The Sean McDowell Show - Ex-Abortion Doctor Speaks Out (Regret and Hope)

Episode Date: October 25, 2024

Dr. Catherine Wheeler is a former abortionist who has since become a pro-life medical professional. Today, she is a frequent speaker for life and regarding the reality of abortion, provides testimony at the Colorado legislature, provides informational opinion pieces and interviews for media, and serves with prolife organizations to educate, to advance the defense of preborn human life, and to advocate for and provide support for women and families. WATCH: Dr. Levatino Testimony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9l7lTMzEs8E) READ: End the Stalemate by Sean McDowell (https://a.co/d/h8JooeV) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

Why would a former abortionist become a pro-life advocate? What is her advice to women considering an abortion? And how would she counsel those who have had abortions? Our guest today is OBGYN Dr. Katherine Wheeler. Thanks for coming on and being willing to share about your story. Oh, I'm so thankful for you and the opportunity. And so many people are silent about this. So I'm so thankful that you've done this. Well, before we get to the specific topic at hand, maybe bring us back. Just tell us about your family growing up.

Was it a religious background? What was your childhood like? I had parents who my dad was a minister. He was a Baptist minister. They were incredibly faithful Christians. I was ninth out of eleven children, so it's not just the Catholics who believe in good-sized families. So I'm thankful they had a lot since I was ninth. They raised us to know God. They raised us in the faith, and they built a foundation

for us to return to those of us who walked away. I went to college and turned away from God. So my story of doing abortions really begins with a turn away from God. Nothing to do with my parents or my upbringing. Oh, very interesting. So growing up, you would have said you're Christian, followed Jesusesus went to sunday school maybe bible camps mission trips read your bible did you do all the things like good christians are supposed to do in that kind of background you know i was the total nerd i was the person who brought her bible to school

i was the one who read my bible in study hall i was baptized as a teenager you know i have questions about that but i you, you know, did I really receive Jesus at that point and give my life fully to him? And if so, did he not let me out of his hands? And, you know, I would have to talk to a theologian to fully understand that part of it. But what I do know is, you know, when you hear people like Timothy Keller Keller who had such a clarity about this he talked about when people would come back from college after their first year and they say I don't believe anymore he'd say who are you sleeping with and that really was my story it was you know that getting involved with somebody and

asking purposely not asking Christians for advice and getting the advice. It's no big deal. Just go off to Planned Parenthood and get your pills. So most of us, when we go down a path that we know is wrong, turn away from God in the middle of it. So that was the beginning of not getting the right answers and not making the right choices. So my background is i then went to medical school eventually and um loved being a doctor it was a great surprise never thought i'd do ob-gyn but i had an unexpected pregnancy i had gotten married i had an unexpected pregnancy in the middle of school medical school and my first rotation coming back after that birth was ob-gyn and i

just stood in the back of the room and wept so i was kind of caught i just loved women i loved taking care of women it was it was a passion it was my life now let me take a step back if i can i work at talbot theological seminary and i can't answer if you were saved or not at that point. Honestly, Catherine, I think about my own life. It really felt like an overwhelming sense of my own sin and need for God's grace in college. But was I saved before then? Only God ultimately knows. I don't know that we have to answer those questions. Would you have said you were pro-life growing up? Did you think about the issue of abortion? Did it go through your mind? Did you debate with your Christian or non-Christian

friends, or was it just kind of a non-issue? It was an interesting time to grow up because it was a time of great human rights. So we had, I grew up in the 60s and early 70s. I graduated high school in 76. So I grew up with the beginning of a different wave of feminism with women's rights, with Martin Luther King and civil rights. I had a real heart for justice and grew up, of course, in the middle of the Jesus revolution and the sexual revolution. So all of that was happening. And I'll tell you, my dad talked about sex within marriage. I don't know that I understood what God really meant by marriage representing him and his bride, the church. I just didn't get the beauty of that.

I just got, don't, it's a bad thing. You know what I mean? So I grew up, probably I would have been about 13 or 14 when Roe versus Wade was decided. But I honestly don't remember. It was the middle of Vietnam. It was the middle of all this other craziness happening in the United States. So I really have no recollection. And I don't think that my parents, like who could have guessed that from Roe versus Wade to where we are in 50 years. You know, I think they thought they brought us up teaching us about God, teaching us about

living that life. And they had talked about exactly what God said in the word. So they'd done their part. But I don't remember any discussion about abortion, even in medical school in New Orleans. It was when I went to residency the first time that it really came on my radar. Well, as I understand it, Roe versus Wade was 1973. I was born in 76. It wasn't for a few years after that that it really became, really into the late 70s, a conservative Christian movement that people really latched on to. So it would make sense

if you're growing up in the era that you did, you wouldn't have the same kind of conversations in church and with your parents that hopefully many pastors are because it's not dominating the cultural conversation in the same way like we're hearing in the political realm right now. So that makes sense. So you go to way, where'd you go to university by the way if you're comfortable sharing sure I went to Colorado State University I got a good degree in nutrition I actually started a PhD at Cornell and I changed my mind I have a heart for animals and we're killing rats all the time in our studies and I ended up changing to medicine while I was in, I had moved to Louisiana and actually got in. What a shock.

So. Okay. Yeah. So, so you go to Colorado State. Where were, you presumably would have considered yourself a Christian. Where were the moments, you mentioned, you know, the issue with your boyfriend and some of that. Was that the core of it? Were there professors? Were there classmates who are talking out of your faith did you make an

intentional decision or was it kind of just a fading away from the faith you were raised in yeah that's a good question you know my my parents had act i grew up in rhode island my dad had been called to a church in denver the year that I graduated high school, we all moved to Denver. So my first year of college, I actually went from Fort Collins down to Denver and very faithfully lived as a Christian until that second year of college when I became involved with my boyfriend. And it was a conscience decision. I knew that my parents wouldn't be okay with it. So I actually didn't call them until I'd already moved in with my boyfriend and it was a conscious decision I knew that my parents wouldn't be okay with it so I actually didn't call them until I'd already moved in with my boyfriend and my daughter my dad my parents have both passed away but they'd be okay with me saying this because I think it's that

important we're so afraid to talk into our children's lives that we have to affirm everything they say and we don't want to hurt feelings. Well, my parents saw that I was going to walk towards the cliff if I went down that path. I got a knock on the door probably a day or two after I called my dad, and there's my dad, and trying to convince me and my boyfriend to get married if that's the path we're going to take, and we said no, and he left, and a few minutes later, there's a knock on the door, and there's my path we're going to take. And we said no. And he left. And a few minutes later, there's a knock on the door and there's my dad weeping. You know, so I think as parents, we've, you know, it's hard to talk into our kids' lives. But that's something that even though I wasn't allowed home for a few years until I stepped out of my sin. And I understood why my father was doing that.

