An Abortionist’s Nightmare

Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life

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Dr. McArthur Hill used to kill babies for a living. Now he has repented. At a conference of former abortionists, he shared the nightmares he had:

 “In my nightmares I would deliver a healthy newborn baby and I would take that healthy newborn baby and I would hold it up, and I would face a jury of faceless people and ask them to tell me what to do with this baby. They would go thumbs-up or thumbs-down and if they made a thumbs-down indication then I was to drop the baby into a bucket of water which was present. I never did reach the point of dropping the baby into the bucket because I'd always wake up at that point. But it was clear to me then that there was something going on in my mind, subconsciously.”

 I have helped abortionists make the transition from killing babies to repentance, and can attest that Dr. Hill’s experience is not uncommon. In fact, his nightmare reveals some common aspects of the suffering of abortionists.

 Notice, first of all, that Dr. Hill has in his hands a “healthy newborn baby.” Abortions are done on healthy unborn babies, but in this nightmare, the doctor’s conscience is reminding him that a baby is a baby, and that the lies of abortion propagandists who try to make the public think that abortion is only done for “health reasons” are exactly that – lies.

 More significant still is the fact that the abortionist is holding the baby up in front of a group of people. What happened to the “private, personal” nature of abortion? Abortionists know better. It’s a public industry, a public battle, and like it or not, the world has its eyes on them. They are committing that wrong which humanity itself, in the judgment of history, knows to be the same wrong that constitutes genocide and holocausts. Yes, this “private” act is really as public as can be.

 The abortion propagandists try to paint this issue as “a woman’s choice and hers alone.” But the abortionist’s nightmare tells us a different story. The mother is absent. It is society, represented by a jury of his peers, that is making the choice. This represents both the abortionist’s resentment as well as his attempt to evade responsibility. “It’s not that I favor killing babies,” many abortionists will say. “It’s that either I provide this service or someone else will do so, in a less professional way. Society has made this choice available, which is a good thing, but somebody has to carry it out.”

 Finally, the jury is “faceless.” Of course it is. Nobody wants to claim responsibility for legal abortion. Legislators blame the courts; judges blame precedent; others blame the “law of the land.”

 It’s time for the abortionist's nightmare to wake us all up! Now is the time for us to put our own face on this issue, and claim responsibility to break through the faceless crowd and declare, “The killing stops here! I will no longer be silent!”