Dr. Haywood Robinson and his now-deceased wife Dr. Noreen Johnson started their relationship as a married couple performing abortions. Together, they went through a conversion and became pro-life advocates.
Johnson died in August 2021 due to complications from the coronavirus. And now, Robinson has published a book they co-authored telling their story: “The Scalpel and the Soul: Our Radical Transformation as Husband and Wife Abortion Doctors.”
“We started out as girlfriend-boyfriend who were doing abortions moonlighting as residents,” he said in an interview with The Daily Signal. She was a resident and an OB-GYN, and he was a resident at Martin Luther King Jr. Outpatient Center, formerly known as Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, Robinson said.
“We used to work after hours and weekends in various abortion facilities,” he said. “It’s easy money. It’s really not fun to do. I think, in your heart, you know it is wrong. But the love of money is the root of all evil.”
From California, he said, they moved to Texas. They weren’t performing many abortions, but they still “believed in it” and still referred women for abortions, “which is just like you are doing it yourself.”
In March 1986, Robinson became “a believer” in God through a dramatic spiritual reawakening. That conversion instilled in both Robinson and Johnson a firm desire to protect the unborn and to battle the pro-abortion movement.
“One of the first things that the Lord did for us was to make us aware of our past and abortion,” he said. “Because what He wanted to do was to take us from darkness to light, from abortion providers to warriors in the pro-life movement.”
Asked what he would say if given the opportunity to speak to an current abortionist, Robinson emphasized: “I’m not God. I’m not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the only person who can convict an individual, a sin, be it abortion, prostitution, human trafficking.”
Robinson advised speaking to an abortionist “like they’re a regular person” to love, rather than someone committing horrific sins: “We have to speak the truth in love, if you are given the opportunity.”
Abortionists are used to attacks that portray them as monsters or “not as human beings,” he said. So, instead, he would try to get them to open up by sitting down and asking them, “How are you doing? How long have you been doing this?”
Those kind of questions will cause the abortionist to evaluate his or her life, Robinson suggested, “to discover how empty and horrible and evil that their life is,” adding:
Because if you really start to examine yourself as an abortionist, it’s really not a pretty picture.
That’s one of the things he has discovered writing “The Scalpel and the Soul” with Johnson.
“As we compile this stuff, the notes and experiences, it’s kind of a sweeping up a dirty room. You don’t know that there’s that much dirt in there until you start sweeping it up. And you start seeing, ‘Well, I did that, and I did that … .'”
Robinson referenced pro-life activist Abby Johnson, who formerly worked in a Planned Parenthood clinic and helped with abortions.
“She was really overcome by the love,” he said, adding, “The Bible says love covers a multitude of sin. It disarms sin many times. We’re not God. We’re not passing out punishment. There’s ways to share the truth. But you’ve got to share the truth in love.”
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