It's a hard line that sometimes parents have to make, but we've got to do those things when our children are walking towards a cliff. And it was that kind of faithful Christian living that when I became 50 and actually turned back to God, that's what turned me back. It was the authentic life of loving parents that said oh my parents had it right the whole time this is the outcome all those years later this is the outcome of choosing this path my mom and dad had it right I need God wow that's powerful

I heard you say in another interview that I think your dad says something effective. You obviously correct me if I'm wrong. You're not welcome at home anymore. If you're not going to make this decision and marry your boyfriend, kind of you're out. Is that fair? Is that what he said? Yes. And you know, and it wasn't like, we don't love you. Like that was him coming back. Like I cannot leave my daughter without telling you how much I love you. And if that doesn't move your heart, what's wrong with me? You know what I mean? But I made my choice.

I stood in it. But for him, it was like, I'm in the middle of a ministry, and I'm going to be faithful to what God called me to. And you have a younger brother and sister at home. And we need to draw our lines that this is something that is harmful so um yeah in retrospect they did exactly what they were supposed to do that's powerful there's a lot of debate today on a range of issues of like you can tell somewhere you disagree but keep the relationship going for the sake of

speaking into somebody's life obviously your parents did the best they could at the time but looking back you feel like they did the right thing and having that firm boundaries was the real act of love for you right and my mother faithfully wrote me letters every week. Like these days, it would be a text. So it was a few years before that relationship ended. And I knew, they said, you know, when you're either out knew when that relationship ended, I could come home. And I knew my next relationship. I won't say I didn't sleep with people before then. You know, that's the thing. I stayed on that path. But I did marry twice. And, you know, because of my path I'd chosen, I didn't make wise decisions. Catherine, at this point, would you still say you're a Christian and justify it? Would you say you're an atheist, agnostic? How would you have identified your worldview? God in his faithfulness allowed circumstances in my life. I had a near death experience. I had some really frightening things happen that I God had gone ahead and prepared me for and so I knew there was a God so God in his faithfulness and goodness kept protecting me through my life and I would say to people I know there's a God he has a plan for me because I didn't die in these

circumstances so and I had a son who almost choked to death but God had prepared me for that two weeks before in medical school to know what to do in that situation I mean it was just one thing after another where I could see God prepared me and then it happened so I would say even to my patients I know there's a God and he has a plan for me but I refused I. You know, thinking back, I would say to myself, I don't want to give everything up for that. Like, you know, there's a God, but you've got this hardness in your heart and you will not surrender. And he's still good to us. It's crazy. Amen. You know, Catherine, we're going to get to this point where you become practicing medicine

and performing abortions as a part of something you've shared publicly. But I have to ask, and I always hesitate, I don't want to sidetrack a conversation and the flow, but I've done a lot of conversations here on near-death experiences. And I think they're powerful. And I think they point towards not only God and the soul, but even in some ways, the Christian faith. Since you brought brought it up can you just briefly tell us what happened and how did it affect you and then we'll come back to your medical story yeah no i'd be happy to and i didn't have what you would what most people call near-death experience where actually your heart stops i had an anaphylactic reaction and because i had changed

my mind to go to medical school i I had two classes I needed to apply. One of them was human physiology. I had moved to the South, and our explanation of anaphylaxis was fire ants. Well, I hadn't lived in the South very long. Two weeks later, I get stung for the second time by a few fire ants. And I just remember thinking I need to go lay down and I went and laid down and you know as a doctor I can tell you I was in anaphylaxis at that point but hadn't

recognized it yet and I remember all of a sudden as I lay there on the couch like just dizzy and out of it going, Oh, wait, we studied this in class two weeks, I'm having anaphylaxis, I need to get to a hospital. And I could go on with the story. By the time I got in the back, my blood pressure was 30 over nothing. And the team descends, took two rounds of therapy. And it was it's all a fog to me like I was literally on the door and you know of course the discussion with the doctor afterwards you almost died I'm like yeah I know I almost died but you know again it was God's hand two weeks before we had our lesson he brought it to my mind as as my blood pressure was dropping so by near death experience, you mean an almost death experience, which is not

the same as when people see a light and okay, totally fair enough. But that kind of encounter can shake you up and looking back, see God's hand on your life. Okay. That's really helpful. Thanks for sharing about that. So you're studying nutrition. You end up going to Cornell for medical school, if I understand correctly. For a PhD. Oh, for a PhD. And then you went on to medical school. Okay, so that makes sense. Talk to me about the decision to study medicine and in particular to be an OBGYN.

What motivated you to go that route? Yeah, so I had decided I had taken a break from the PhD because I didn't feel like it was the right path for me. And in exploring what I wanted to do, I have a brother who was in medical school. He was actually in residency at the time, an older brother. And I went and visited him. He actually happened to take care of a woman. At that time, you could actually shadow people, even as a non-medical professional. So I shadowed him one night when he was on call and he took care of a woman having a miscarriage and I think that just really planted some seeds for me but seeing him interacting with patients

it's like okay I want to do that I'll apply if I get in then I'm gonna do this and I got in so that became my path I was proud enough to think I wanted to be a surgeon but again God had different plans so I had my oldest son Baron and immediately had my very first clinical experience was OBGYN and specifically the obstetrics part and I was just in love with that field from that first second so my wife had a miscarriage between our second and our third and I remember the doctor couldn't find the heartbeat when she's doing the ultrasound and said well let's go to another room maybe we'll have more luck and the words we can't find the heartbeat was like she didn't just say that now when we're done,

