The Scalpel and the Soul: Our Radical Transformation as Husband and Wife Abortion Doctors
By Noreen Johnson, M.D., and Haywood Robinson, M.D.
Kolbe & Anthony, 2023.
Hardcover, 216 pages, $24.95.
Two Patients: My Conversion from Abortion to Life-Affirming Medicine 
By John Bruchalski, M.D., with Elise Daniel
Ignatius Press, 2022.
Paperback, 185 pages, $17.95.
Reviewed by Kevin P. Shields.
In 1954 Russell Kirk penned an essay entitled “The Unbought Grace of Life.” The phrase is Edmund Burke’s, written in his Reflections on the Revolution in France as a part of his tribute to Marie Antoinette.
Kirk lifts the phrase up and turns it round. This “grace” brings “qualities beyond purchase…high dignity and constancy…a blending of resolution with generosity…a sense of office and obligation.” Although Burke’s coining of the phrase intended “to describe the great and ordering influence of the idea of a gentleman,” Kirk instructs us that this unbought grace “confers upon society a peace and harmony and justice, drawn from true leadership.”
Kirk tells us Burke emphasized that the spirit of the gentleman and the spirit of religion are the two great “sources and support of our social establishments and our culture.” Nowhere are these two “sources and support” contained in a single profession more than in that of a physician. As the healer of spirit and body, both the “nobility and the clergy” are wrapped into this one profession of the physician.
Two new books by former abortion providers chronicle how far this noble profession has fallen from grace, as it has been corrupted by the avarice and dull materialism of our age. They also show how the nobility of the physician can be reclaimed by returning to first principles and recognizing the sacredness of life, seeing the profession of the medical doctor as a testimony to the unbought grace of life as “gift and source,” as a profession which provides true leadership—moral leadership—which “confers upon society…peace, harmony, and justice” by working to end the injustice and horror of abortion.
In The Scalpel and the Soul: Our Radical Transformation as Husband and Wife Abortion Doctors, we meet the husband-and-wife physician team of Haywood Robinson and Noreen Johnson. Having begun their medical careers and marriage cash-strapped, the duo avidly sought the affluent lifestyle of the modern medical professional.
Theirs is a story of fall and redemption, of viewing a fetus as simply a “product of conception”—something to be gotten out of the way—to seeing an unborn child as the beauty and gift of life. They came to understand their obligation to the unbought grace of life bestowed upon them as physicians holding a “sense of office and obligation” to upholding a respect for life in society.
Attending medical school in Southern California, they soon discovered the lucrative nature of abortions and were encouraged to become moonlight abortionists to augment the meager earnings of their residencies. Eventually they made their way to Bryon/College Station in Texas and set up a private practice offering abortions in a place where abortions were not yet a part of the medical landscape. Keeping a low-profile for their abortion services, their earnings from this dark work grew and provided them with the incomes needed to afford their preferred lifestyle and pay off their school debt.
Abortion was not simply a source of income for Noreen and Haywood; it was a practice woven into their family histories. Noreen had a sister who had aborted a child and Haywood had encouraged abortion for a woman he had dated during his college years. Indeed, when they arrived in Texas, Noreen was pregnant and planned to abort the child lest they disrupt their careers and life plans. But Providence had another course in mind. Their daughter, Udelle, was born and Haywood’s child from his liaison was not aborted either. He later reconnected and established a loving relationship.
Noreen and Haywood’s story is filled with apparent happenstance and coincidence. But upon closer scrutiny it is easy to see the guiding hand of God gently nudging them forward, yet always leaving the next step up to them. Eventually, Noreen and Haywood stopped performing abortions and were instrumental in forming the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life and shutting down a Planned Parenthood clinic, the presence of which was an outcropping of the very abortion services they had brought to the Bryon/College Station community.
The fruit of their prayer and persistence, which led to the Planned Parent clinic closing, continues to grow and change lives across America. The clinic manager was Abby Johnson, a person who built a career on abortion and yet was struck from her horse and encountered God in the exam room of an abortion clinic. Abby’s reclamation became part of Noreen and Haywood’s journey, as the very clinic of Abby’s encounter was turned into a refuge for life by Noreen, Haywood, and the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life. Abby Johnson went on to tell her story and now works tirelessly to defend life and end abortion.
The quality of our life will always trump our length of days. Although Noreen has passed away, her passion for life and inexhaustible love for God, and his gift of unbought grace, no doubt brought her comfort as she heard the whisper of God saying: “Well done my good and faithful servant.” Today Haywood carries on their work of defending life and bringing the message of Christ to the lost and afraid.
Miles away in geography and life experiences, John Bruchalski was born into a strong Catholic family in New Jersey. Rooted in an upbringing that emphasized faith, family, and respect for the life of the unborn, he somehow found himself lost in the haunted wood of the money machine that is medicine in America today, and he lost his faith and moral compass in the process. Pursuing a medical education, he soon found himself at the epicenter of life and death solutions. It was a place he was totally unprepared to confront. But a moral physician jarred him out of his complacency in regards to the sanctity of human life. This “angel physician” was his residency supervisor who, in response to his callousness towards a premature child’s birth, reminded him that in the case of a pregnancy he is treating and providing care for two patients: the mother and the child. She scolded him, saying he needed to realize that the fetus is human too and, by extension of the mother, also his patient. Up until this point Bruchalski had only considered the mother, viewing the child as a sort of tumor or growth rather than a human being.
Bruchalski was moved to a crisis of conscience through his two mystical encounters with the Blessed Virgin Mary, one at the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the other in Medjugorje. After these striking moments, he pivoted and reaffirmed the life-affirming oath he took as a physician to do no harm. He realized the gravity of his responsibility as a physician and saw the wonder and truth of grace as manifested in the sanctity of human life. Contemplating the relationship of the Virgin Mother and the Christ Child, Bruchalski, as an OB/GYN, saw the parallel with his patients and began to sense the sacredness of all the lives he served—including that of the unborn child.
So tremendous were these experiences that he returned a changed man. He renounced monetized medicine and withdrew from all practices designed to thwart conception or eliminate life. Through great sacrifice and personal suffering, he eventually established a pro-life, affordable medical practice dedicated to the life and thriving of families.
These two books are tremendously moving biographies of conviction, courage, and redemption. They chronicle an important journey that is physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual, and one that we all must make if wish to move from death into the unbought grace of life, and to live that life to its fullest.
Kevin P. Shields is the Director of Medical Services for Johns Hopkins Hospital and Managing Director of the Russell Kirk Center.
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