A former abortionist shared to the students at St. Louis University the story of his journey from being a pro-choice doctor to a pro-life advocate, and the many regrets he had along the way.
Dr. Vansen Wong, who was an atheist, said he was first introduced to the practice of abortion when a fellow doctor asked him if he could help out with the procedure, according to St. Louis Review.
Being someone who wanted to stand with women who have chosen abortion and did not want to be “judgmental” toward them, Wong eagerly said yes.
At the time, Wong believed performing abortion helped women, especially those who had been victims of rape or those whose lives were endangered by their pregnancy. To him, performing abortion was an act of compassion to women who needed it. It also gave him extra income to pay his bills.
However, his idealism wore off over time, as he met more and more women who were opting to terminate their pregnancies for other reasons, such as “it’s not the right time,” or the pregnancy would interrupt their plans.
In one instance, a woman came to have her pregnancy terminated because she had plans of going on a trip to Europe.
Wong said he started to feel like he was performing abortion for the wrong reasons, and he felt tired.
At the university, he held before the students a clear tube that looked harmless but has been used to suction fetuses from the womb.
“It looks like a fairly innocuous device,” he said. “It's the size of a large straw and it's bendable, but it's also been responsible for the deaths of millions of unborn babies.”
In the seven years that he had performed abortion, Wong had used that instrument and had been responsible for the death of hundreds of unborn babies.
The tiredness he felt took a toll on him, he said, and the war on his emotions led him to attend church services. He sought God even more when one of his patients died after a hysterectomy.
He also thought about his own suppressed emotions over the abortion of his two children, one when he was in college and another during the first year of his marriage.
A preaching about partial birth abortion, a procedure highly debated about in the early 2000s, made him realize that what he had been doing was wrong.
"Maybe God is telling me abortion is wrong," Wong said. "It crept in — the realization that every person is created in God's image."
He decided to stop performing abortion. He also asked forgiveness from God and sought post-abortion counseling so he could learn to forgive himself.
Now, Wong serves as the medical director of the Alternatives Pregnancy Center in Sacramento.
Wong openly speaks up against abortion. In a Walk for Life rally in 2012, he spoke before thousands of pro-life activists and shared what he had experienced when he was still an abortionist.
“Abortion is barbaric, abortion is intolerable,” Wong told the crowd. “Abortion has no place in any civilized society.”
To the students in St. Louis University, Wong left a challenge.
"Your generation truly can reverse abortion. I hope together we can change this culture,” he said. “I would hope as you think (about) abortion, maybe you will think about it a little differently, maybe more personally. What can we do as individuals to help change the approach in our society?"