the doctor starts going, you know, the unborn, it hadn't formed yet. It wasn't a human. You shouldn't feel bad. She's trying to counsel me. And I'm getting angry at that moment. Now I chose to just completely let it go. She was doing her best and I just did not want to get into an argument at that point. She's trying to help me out, but I think had a completely misguided, false worldview and certainly didn't know how I see the unborn. And I was just in tears. My wife and I were crying and we had to grieve this process. It's one of only two times in our marriage, my wife, who's maybe the most upbeat person I know next to my dad, she's like, I feel depressed. Like it was so painful. What was it about seeing somebody experience a miscarriage that motivated you

to want to go into OBGYN and practice that? I don't know that I understood that seed at the time. To me, it was the interaction of caring for people who are hurting and need help I've always had that heart of justice and of helping and for people on the outside so I don't know that I really made that connection until recently that my first inkling I wanted to do medicine was actually that one experience okay so in some ways this is amazing to me because you have this heart for the marginalized. You have a heart for those who are unjust. You want to help moms who are hurting. And yet you become an abortionist. Like connect those dots for me, because that seems so glaring intention, but obviously where you were and to many people today, that's actually

the just thing to do. So maybe help us step back into your mindset at that point to understand what you were thinking and how that lined up with this compassionate, justice-oriented heart that you had. Yeah, I'm glad you framed it that way. I think when you don't know God, you've got this incredible compassion for people. And without God and knowing the dignity of life before birth, you are so vulnerable to the ideas of the world. So it's not supposed to make sense. I tell people don't try to make sense of this. This is not logical. And I know you know this, that most people make their decisions based on emotion. So when you go into medical school, even back in the late night, well, it would have been the early

to mid-1980s, you know, we were already at that point of being very separate from God. And we talked a lot about, you've got two patients. You've got a mom and you've got a baby. Always try to save both lives. If you can only save one, you save the mom, unless she tells you otherwise. But all of a sudden, as I think back, we never talked about the baby and abortion. So it doesn't make sense. There's the cognitive dissonance. So for us, our brains, we can't hold two things that are opposite as both being true. So there is a dissonance there.

There is something that's very uncomfortable, and sometimes it takes some time to be able to see that. So I would say it's a very twisted compassion. You hurt so badly for these people, but you get the answer that you have a choice whether you want to have a baby with special needs or not you know I mean it's a horrible thing but that's the way that's the way it would have been framed and you know I look back at medical school as really I see it now as an indoctrination but you know nothing about medicine so you're like a child and your teachers are like your parents and they're

telling you what's normal about medicine. They're telling you what medical practice looks like. They're telling you how to interact with people. So you're watching all of this, trying to figure out what this looks like for you as a doctor. So if you only have people saying, you know, abortion's a choice, not talking about the ethics, not talking about the baby, essentially putting on blinders around you, you know, it's just a hard thing that you have to do. It's part of medicine.

It's interesting when I was there in residency, you had to opt into doing this. They've changed it since about 2016. You actually have to opt out. You have to say, I won't do this and That ups the ante doesn't it? This is normal in medicine. If you won't do it, then you come talk to us. Wow, right? So you can see how it's been normalized But back then I was in Utah

And as I said, I grew up probably about the second wave of feminism. And I grew up at that barrier where a lot of us as girls couldn't do things. Like you can't do this because you're a girl. And I can see a lot of that compassion in me for women. Like women have a hard life. It's not fair. You know what I mean? And so you get the wrong answer when your teachers are feminists and they're telling you this is important for women to be able to succeed. It's horrible. It's sad. That's the narrative. I ate the ideology. That's all I can say. It was wrong. Cornell Medical School and residency you never heard a thoughtful criticism of

pro-choice to at least make you see both sides and understand the ethics at play you never heard that in all of your training I don't remember any of that until residency now I've recently thought about going to interview for residency and I remember a little bit that there was a question that I asked that we were told to ask whether you'd be forced to do abortions. So somewhere in there is some kind of this isn't okay and I've this I want to add this I recently met a medical student who goes to University of Colorado. They have training programs in late abortions. So these medical students you'd think would be surrounded by late abortions. But when I asked him, he said, they don't allow us to see abortion.

And then I'm like, well, no wonder I didn't see it in medical school because that's part of the grooming process. Anytime you're groomed or indoctrinated, they don't want to show you abortion too early until you think this is part of what you have to do. So a lot of people who are physicians my age saw it as medical students and they're like, uh-uh, that is, they're killing babies. But once you're in residency and you're moving forward completely as dependent on what your superiors, how they assess you, you start doing the people-pleasing things. This is expected of me. I guess I just have to do it. My wife asked me a question yesterday, and I'm going to tell you what my response was. And I want you to tell me if you think this is fair or if you disagree,

because I think it sounds like you held this worldview for a while. Now, I don't make things political on my show. I don't want to. So people can fill in the dots is fine. But there was a rally recently. And outside of this big rally tied to a certain political party, people were not only offering free abortions for women, but vasectomies for men. And my wife and I, we enjoy going on walks and run together, and she's like, why do you think they're doing this? And I said, well, I'll give you my two cents. I said, number one, it might be that we're offering something free for women. So we should offer something free for men. Maybe that's a piece of it. Although that assumes we can know what a woman and a man is, but that could be a piece of it. I said, second,

I think what do these two have in common? Both are short circuiting the life process. One is stopping life before it begins. And the other one is stopping life before it begins and the other one is stopping life once you have it it's an anti-natalist worldview that sees human beings as a scourge on the planet on economics on society and doesn't value human beings especially the un. Is that how you saw it? You think I'm wrong in that estimation? You know, I hear exactly what you're saying, and I agree. Back to what I thought, the abortions that we did at the University of Utah were specifically on babies. I would now say they're babies with special needs. So we did not do elective abortions. that was not something we did as a state facility and

there actually wasn't a Planned Parenthood there was a separate abortion clinic that all of those women were referred to ours were specifically this is a hard situation here's our response to this hard situation okay fair enough so maybe I do hear what you're saying i do hear what you're saying because there is a real push that you shouldn't have kids they destroy your life and it's a lie but that is the push it it is a lie and it's a destructive lie yeah it has a lot of consequences in our society and beyond uh okay so take me back if you can to the first time you performed an abortion if you recall why did you do it what was it like how did it affect you yeah so that's really interesting I actually cannot remember that I have thought about that. I can remember making the decision that I would do

them. And it came out of that feminist view. Again, my mentor that I felt the closest to was an amazing doctor, amazing, passionate woman, and very pro-choice. you know what I mean? Although she was married and had a child herself. So my approach was, if you, and this was the narrative, I just basically spit it back out. If you like women, you help them. Some women need abortions to be able to succeed. And you and I would both say at this point, what kind of society tells women they can only succeed if they have abortions?

