A Former Abortionist's Journey to Becoming Pro-Life (Part 2 of 2)

And I think given the journey you've been given. What you say that person who whispers in your ear. Horrible things may not be abortion, whatever… Is really what I like.

I don't care what you've done, it cannot compare to what I and then there is forgiveness.

If you ask for and really repent.

It won't happen. All you know, the forgiveness comes all at once the change and you will take time and that's what the day will come when you can forgive Dr. Anthony T know is our guest again today on Focus on the Family along with his wife, Cecilia, and your hostess focus presidency and author Jim Daly John Fuller John there's a verse in the New Testament in second Corinthians that perfectly describes Dr. Latino story.

It's in chapter 12 and it says, but he said to me, my grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. That's what we heard last time, and if you missed the program last time, get a copy get the download.

Do what you need to do.

It was a powerful message about Tony, his wife, Cecilia Tony was a abortion doctor and he had performed many many hundreds if not thousands of abortions and it's how God worked in both of their lives to bring about an awareness and to eventually bring them into a pro-life perspective and I'm so grateful for their courage in sharing their story.

If you missed any of the previous part of our conversation I you can find it all on the website or the YouTube channel and John when we ended part one last time with Tony and his wife Cecilia. We just heard about how their daughter who join their family through adoption was tragically killed after being hit by a car and you know they began to discuss that healing process and were going to pick the conversation up at about that point today writing this note for parents if you got younger children. This is premature conversation were having. So I have the little ones out of the way and maybe just listening privately, yourself Tony and Cecilia welcome back to focus you make you're still drying her eyes from the last time we were with you because there was a powerful story about the death of your adopted daughter Heather and being a physician and ICU nurse and not having the capacity that's what caught my attention because doctors you do believe you can do everything and to be there helplessly watching your daughter dying your arms.

I just can't imagine. To be honest with.

That must've felt like and then you're picking up the pieces that Tony talked about how you begin to mourn separately, and you are drifting Cecilia, I wanted to come back to you to fill in your perspective on that. What were you feeling. I can imagine the mother's wound and that way and with Tony's distance, not having that connection with that isolation must've felt like it was it was paralyzing. I think that's the best description of what it's like to lose a child, you are absolutely paralyzed in grief. It is so profound, it's indescribable. How did you be the caretaker for Sean. I mean, was that all normal and on auto function are did Sean suffer to because you guys were emotionally distant and trying to figure out how to recover and that's a good question. He was obviously suffering because they were more like twins.

They were so close and it was it was horrible, horrible time for him.

I think we tried to keep things as normal as possible. Heather died in June he started kindergarten in September and I can remember just sitting at the kitchen table all day long.

I mean, just not being able to just not in the grave and and for the first time in my life seriously. Having suicidal thoughts in my goodness, because it the pain was so intense I just didn't want to live another minute when it and actually talked about it.

We did talk about that because John was just no way was going to happen. We actually discussed. That's how deep the despair. It was it was it was just indescribable. Well, in that most of you know it captures the love you have for other this adopted daughter that's profound yeah and it's the little things. I mean greeting, regardless of how many people are around you and II think even if we had a very close relationship at that time and were able to grief together. Greeting is a very personal, lonely thing right and it doesn't matter how many people around you. It doesn't matter how many people are trying to help you. You are alone in it you really is no easy fix you through the process has to go through the site.

Tony at last time you talked about picking a few weeks off your back in your practice and your performing a D&C. I believe in the change that had occurred at that moment here. Your you've lost your daughter in this terrible automobile accident. Now you're taking the life of this viable baby second trimester child taking it limb by limb, as you describe last time. What's the process forward, there what was going through your mind after that procedure and getting home that night. Did you talk to Cecelia about it. You still all bound up. Now we were. We were both all bound up. We did not talk about it. I mean after that first abortion.

You know I I wasn't prepared for the reaction. I just never thought of abortion in a negative context. Until that day. It's almost like the humanity of it came back in that moment really interested in it did.

Very much so. But on the other hand, I am a dedicated pro-choice position.

I know why I feel bad. I will get through this. So I just literally know what what what to so many of us doing grief we we soldier on. You know, we especially for men. Their jobs are important so you know we just were going to work and I just plow through this. Yeah I only say this and see if you connect Cecilia remember Gina and I were going through a tough time and her brother taken his life and I can remember as a husband being kinda lost as to what to say but being an orphan kid. I was like Jean, I think we just go to pick ourselves up by your bootstraps and get moving, which was very insensitive when I look back on it now. I remember she just looked at me and said Jim not everybody can do what you do. I'm different. I got a grief and how that was a wake-up call for me. Yeah, it really is and I think Ted Kennedy continue what he was saying he he expressed it by becoming very angry at the nurses and the patients and the hospital. I always knew when he had an abortion scheduled the next day because he would just go into this radiation is taking it out on me and Sean. He was taking it out on our friends who are trying to comfort us, but you notice that I did notice it.

