Former abortion doctor to speak at 40 Days for Life event in Indy
Larelle Thompson, 3, wears a sign during a 40 Days for Life kickoff event at the Planned Parenthood abortion facility in Indianapolis on Sept. 26, 2018. Her life was saved from abortion at the same facility three-and-a-half years prior. (File photo by Natalie Hoefer)
By Natalie Hoefer
For nearly 40 years, Dr. Haywood Robinson “loved” everything about his job as a family doctor.
“I loved family medicine, loved my patients, loved doing deliveries [of babies],” he said, genuine joy resonating in his voice. “I love helping people.”
Yet the same doctor performed abortions for three years after finishing his residency in 1978 at a hospital in Los Angeles.
It was not until 1986 when he encountered Christ that Robinson recognized “the evil of abortion.”
“I don’t know why he didn’t save me before I did all those abortions,” he said. “But he had to keep me blind and build that testimony in me.”
Robinson will share that testimony in Indianapolis on Feb. 17 during an event to kick off the spring campaign for 40 Days for Life (see related article below), a pro-life movement he has been involved with since it began in 2004.
‘You become more desensitized’
It was during his residency that Robinson met Noreen Johnson, an obstetrics and gynecology resident at the same Los Angeles hospital. It was Noreen whom he would later ask to be his wife.
And it was she who taught him how to perform abortions.
Upon finishing their medical training, the couple stayed in Los Angeles to practice medicine. They also “moonlighted” at abortion centers.
“Abortion facilities were all around L.A.,” he said. “It was easy to get after-hours and weekend work. You’d get paid half of the fee the woman paid.”
Abortion centers are “not a fun place to be,” Robinson admitted. “But you have your ways of rationalizing something you know is horribly, horribly wrong. You push it back [in your mind]. You become more desensitized. The mom, the baby and the doctor become dehumanized—that’s the only way you can walk in a stranger’s room and in five minutes kill her baby, take her money and walk out.”
The couple stopped performing abortions when they moved to Bryan-College Station, Texas, in 1981. It was there, during a call-down of the Holy Spirit for healing during a Christian concert in 1986 that Robinson knew “something inside me had changed.”
“I know something was different, but I didn’t know what,” he recalled.
Three weeks later, Noreen gave birth to their first child. They asked a friend, the son of a Pentecostal preacher, to be the godfather. During his visit for the baptism, two more lives were born again in Christ.
“He shared the Gospel with us, and right then and there Noreen and I accepted Christ into our lives.
“We were born again,” he said. “And now that [God] had us, he showed us the evil of abortion.”
‘A global holocaust of unprecedented proportions’
obinson became active in the pro-life life movement while he and his wife continued their medical practice. He has been involved in 40 Days for Life since its inception in his hometown of Bryan-College Station in 2004.
In 2019, he retired and became the director of medical affairs and education for 40 Days for Life.
“I enjoy doing it,” said Robinson. “Even though I’m not seeing patients, I’m still involved with medicine. This is just a variation of what I used to do. Each baby saved is like a patient to me.”
Robinson believes that a relationship with Christ combined with knowledge about the medical world can fundamentally change a person’s view of abortion.
“They’re not separate,” he said. “You have to remember who made creation and laws of nature. … The enemy wants you to separate creation of life with God. But is killing any different between someone in their 20s and a baby in the womb, even when it’s just one cell?”
The pro-life movement and saving the lives of unborn children is “about God,” said Robinson. “And what he holds at his highest level of concern and love is human beings made in his image.”
He mentioned the staggering statistic of the more than 62 million lives lost to abortion since the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. And that’s just in the United States, he noted.
“It’s a global holocaust of unprecedented proportions,” said Robinson. “Until the Holy Spirit takes that knowledge to the heart, those 62 million lives are just another piece of information.”
‘Come one time with an open heart’
Thus, while Robinson’s role for 40 Days for Life is to educate, he believes “people cannot be coerced” into embracing the cause of saving the lives of the unborn.
“That is the work of the Holy Spirit,” he reiterated.
So, for those “on the fence” about their involvement in the movement, Robinson does not encourage signing up for a weekly hour of praying outside an abortion center during the 40 Days for Life spring campaign.
Instead, he suggests making a trip there to pray briefly.
“Why don’t you come one time with an open heart,” he suggested. “While you’re there, pray that babies are saved. Pray that the facility is closed, and pray that the facility workers leave their jobs.
“Then, with a truly open heart, pray: ‘Lord, if it be your will, give me your Spirit to motivate me to come back. Put in me the same care and love that you have for these babies. Help me find time to carve out so I can be here again and make a difference, and to see your glory work through me in saving babies.’ ”
(The 40 Days for Life kickoff where Dr. Haywood Robinson will speak will take place on the sidewalk in front of the Planned Parenthood abortion facility at 8590 Georgetown Road in Indianapolis at noon on Feb. 17. Parking is available on the shoulder on both sides of Georgetown Rd, just south of Planned Parenthood. Do not park in the lots of neighboring businesses, including Women’s Care Center.) †