Like, that's just an awful society. But that was the narrative that I picked up. And I was surrounded primarily by religious people, but mostly men still in Utah at that time, and mostly Mormon was the primary culture. The Christians were very quiet about this, but the Mormons were very strong that, no, we don't participate. But I'm one of the beginning wave of female residents. And I'm like, you know what? I love women. This is a really

hard, horrible situation they're in. My heart breaks for them. So I'll step up and do this. I'm helping women. That was the lie I ate what when were you in residency was this I don't I'm not doing the math 80s 90s when it was 87 to 91 87 91 okay if you had to guess how many do you think you performed I honestly don't know. I, you know, it was something that I didn't like doing. And so I remember deciding by the end of my residency that I didn't want to do them. I wasn't going to participate know there was enough dissonance there that I at least made that line not that any of that's good but there was something that was just very deeply unsettling for me and I realized as I think back I literally just shut everything off when I went into that room and didn't let myself it was almost like you just shut your brain off and did what you had to do because you felt you had to do it.

And people don't understand that. But if you followed around a doctor for a day, and especially most dangerous areas of medicine are the emergency room and obstetrics. Like imagine the emotions being really high. I've had experiences where I'm delivering a baby and the boyfriend is threatening my life if the baby's not okay. I mean mean just crazy stuff happens and you just you shut off your brain like people are hemorrhaging you just do what you got to do in the moment and i see how i applied that to abortion it's like you just have to do this just get it done i don't know how doctors do, how you can just compartmentalize seeing somebody die,

somebody in trauma, and live your life without that affecting you. Like in some ways, you have to move on. So you have to be trained to do this as an OBGYN. But given that you are accepting or believing this kind of feminist narrative that you were helping women, why did this bother you more than other kinds of procedures that you did? Yeah, you know, that's a good question. Again, I wasn't a Christian at the time. I know if I'd been in Christian community and following God, I would have seen all over the Bible how much Jesus loves children, God loves children, they're a gift. I would have seen all over the Bible how much Jesus loves children, God loves

children, they're a gift. I would have seen all the things about Moloch and about, you know, I could go on and on, Lamentations 4, the compassionate woman eats her own child. Like, I would have put those connections together, but I wasn't following God. So I followed the worldview that this is helping women that women need abortion which is a lie so mostly this is on special needs I don't know Down syndrome or some other condition in the womb did you ever perform an abortion that was not that way and did that affect you differently yeah so the very last abortion I did I'd actually decided to stop doing them entirely. I presented one morning to do an abortion and the anesthesiologist, who was a loving,

kind person who I had a great relationship with, said, why didn't you tell me this was an abortion? I'm not doing it. I'm like, what? Doctors say no? I mean, it was a beginning of a turning point for me. And it wasn't that he hated women, which was my narrative. He wasn't dismissive of women. He just wasn't going to be involved with killing a baby. So I said at that point, you know, I don't want to have this be a problem

where I work, be a problem. See, I still wasn't seeing what the real problem was, but I didn't want to cause a problem where I was and I didn't want to have another patient have to wait for her abortion while I tried to find an anesthesiologist who would do it so I'm like okay I'm done but I don't remember how long after I had a 16 year old come in and I'd taken care of her for a while so I knew her and she's there with her mom crying because she's pregnant and she wants an abortion both she and her mom are insistent I said okay I don't do abortions anymore I'm gonna send you to this clinic which they just started begging me you know she knows

you I can't take her to that kind of a clinic wouldn't you please be the one and so that's the one time I crossed what i had as a line and agreed to do her abortion so i did do one which was my last one and that was your last one because of just regret or what was the decision like i'm done now doing this yeah so you know it was the strangest thing, Sean. I go in, it was, I just remember it being a beautiful day in Utah. And usually you took care of your pregnant people first. So I wasn't, I remember being in the room at the surgical center and it just seemed like a normal day. And so she would have been asleep and prepped and draped. And I remember going in and starting the abortion. And it's,'s and again I'm not not a

Christian at the time and all of a sudden it was just like everything went dark it was like there was an evil in the room and I remember like not knowing what it was like what in the world is going on looking at people and they're not acting like anything strange is going on. And I just sat there and my, you know, it was just evil. And it literally was dark. And I'm like, this has to do with I'm killing a baby. It was like the blinders fell off. And now I'm in the middle of this abortion. I think I had just barely started.

And I'm going, I have to kill a baby. Like, do I stop? What do I do? And I just remember thinking, well, if I stop, she could get an infection and die, and I'd have to tell her why I stopped. And I'm like, OK, I'm finishing. And I'm never doing this again.

This is obviously evil. And somehow I kept it together. There weren't any so-called complications, except the baby died. And I just didn't tell anybody. It was terrifying. I just never did another one. And I just never let myself even think about it again.

Catherine, you can certainly decline this question, but I'm going to ask you in a second to consider describing what an abortion is. Now, before you do it, how the procedure's done, I anticipate there's some people like, why are you explaining this? This is unnecessary. And partly I would say, if it's not a human being and it's just like having a tumor taken out, then why does it matter if I ask you to explain what procedure is? But if there's something listening to this that makes you pause and grimace and uncomfortable, maybe it's not just tissue. Maybe there is a living human being inside of the womb. So as much as you're comfortable,

explain to us what happens when somebody performs an abortion. How is it done? Yeah. So I'll start by saying I remember the informed consent process that I was, like, I would take out diagrams and show everything to women and explain everything. And here's, you know, complications rarely happen, but when they do, here's why they happen. I can remember with abortion saying, there's no way, like, I can't, she can't handle this. Like, there's no way I'm going to tell her what I'm going to do so and i think that's the byline i think if women knew what was happening to their children like it would change everything with this but we're like oh we can't tell them the hard words because it might change their mind how sad is that that's not