And at that point I was convinced that our marriage was over and I had literally packed our suitcases for Sean and I and one night when he went into one of the rages I just I just looked at him and that was the first time we ever said anything about it and I looked and I messaging a lot.

It's not the nurses fault rescheduling it on your day. It's not the hospital school for allowing them. It's not the patient's fault for thinking she needs to do this, it's your fault wow and how the utility that was the that was the opening salvo. As I said we've been married so many years.

At this point and never talked about this ever.

Now you now all of a sudden she's you know she hit me with no both barrels and you know, literally, and then I didn't know she had already packed a bag she was about to walk out. This was just going to be no sheep self-expression is not one of seals problems and you know so she finally she was going to say something, no matter what, and that opened up an hour and 1/2 conversation for the first time we actually talked about them.

Happy to say she didn't walk out of the right now and then what was the healing process moving forward.

And what how to get up the next day to talk about it. It's interesting eventually. Was it was about seven or eight months after Heather's death that he finally stopped performing abortions and and his and he can talk about this is partners understood but we had been invited.

Someone had come into our church one Sunday morning and handed out invitations to a pro-life potluck dinner and so I went home that night and that later that day and we start talking basilisk of this pro-life potluck dinner and Tony literally laughed and said why would I want to go to a pro-life potluck dinner and and we had we had an excuse. We had another engagement that evening and God has a wonderful sense of humor and we had to drive by the potluck dinner was to get to where we were going and where passing by and Tony said let's just stop in for a few minutes for giggles and that we did we end up staying almost an hour there and that some fabulous pro-life people and really day became our life vest through the grieving process and the process of leaving the abortion industry.

Tony, what were you thinking when you said let's just stop in what was your preconceived idea of what this was to be like what we got a little ahead there because after our hour and 1/2 discussion I went back to my practice next day and said I would no longer do the second trimester Dini abortions. It was just too difficult. I would and that was a bigger deal than it sounded because were only two of us doing them suddenly dumped the entire workload on the other physician because we were getting referrals from other physicians to do these second trimester Dini abortions is a difficult and dangerous procedure and very few physicians would do it but they were understanding and I can but I as I said I was going to soldier on through front so I told him I would just do the little ones. The suction D&C abortions we did in the office and I soldiered on for months doing them afterwards and it was February 1985 when I finally said that's it, I'm not doing any more of these you know you think of doctors as being so smart were no different than anyone else.

When you finally figure out that killing a baby the length of your hand for money is wrong. It doesn't take too long to figure out that it doesn't matter if the babies even install.

You know it's it's all the same you I talk about that.

The way you express it in the other broadcast know today. You're an adult. Once upon a time your child didn't look anything like you do today I Once upon a time, your baby. Once upon a time, you only 1 inch tall, but was always you again that the partners were very supportive. They understood what it happened. They understood my decision. You know what was I thinking when we know when this invitation came everybody in the abortion industry knows that every pro-life person is a kook and I know this because CNN tells me so and they would never lie to me. You know, but so when you know what she told me were invited to this pro-life potluck dinner. I did liberally laugh was like you gotta be kidding me getting in, getting away from abortion was one thing, it was very personal. Getting involved in pro-life movement, not a chance.

I mean yes wasn't going to happen. It's really critical for people to grab this you became pro-life for you made a commitment to Christ. Yes, that's really critical because most people think the reverse would've happened had people yelling at all that I always assume that for in some ways a more powerful testimony of Darren. He was working through this whole thing right. We still serve how long was it from the time of making that commitment to to stop doing abortion and in essence tip toward a pro-life perspective to when you became a Christian. And it all, tightening the other.

It was still, it was still several years, I always tell story 1983. I'm still doing abortions in regular business I show up my office and were being picketed by the local Christian crazies didn't have her names in the sign and we know there for us. People often ask is what we were picketing your office. You know what you thinking is what gives us a siege mentality.

