A fascinating and highly informative discussion led by ADF UK’s Lois Miller with a panel of people who have previously worked in the Abortion industry.
The panel featured Dr Haywood Robinson, physician, former abortionist and now 40 Days for Life campaigner, Kevin Duffy, former director and consultant for Marie Stopes International (MSI), and Adam Smith-Connor, a post-abortive father who previously assisted with abortions during his army medical training.
Dr Haywood shared the story of his early calling to medicine, which took a turn when in the 1970s he was trained (in part by the woman he would later marry) to perform abortions, which at the time were ‘mechanical’ and ‘could be completed in around ten minutes’. Both he and Kevin shared their insider experience of the abortion industry – or, as Dr Haywood calls it, the ‘abortion cartel’ – and the takeaway in both cases was that abortion is treated very much as a business.
According to Kevin, during his years working for MSI he witnessed abortion propaganda change ‘quite dramatically’. Early in his career the focus of MSI, the World Health Organisation and others was on presenting ‘comprehensive, safe abortion care’, but by around 2016 the push for higher numbers of abortions intensified. The strategy from that time onwards he characterised thus: ‘If we want to satisfy our donors, who want higher numbers, then self-managed abortion is the way to go.’ According to Kevin, the COVID-19 lockdowns provided an opportunity for the abortion lobby, and ‘in 2020 we saw that global strategy come right here (to the UK).’
Adam not only shared about his experience working with women having abortions but was also able to provide the other side of the equation, having paid for the abortion of his own child prior to his conversion to Christ (as well as having had a miscarriage). He brought the reality home, pointing out his two surviving children in the auditorium, saying, ‘My two children are here, but the reality is that I’ve got four children.’ He summed up: ‘Calling abortion healthcare because it involves doctors and drugs is like calling the death penalty healthcare because it also involves doctors and drugs.’
Chapters