informed consent right but that's the basis of the abortion industry. So, you know, that's one important part, I think, is that we skip over that, although I always told potential complications. So depending, the abortion is done differently depending on how big the baby is. It really comes down to how big the baby is. And the image I want you to have in your mind is how do we get a baby that size out of the vagina? I mean, it's just what you have to think about. And so, you know, if you're in the first trimester, the baby is small enough, the baby can fit in a little suction tube. So we actually never have to see the baby. It looks like blood and things coming out. You can, there's a little, there's a suction device that goes into what looks like blood and things coming out you can there's a little there's a suction device

that goes into what looks like a little neck that's where the tissue is the blood and the fluid go into a little jar under that and so you can take that out and if the baby's big enough you can might see it in all that little frothy looking placental tissue Once you get past 12 to 13 weeks, you've now got a pretty good size baby. And so you have to think you have to dilate the cervix somehow to get the baby out, right? And now you've got a baby that's starting to have calcified bones, especially the skull. So the baby doesn't just kind of fall apart as it comes out of the suction. So you actually have to literally take the baby apart to get the baby out and i'm sorry to say this but you you can't get the head that size out of the

cervix without crushing it and you know when i was doing them we didn't believe the babies felt pain i will also say that we didn't think that babies felt the pain of circumcision. So, you know, we learn things. Do you have a boy? I have two. You have two. So you know if your children are circumcised, if they do it surgically, of course the baby's screaming because they're in pain. But, you know, the decision when I was a resident was, you know, we don't think the baby's actually really feeling pain.

So you can decide whether you use an anesthetic or not. I'm like, well, look at that kid. Of course it's feeling pain. So I would use an anesthetic. And I go back, now that we have great research that says actually the baby has everything they need to feel the pain as early as 12 weeks of pregnancy, I'm like, oh my gosh, those babies felt what I did to them. I mean, it's horrifying if you can imagine, like you fall and break your leg, that hurts. Can you imagine this on live babies? And so you literally do take them apart.

Once they get to about 22 to 24 weeks, you're now talking induction of labor. So nobody tells people this. We talk about late abortions like it's nothing, but it's an induction of labor. And if you induce labor, half of these babies will be born alive. So what they do now to be absolutely sure they don't deliver a live baby is they first do what they call fetus side. It's a lovely word. It means they directly kill the baby. And so there are drugs that are injected. The most common one here in Colorado is called dejoxin. It's a heart drug. heart conditions in adults and I speak a lot with an internal medicine doctor and he treated a lot of people for digoxin toxicity in adults on tiny overdoses and they always are hallucinating they have horrible abdominal pain nausea and vomiting and you think about this poor baby that then takes anywhere from an hour to 24 hours to die. And then 5% of them aren't dead. So they inject them again and they wait till they're dead and then induce labor of a

multi-day process, not even in a hospital, often in a hotel room. And we call that medical care. It's just horrific. Horrific is exactly the word that came to my mind as you were describing it. It's horrifying. Do you recall what year was it roughly that you performed the last abortion? I don't know. I started practice in 91, and I try to think about it like were my daughters born already you know it's somewhere around five to six years in my early practice it would have been over because it seems like i probably by the time i ended my career it was probably about 15 years from my last abortion about about 15 years okay so

and i'll say i know that because when i became a christian and i got baptized the woman i performed the last abortion on was at my baptism and so i'm thinking like as i thought about the process how old was she then she was 16 when i did her abortion so it was about 15 years okay i want to get to your story coming of faith but how on earth was she there I mean if you have a doctor patient usually there's not a relationship and yet some you perform an abortion on had she become a Christian reached out to you like how did that happen where she's also there and you're in that kind of relationship with her yeah this was probably only two to three months after I was a Christian following God and decided I should be rebaptized. So I'd only been going to that church for a

couple of months and I hadn't run across her before. Like I hadn't seen her since not long after the abortion. And I'm assuming, like I remember when I saw her thinking, wow, I wonder why she didn't come back. And of course she didn't come back. I'm her abortionist. Why would she go see her abortionist? You know, but I, yeah, I did quite make all the connections at that point to what that really meant. But I did talk to her, she was suddenly in front of my face. And I thought to my, she wanted to become a doctor. And I think that was part of my heart connection having had a unexpected pregnancy I was in an abusive marriage my the first person I told my best

friend I'm thinking my life's over and she says this is wonderful you're going to be such a great mom you know please everybody tell the first person that tells you that they're having an unexpected pregnancy tell them that because immediately I shifted and said, this is a miracle. I can't believe I get to have a child. Yeah. But you know, my, my parents actually retired again, this is the grace of my family and they came down and took care of me and my son and then my second son so I could finish medical school. So you know those are the things that need to happen for women. Women don't need abortion. But I think I I empathized with she wants to be a doctor this is going to be hard because

it wasn't an easy road you know. Very twisted. It makes no sense from the Christian perspective when all life has value so i was interested when i saw her at my baptism she was a mom she was married she had not become a doctor and i can just remember that just really hit home like i did that abortion and she didn't become a doctor i don't know that there were so many things that brought up the incongruence for me. So let me jump in here. The incongruence was the narrative is often, if I want to have a career, I got to have an abortion.

And she had an abortion and still didn't have the career. So what was the point in doing the abortion? Is that the tension that was in your mind? Absolutely. And, you know, again, as you said in the beginning, this doesn't make sense. No, it doesn't make sense. It's this kind of dissonance in relationship over time, where things get confronted and you start going, this doesn't make any sense. And so it didn't make sense that I was able to finish medical school and have a career with kids, but somebody

else would have to have an abortion the difference was the first person said this is amazing you're gonna be a great mom and people came alongside me to make sure that I could succeed so tell me about your coming to faith did have anything to do with the life issue or was it completely separate like where was just the weight of you you know, just sin going, holy cow, I need a savior. And my parents got this right going all the way back. Like, what happened? Yeah. You know, again, when I go back to my first decision that determined my path, it's Proverbs.

You know, when you make a decision to walk away from God, you've got no guidance. You're making bad choices. And there's an eventual result. And it may be 20 years later, 30 years later. But my end result is I'd always gotten involved with men before marrying them. I did that twice. And you set it all up wrong. Like, there's a reason why God set it up that a man leaves his mother and father and unites with somebody and says, I'm here for you. I'm never going to leave you. I'm going to take care of you. You know, it's recently come to me

how vulnerable women are, and it's a good thing. And that's why men are being so silenced in this and being told, you know, you can have sex outside of marriage. It doesn't matter. You can have your own life. Abortion is good for you too. You know, it's all about getting the men out of the way from vulnerable women and children. So another reason I'm so thankful for you being a male voice. So I made those decisions. I set it all up wrong. I became the primary breadwinner for my family. And one day my husband decided he'd like to leave.