It's us against you kooks outside and it was during that time that I got a patient named Susan she was in her mid-30s routine LBJ and examine a Pap smear. Nothing special when it was over. She said can I talk to you and a lot of patients, especially women. I think won't tell he was really on their mind pushing new patient to learn to love develop some level of trust, and I looked at her and in a professionally look at her and said how can I help you, and she blows me away when she says I've been sent here to give you a message that Jesus loves you. He cares about you. This is not what you intended for your life to be an abortionist, please stop and I had one overwhelming thought when she said this was believe me, patients and doctors listen to their patients and that I had just one overwhelming thought that was. I got a hustle this kook out of my office as fast as I could and I did a year later she showed up again for next LBJ and examine said can I talk to you and I went all know this is not that we never darken the inside of the church before, but people were very demonstrable about their faith always made me uncomfortable and she she said the same message again. I knew what she was going to say, not only because I remembered what she said and believe me I did, but in the intervening year I received three personal greeting card sent to my office are confidential with the message written on the greeting card once I arrived at my office in the intervening here and there was a plate of brownies waiting on my desk with the message tied to the brownies and talk to people and I said you know she's not an idiot. She knew what I thought sure how long would you evangelize somebody who thought you were nuts. She did it for seven years, seven years faithfully. Yes, that's amazing. That's a great illustration of how to help somebody change their perspective right. It really was very powerful and and Tony contacted her well when when we finally accepted Christ.

The minister would brought us the last bit of that attorney. Years later he would know he didn't know any of the story.

But you know he was deep and around longtime signal. In my experience, a lot of people help you on the road to Christ.

Be nice to go back and think she's the first person I brought her out to lunch. Found out she was one of those people picketing my office in 1983 Tony I don't want to rush by probably the most pivotal moment in your lives. You know, when you accept Christ. It's one thing to imagine being an abortion doctor and because of the tragedy with your daughter Heather you come into the practice and you say listen, I'm struggling with this. I can't do second third trimester abortions Ulster first trimester and they understood that and they were accommodating of that and they were compassionate. I would think about that but then you become a Christian and you lost friends and people didn't like so much that you would become a Christian. One of our contrast years before we became Christians in that way.

America said we were going to our church, but accepting Christ personally is quite something else. As you understand is the difference, but they were very understanding, until we got involved in the pro-life but then it was not so good because they felt that my being pro-life, and especially becoming public about it through a spotlight on what they were doing because they continue to do abortions and so was convicted. It was and it really opened some major rifts in our in our practice as is. We always say in the week. We literally lost every friend we had the phone, no phone stopped ringing invitations dried up, the God really was a said he he put people in front of us constantly over the years that help guide us and we give a thousand examples of the one I always give was it was August 1990, I left my practice go to law school and I was still speaking, and always still speaking publicly on a Saturday morning I had I had gone to Vermont cross the border into Vermont give a presentation was a high school gymnasium. About 50 people showed up. I did a presentation and this woman came up to me afterwards and she had to be in her 70s chattering away at high speed, you know. Oh, thank you so much for coming and giving a presentation and is in a beautiful what Jesus is done in your life, and I felt like a fraud is a said people were demonstrable about their faith always made me uncomfortable and I stammered like an idiot to this woman and when well ma'am are you feel about Jesus what you doing I'll never forget. She step chattering, looked up, got a big smile on her face. He said he knows your sweetie is to get you sooner or later, and she walked away we had different encounters over time like that until he did finally get us nothing wrong and what was that moment when he finally got me what was it was it intellectual was emotional was it was we were attending a PCA Presbyterian USA church and as I said I've got my being an abortionist was no problem in the church we were involved in the church for years and then suddenly when I'm not doing abortions anymore were pro-life, we have a choice. We can you leave a pro-abortion church or we can fight so we decided to fight it went nowhere. Over time, it's a long story and we set out we intentionally set out like we will live in a find of a Bible-based church.

This was very different than the way we had searched in the past you have finally found ourselves a community church in Albany were good heavens, actually read the Bible and pay attention to it. That's where finally happened.

Let me ask both of you this question Tony and I'm thinking of the person listening to me. We have millions of people that are hearing this program and some have done some things I think you know like you that feel like there's no way God could ever forgive me for what I've done when you take a look at it. Thousands of lives you terminated. That's right. And that's gotta be such a burden for you it is and it still is. I went to the island of Malta and November could pro-life friends there. Malta is now the one the only country in Europe. Abortion is still legal and are powerful forces trying to legalize impulsiveness. Why was there a very good friend Ren ran the pro-life organization there. Paul mentioned Jesus name dedicated charismatic Catholic. We were talking one night and he's a very close friend and I said, it doesn't mean I know with absolute certainty that when my time comes. Heather is going to be standing right there. I know, but I told him what I said but sometimes I'm afraid that those 1200 kids to be there to the so you struggle with but you learn that there is forgiveness but you learn something else. And we run into it and pro-life presentations all the time. You can know truly in your heart that Jesus forgives me that's wonderful. But the hard part is forgiving yourself so true, and I think given the journey you've been given. What do you say that person who whispers in your I've done horrible things may not be abortion.

