After performing almost 1,200 first and second trimester abortions, gynecologist and former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino experienced something that would change his life and his perspective on abortion forever.
In an interview on “The Billy and Justin Show” with Billy Hallowell and Justin Basch, Levantino discussed what exactly it was that caused him to turn his back on the abortion industry and join the pro-life movement.
According to CBN News, Levantino and his wife began trying to have a family sometime in the 1980s, but after failing to get pregnant they decided to adopt.
Levantino – who plays an abortionist in the recent box office hit Unplanned – found himself questioning the juxtaposition of being an abortionist while seeking to adopt a child. He said it was jarring for him to think about how when he went to work, he was tasked with killing unborn babies and when he went home all he and his wife wanted was to be able to have a child. Levantino even recalled thinking during this time that he wished he could bring one of the babies home to take care of.
While this set off questions for Levantino, after they adopted their daughter Heather – and a few months later found out that they were pregnant with a baby boy – the struggle subsided.
About six years later, however, the tragic death of Heather, would force all of these questions back to the surface.
Levantino told Hallowell and Basch “Our daughter, Heather, who we had adopted, was two months shy of her 6th birthday when she was struck and killed by a car out in front of our home.”
With the death of his daughter fresh in his mind, when Levantino returned to work a few weeks after the tragic death, he was scheduled to perform an abortion. The former abortionist recalled that during the procedure he started to become physically ill, but he knew he had to complete the abortion. If Levantino stopped the procedure halfway through, his patient could die.
He said, “I finished that abortion… for the first time in my career after all those years and all those abortions, I looked [at the remnants of the aborted baby]… and I didn’t see her wonderful right to choose and I didn’t see what a great physician I was helping her with her problem.”
“And I didn’t even see the $800 cash I just made in 15 minutes. All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter,” he added.
After losing his own daughter, Levantino saw the value of the fetus’ life and began to see abortion as the legalized killing of someone’s child. A few months after this realization Levantino left the abortion industry.
He said, “Once you figure out that killing a baby the size of your hand for money is wrong, then it doesn’t take you too long to figure out that it doesn’t matter how big — it’s still her son or daughter.”
Levantino and his wife are now active participants in the pro-life movement. You can even see the gynecologist on the big screen in select theaters as an abortion doctor in the pro-life film Unplanned.
Unplanned tells the real-life story of Abby Johnson, a former planned parenthood worker who walks away from the abortion industry after witnessing an abortion in the clinic.
Unplanned raked in $6.1 million in its opening weekend coming in fourth in the box office last weekend. ChristianHeadlines.com
God’s Word says that He personally made each one of us, and has a plan for each life:
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” (Jeremiah 1:5)
For You created my inmost being; You knit me together in my mother’s womb…Your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. (Psalm 139:13,16)
“Your hands shaped me and made me . . . Did You not clothe me with skin and flesh and knit me together with bones and sinews? You gave me life.” (Job 10:8–12)
This is what the Lord says—He who made you, who formed you in the womb. (Isaiah 44:2)
“Did not He who made me in the womb make them? Did not the same One form us both within our mothers?” (Job 31:15)
Because man is made in God’s own image (Genesis 1:27), each life is of great value to God: “Children are a gift from God” (Psalm 127:3). He even calls our children His own: “You took your sons and daughters whom you bore to Me and sacrificed them…You slaughtered My children” (Ezekiel 16:20,21). LivingWaters.com