So there it was. And I'd done everything I could to keep that marriage together. We'd been married 20 years. It had been rough from the very beginning, but we were already living together. So, you know, again, you set it all up wrong when you don't set it up in God's way.

And so it wasn't a holy thing at all and yeah when he decided to leave i just i just thought my you know my life is over i've done everything i could to make this work uh he was a an attorney i'm like oh this is going to be really bad and it was and i was just like my life's over and i don't know what to do. And then what came to me was my mother's faith. And I just said, I want my mom. I don't know what to do. God, God help me. And I knew it was over. There was no way forward without my mother's God. And I can tell you in that, like, even though it was awful, like when I got up, I literally was a different person. So we, we make all of these, like we make it look hard to come to God

and all he wants is for you to realize you need him. And all I remember in those early days is just how much, like I don't, my Bible was all about I love you, I delight in you. It was a rough couple of years, I'll say that, but you know from that moment on, I was just 100% after God. I knew there was no other way. And it's been a beautiful journey. That's what I'll say. You said you need your mother's God. Had your parents passed by that point? Were you able to reconcile with them?

So I had reconciled with them before I went to medical school. And then I'd gotten married during medical school. And so, as I said, they retired and came down and supported, literally took care of me and my two sons so I could finish. So yeah, we had reconciled. I, you know, from that experience, my family was incredibly important to me. So, you know, did my mom and dad and I have a lot of discussions? Not really, but we were very close. Like I was always bringing them out to Utah. So, you know, did my mom and dad and I have a lot of discussions? Not really, but we were very close. Like I was always bringing them out to Utah, I was going to visit them. Those relationships were incredibly important

to me. So my parents were still alive when all this happened. I remember my mom telling me that, you know, there'd be times that I couldn't walk and that Jesus would carry me. And he did. He did. It was beautiful. And I remember asking my father, what does that mean for somebody like me? Like thinking the prostitute. And dad said, how, and I said, how does God see me now? And he said, he sees you as a widow. And, you know, when you look at how god sees a widow like women are vulnerable and god saw me as somebody who'd been trampled on and just loved me back to life it's as i said it's been a beautiful journey you obviously know who abby johnson is former plan uh planned parenthood director who witnesses an abortion, rocks her, ends up coming to Christ.

In the movie Unplanned, there's the night sometime after this where she just wakes up and like the weight of her sin just crushes her. To me, that was the most powerful scene in that whole movie that they just portrayed beautifully. Like it dawns on her, holy cow, I've been running the ball the wrong direction and the weight of her sin was heavy. What was that like for you? When you become a Christian, you look back and you go, I'm running the ball the wrong direction, so to speak, with good intentions. Was that a process?

Was that just like God's grace came in and boom, you moved on? Like, what was that like? Yeah, I'm so thankful that God is the only one who knows how to do this in somebody's life. So we've got to be really careful with as people. Now, the first he gave me was in Isaiah 42, where Jesus, his servant comes with justice and with mercy not breaking the bruised reeds or uh putting out the smoldering flames and that was me like i was at death's door when he picked me up so um he waited just a little while somebody had told me about celebrate recovery for people with hurts habits and hang-ups and they're like you've got to do this and they were so right it was a Christian counselor who was doing it it was a six-month program so I started going to that and they said you know there there are some

things you've never grieved and for me they said ask God what that is and I'm like okay God what is that he said well you know those two babies you lost a miscarriage and I just stopped now if you can do abortions as you and your wife and i'm so sorry when with your miscarriage and you're like no we've lost our child for me back then i'd eaten that ideology that unless you want the baby it's nothing and so i had literally i hadn't had anesthesia for my dncs because i needed to go right back to work. And so I started thinking about that and just praying with God and grieving over that. And he said, you know, you're going to see those babies again. I'm like, wow, that's, I'd never considered like their souls. I will see them

again. And then he said, you're also going to see those babies you aborted. And that was my crush. But he immediately said, and they love you. And in that moment, I just didn't know how in the world you get up from knowing that you've killed babies. How do you get up? I had somebody ask me that recently on an airplane when I told him, why I do what I do. He was like, how do you get up? I said, well, because I know God's forgiven me. That's the only way you can get up. So, you know, he didn't crush me. It was a huge load. And then the second thing that happened that really confronted the reality, like just how brutal it is. I was talking to somebody who was telling me secondhand, they knew somebody who'd been invited to see an abortion.

And most people have no idea. Like, it's an abortion, oh, it's a good thing. It's like the vice president going to an abortion clinic and isn't that awesome? Did she go in the back and see an abortion? Absolutely not. That would have changed everything for her. But anyway, this person was describing the person's reaction

who just thinks she's seeing an abortion and does not know what it is. I mean, just devastated this person. And in that moment, I said, how in the world could you ever have done that? And those were the two things, in addition to initially seeing the evil of it, those were the two things that really started moving me on a pro-life course. And I'll say since then, there are so many justifications. Like I had my line, well, it's okay if there's something wrong with the baby. They get to choose if they, quote, have this baby. And the first time I walked into, was going to go to a pregnancy resource center to, quote, help.

And I didn't know about PRCs. ACOG, the American College of OB-GYN is like they lie to people they coerce people all they care about is the baby so I've got all this in my head but I meet with the director and I'm saying look you need to know that this is my past and I said but I only did them on babies that has a severe genetic anomaly or severe defect and sherry stopped and she said well i have a child with down syndrome whoa like oh my gosh seriously yeah so that's you know for me that's how god and she was so graceful and kind she's a very dear friend. Her daughter's amazing.

And, you know, this will bust all of the things people think about people with Down syndrome. When I met her, she was 19. Her dad was homeschooling her. I said, oh, what's your favorite subject? And she said, Latin and algebra. So I talk about busting all the things that we think. So, yeah, people have been very graceful and kind to me, even in horrible things like that.