Whatever dog is really what I like. I don't care what you've done, it cannot compare to what I and then there is forgiveness. If you ask for it and really repent. It won't happen. All you know, the forgiveness comes all at once the change and you will take time and that's what the day will come when you can forgive yourself that so well said. I just is so critical that we understand that it is hard to forgive ourselves. As we done things that grieve the heart of God. Let's outline some of the pro-life action steps for the listener. Cecilia you made a very compelling statement that I'd like to elaborate on. You said that being pro-life is more than just being antiabortion, I think you both alluded to this last time from your heart. What does that look like to be more about life than antiabortion for me and it's it's caring about our homeless veterans. It's caring about children in foster care.

It's caring about people who are homeless and living in their cars.

It's about bringing the message of Christ to everyone and anyone regardless of their situation because it's so easy to walk past somebody that's making us uncomfortable. Absolutely that's our human nature. How do we Tony, how do we balance that truth and grace message. I mean you saw that raw truth is people were in your parking lot around the sidewalk of the clinic shouting things that you etc. I've often said, I've not met a person that has the testimony which would go something like this you Christians were so hard and so mean to me. I decided to become one of you is not a common test and but but that one woman that you describe to make you brownies. And since your notes and always politely asked if she could speak to you about it that that made the impression that made the impression I tell people thousand times.

You are not going to change someone's mind by standing outside a clinic and yelling murder isn't going to happen. You change a person's mind. Over time, with great patience and you have to have some kind of relationship with them.

I am Dr. patient is a relationship and doctors listen to their patients. It is the people that they came to us in love that made the difference, not the people shouted at us, and as far as killing somebody in and maybe foreclosing their chance of salvation.

Somebody could have killed me.

Tony right at the end here. Let me ask you this question, we have the example of Jesus with the woman caught in adultery and we relate to that so beautifully said no. He was without sin cast the first stone and they'll drop those rocks and walked away. If Jesus were here right now in this culture, which he is. But if you're walking the earth with us what you think you would say about the woman who had an abortion. What would he say to her I would seem to say the same thing that the woman said to me, I love you I care about you. This is not what I intended for your life to do whatever it is you're doing.

But I'm here no matter how long it takes.

I am here and I will keep loving you, no matter what. What a beautiful place to land our two-part conversation with Dr. Anthony Levitt, Tino and his wife, Cecilia, and again, if you're caring that guilt that Tony mentioned. Maybe you've had an abortion or maybe it's something else you've done. Please call our counselors, they'd be honored to talk to you over the phone completely free and help you accept the forgiveness and grace that is offered through Jesus has a wonderful team and we can schedule a time for you to talk to one of those counselors when you call 800 a family or there is a counseling request form that you can fill out it's on our website. We got the link in the episode notes and for those of you who are passionate about pro-life ministry. I want to invite you to join our option ultrasound support team. This is our ministry that equips pro-life pregnancy resource centers with those ultrasound machines and the nurses training to do the role that they are called to do the centers have told us over and over again that when women see their babies on that screen. They are filled with hope and the knowledge that their baby is not a mistake but perfectly made for a purpose yet and we've got the metrics we've got the numbers it takes $60 to save a babies life through ultrasound technology. So please partner with us in this life-saving work and be sure to join us tomorrow evening at 8 PM Eastern time for the digital premier of sea life 2020.

This event will be hosted by Mark for like Pres. Jeannie Mancini and former NFL player Benjamin Watson and will feature powerful speakers and music from Danny Cokie Meredith Andrews and many more. And as I mentioned before, will have a 40 ultrasound of pre-born baby to celebrate the value of every human life is going to be awesome. And last year, Jim.

I left our event in Times Square so full of hope and a powerful sense of God's presence. He really met us there in New York, and I expect tomorrow night to be the same.

So join us and participate in sea life 2020 and then if you can please port our option ultrasound effort all the details once more at our website and on behalf of Jim Daly and the entire team.

Thanks for joining us today. Plan to be with us again on Monday as we once more help you and your family thrive