded -- every time you put that scanner down on somebody's uterus -- you are reminded. Because you see the children in there -- hearts beating, arms flinging.
"We were lucky. My wife and I were very fortunate because we had gone through all the usual adoption agencies trying to find our child. We ran up against one road block after another, until suddenly I got the bright idea: I know 45 obstetricians on a first-name basis in this town, one of them has to have a baby available for private adoption.
"So, we advertised. We talked to every obstetrician in town. It still took four months, but one day we got a call, I will never forget that day. Three days later we had adopted a healthy little girl. We were satisfied. We called her Heather."
"Now I had a family of my own, and there was no pressure to adopt a child anymore. As often happens, although the books say it is not supposed to, after we adopted a child, after years of trying, we had a child of our own. So we had a boy and a girl, and we were perfectly happy with that.
"Life was good until June 23, 1984. On that date, I was on call, but I was at home at the time. We had some friends over, and our children were playing in the back of the yard.
"At 7:25 that evening, we heard the screech of brakes out in front of the house. We ran outside and Heather was lying in the road. We did everything we could, and she died.
"When you lose a child, your child, life is very different. Everything changes. All of a sudden, the idea of a person's life becomes very real. It is not an embryology course anymore. It's not for just a couple of hundred dollars. It's the real thing. It's your child you buried.
"I got very, very rough with the staff in our office. Every time I was asked to schedule an abortion, I got very angry. I began feeling that people were doing something to me. That was ridiculous -- I was doing it to myself.
"After a few months of that I started to realize -- this is somebody's child. I lost my child, someone who was very precious to us. And now I am taking somebody's child and I am tearing him right out of their womb. I am killing somebody's child.
"That is what it took to get me to change. My own sense of self-esteem went down the tubes. I began to feel like a paid assassin. That's exactly what I was. It got to the point where it just wasn't worth it to me anymore. It was costing me too much personally. All the money in the world wouldn't have made a difference.
"So I quit. I slept a lot better at night after that."
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