One of my big takeaways from this, and I have quite a few, is when somebody says, I have an unplanned pregnancy, don't rush in with judgment. What happened? Why did you do this? Just what a wonderful gift from the Lord. Let's move forward. You show grace and kindness to people there's debates and discussions within the pro-life movement about whether we

should stand up and protest show pictures of abortions try to shock people and sear their consciences to seeing what's at stake and others who would just say, no, it's just kindness and it's grace and these soft words spoken at the right time. Do you have an opinion or a take on this? Is it both in different settings? How do you see that kind of approach in the pro-life movement? Yeah. You know, I think, first of all, we need to be bold and quit being silent. I'm so thankful for all the Christians out there who are doing the right thing and standing up for the voiceless. This is the biggest human rights. This isn't political. They made it political to shut you up, just like they shut the men up.

Like, you've got to stand up. These babies are dying thousands every day in the United States alone. So, you know, how do we do it? You know, as I said said god knows how to do these things so you have to like to me it's a holy spirit led thing for me like i went to the national march for life and i need to be reminded every once in a while by seeing those pictures you know i try to before i speak you know i remember the thousands of children who are going into father's arms today that are being tortured to death you know and I think of you know

when Jesus says the heavens are full of such as these like that's actually literal the heavens are full of the millions of babies who are killed by abortion since Roe versus Wade so you know I have to remember that and I've got to be bold but God what's the right way right now? And I have found like, there's me speaking in front of people and I can say things other people can't because you can't tell me what I'm saying is not true because I sat there and did the awful thing. So I can say all kinds of things. I try to start by saying, if you're uncomfortable, please leave. You know, it's okay. It's okay to step out. I try to start by saying if you're uncomfortable please leave. You know it's okay. It's okay to step out. I'm not throwing stones. I'm just speaking

the truth because people need to know and they don't know. They think abortion is a lovely thing that helps women. So I think you have to have wisdom and discernment on one-to-one conversations which God brings up all the time in the most crazy circumstances. You've got to listen to the other person you know hopefully they bring it up or they ask you a question one of the most interesting ones I ran into in the Seattle Airport in all these millions of people somebody I typed with a few days before on a cruise like how good is that and you know in our long discussion he says what's the most controversial thing you believe and i was like oh okay here we go god the most first thing i believe

is that there shouldn't be any abortion and he said why do you believe that like we've got to step into these conversations and you should have seen his face when I said, well, I'm actually an ex-abortionist. Whoa. Okay. So this is real now. And he asked me all of his questions. I never thought about that. But, you know, I have other conversations when they want to tell me their abortion history. Like, you've got to be so in tuned with the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, where do you want this to go? Are we just confronting something they believe do they just need somebody to hear their heart and to know my past and to let that trigger it are we going to go further like it's all god-led i love that mixture of wisdom got to speak truth boldly but with compassion and kindness knowing there's so often a back story that's there i've never asked somebody what is the most controversial thing they believe. That might be a great opening. I might have to steal and use that with folks in the right setting.

What amazing that he asked you that. Like, that's incredible. I wish more people would ask me that. So imagine someone stayed with us this far. And I know abortion doesn't just affect women. There's a lot of grandparents who have tried to talk their kids out of aborting their children, which of course are their grandkids. There's some men who have regret of not either trying to stop or encouraging their wives or girlfriends to have abortion. But obviously the immediate effect is on a woman because she's

going through this procedure what would you say to somebody watching this who's had an abortion Christian or not yeah do you know I would say God absolutely loves you the only way to be free from all the guilt and the shame is through Jesus. You know, for me to know that, as I said, he started by telling me how much he loved me and by starting to fan me back to life. He didn't start with, oh, by the way, let's deal with your abortion history. Abortion is not the unforgivable sin. I think that's why it's so important for churches to talk about it, because if people like me don't share their stories in the church, I've heard from other people who've had abortions, like, it must be so awful because they won't talk about it. And so what we're doing is we're keeping people from finding not just healing, but complete covering of that not covering not carrying that shame anymore and moving into a totally new life where god actually takes horrible things that

we've done and he loves you so much he just wants you to be free from it so that's what i would say it's not you know i there was a time when i said to myself early on, there's nobody else that you know who's killed people. And then God showed me, actually, abortions are happening all over the place. And this isn't to justify what I did, but Jesus said, you know, what's in your heart is even murder. And so am I alone in it? No. Do I have the physical memories of taking the lives of babies? You bet I do. Like I may not feel at least as much of the shame anymore. Like God's continuing to take that out of my life. And I know it's completely covered. It's as much as I'll, as much as I can let God take it out, I guess is what I would say. It's completely covered if I can just lay it all down does that make sense it does yeah yeah so i would say you don't have to carry it god loves you um talk to somebody talk to a safe person which reminds me i mean churches just need to be safe

places we've got to prepare our young people for what they're going to go out to and i know that's a lot of what you do sean and i'm so thankful for that. The kids have to know why marriage is designed that way. And not just that it's the safest way and it's the way for kids to have their best life, but also because it reflects God's love for his bride. I mean, it's so beautiful. We've got to do this for our kids. We need to walk alongside both women and men with surprise pregnancies, unexpected pregnancies, hard pregnancies. Children are a gift. Children are not a curse. They're a gift

from God, no matter how they came about. So we've got to just come around these people and love them and help them and say, you can do this. And we've got to do the healing programs on the other side as a church, not just do what i call give it the office i gave it the prc no there's people in our walls who are just devastated and hurting there's a harvest right there so the majority of abortions in america now are the abortion pill well over 50 percent and it might be that the overturning of Roe versus Wade kind of really jettisoned something that was in play and has encouraged some of our even more abortions than there were in the past if we include the pill. I don't have the data right in front of us,

but medically speaking, is that since the unborn clear at that stage doesn't feel pain, should we say, oh, good, it's not as expensive a procedure. There's less pain on the baby, less likely the mother's going to have complications. Just medically speaking, how do you look at things like mifepristone, if I said it correctly, and the other abortion pill? Yeah, so, you know, we're always in a dangerous place not just as physicians but as humans when we start to say when can we kill another human being and that's the only response i can have is it okay to kill them if they don't feel it is it okay to go kill the person on the ventilator like do they feel like when when somebody is declared brain dead and we harvest organs, they receive anesthesia. So like somewhere we know it's not okay to potentially cause pain to a human being, even though we don't think their

brain's working. So it's very inconsistent. So if you look at all of the justifications and all of the, like the only reason that we have these debates is because somebody wants to kill a human being it's just weird isn't it so yeah the baby like the science is so clear and that from the moment of fertilization we call it egg sperm fusion so basically both of the nuclei with the chromosomes are released and their membranes fuse the chromosomes come together i mean at that moment you go to a completely new human being and what's fascinating is those chromo chromosomes immediately start directing separate from the mom all of the proteins all of the processes that are not going to need to happen they duplicate like within a day and a half at least they're starting to divide and that child as a single cell is directing all of its own development I mean that's a human being right from the beginning

we don't have this debate about when can we kill dogs inside dogs wombs we don't I mean like who would be upset about that everybody you know but for some reason with human beings when when can we kill it has become the the question it's crazy really interesting there's not debate when we find you know the smallest life on say mars or an asteroid we know it's alive and yet it comes to the unborn it's like well we're not sure we don don't know. And you're right, scientifically, the unborn is alive from the moment of conception. Second, it's in the mom, but it's a distinct organism from the mom. It's a self-regulating organism and it's human. So from the moment of conception, it's a living human organism distinct from the mother.

And I appreciate that you talked about it's human is really the central question. That's right. And one of the ways I like to frame it is just in terms of human rights. Is the right to life a human right? Yes. Who gets human rights? Human beings do. Is the unborn alive? Yes. Then therefore, the unborn has the right to life. Last question for you. How do you frame a pro-life argument? If somebody said to you, why are you pro-life? What would your case or defense be, whether philosophically, theologically, scientifically, put forth that case to someone who's a skeptic?

Yeah, so, you know, I frame it around every time I've met another ex-abortionist, we've all stopped because of two things. And Scott Klusendorf is so good at bringing these up, but it's always, and for me, it was the third thing, the evil. But once I was a Christian, it became two things. Always something happened that made us all of a sudden see the humanity of the baby. Like we had blocked out that this is a human being. And the second thing is we all allowed ourselves or something happened to force us to see the brutality of the procedure that the baby was alive and that actually we killed it. It's those two things. So you can't find any justification that says it's okay to kill an innocent human being. So once you start framing it that way, and once you realize as the person doing abortions, actually it's a human being and I'm killing a human. Like that's the important thing.

The baby's truly alive, the baby's dead. Do they have the same value as everybody else? And I think one of the other turning points for me is just thinking about this continuous development. Like from the first zygote to the end of my life, that was all Kathy Jean. It was all me, you know. And so like, where do I say I wasn't me? You know, and when you think about continuous, like we put lines,

I've always loved that over 50, you get to have like for 50 years, you get to be in the same group. But, you know, from the beginning years, I go to blastocyst, you know, an embryo, a fetus, a two year, a newborn, a two yearyear-old. There's all these classes, but does that class or age make it okay to take your life? It doesn't. We're human beings from the very beginning continuously. You can't put a line anywhere in my life and say I don't have value. Dr. Catherine Wheeler, you're an incredible person. Thanks for having the courage to share your story. Obviously, this is decades ago, but I can tell there's still emotions and still hurt there. Even though you're forgiven, it makes sense, and you wish you could change it, the past,

but you relish in God's grace and are trying to warn others from going down that road that's destructive and full of lies. So keep speaking boldly. We got your back here. We're all in this together as far as proclaiming life in different ways. Did I miss anything just in your story or your message that you wanted to share? You know, the biggest thing is that God's been putting on my heart lately is the men. I've talked, he keeps bringing men to me after I talk. Men are so devastated by this. They're, you know, they're broken. They speak into, like, they get so trashed by the public,

like, oh, is this all men's fault? And I've had so many come up to me and say, I did everything I could. I offered to marry her. I offered to adopt. I would do anything. Like my son would be playing baseball with me now. He'd be five years old. And I've seen the other side of it. I had a young man come up after a talk last year, literally weeping. He was probably in his early twenties. And he said, I went to, my girlfriend wanted an abortion. She went to a pregnancy resource center and got an ultrasound. And because of that ultrasound, I have my son who's two. And then he couldn't talk anymore. He just stood there and cried.

And, you know, the men are just being neutralized. So men, please, I hear you. I'm so sorry for what's happened in your lives. And we need you. This is your fight too. this is not a woman's problem you're amazing that is a great mic drop moment to end on uh can people get a hold of you if they want you to speak at their church or their event or fundraising event or counseling whatever it is tell us what you do now for the pro-life movement and maybe how people can get ahold of you. Yeah. You know, I find this amazing that the pro-life movement has actually loved and

accepted me. So I'm so thankful for that. I'm on the board of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNs. So that's where you would find me. We got to start the first state chapter of the American Association of Pro-Life OBGYNens here in Colorado. Don't give up on Colorado. Please pray for us. I'm also on the Medical Advisory Board of Save the Storks, and I'm on the board of Pro-Life Colorado, which is working really hard to defeat this horrible initiative here, ballot initiative, pushing unrestricted, unregulated, unsafe abortion through the entire pregnancy, no oversight, no qualifications of the person doing it. I mean, it's absolutely crazy, and extending it to taxpayer funding. So please pray for us here, and pray for every place having

an aballoned initiative, and pray for this to end Thanks for your work. You and I could have a debate. I don't know who to win over which state is more Anti life California where I live or Colorado Either way, it's a losing battle, but thanks for what you do. Please be encouraged Please keep speaking up for those of of you watching, you mentioned Scott Klusendorf, who I think is one of the leading, if not the leading, pro-life defender in life apologetics. He did our program at Talbot School of Theology at Bayou University. He got a master's degree here because we talk about a lot of the underlying issues philosophically, theologically,

culturally, that help people understand what's going on so they can make a difference for life. So if you're watching this and thinking you want to do something, there's different ways to get engaged. But if you want to get trained, come think about studying apologetics with me at Biola University. We'd love to equip you in this. We have a lot of classes specifically on ethics and bioethics, etc.

So information is below. make sure you hit subscribe we've got a lot more stories and interviews and discussions and debates coming up you won't want to miss it Dr Catherine Wheeler thanks again for taking the time this is a memorable conversation thank you and thanks to everybody watching go take a stand. Thank you.