Third-trimester abortionist Susan Robinson has died

Susan Robinson, a third-trimester abortionist featured in the documentary "After Tiller," has died of cancer.

Key Takeaways:

• Abortionists Susan Robinson, Warren Hern, LeRoy Carhart, and Shelly Sella were all featured in the film “After Tiller,” which portrayed late-term abortionists as heroes. 

• Robinson was also featured in an undercover video from the Center for Medical Progress (CMP), purporting to show the abortion industry's trafficking of fetal body parts.

• Robinson boasted of being able to kill full-term babies because there are no restrictions on abortion in New Mexico.

• On Instagram about a week ago, Sella announced Robinson's death from cancer.

The Details:

In a post on Instagram, Shelley Sella announced Susan Robinson's death, which she said occurred less than a year after Robinson's cancer diagnosis. Sella wrote:

"Susan was my friend and colleague in third trimester abortion care, both in Wichita and Albuquerque.

Susan was drawn to abortion care by her sense of justice, which never wavered. She was warm, passionate, irreverent and an excellent doctor and teacher. Together, we helped create a model of abortion care that lives on in our mentees."

Sella added that Robinson remained proud of her work as an abortionist until the end of her life, and the two had spoken just several days prior to Robinson's death.

Sella also recalled that Robinson had said, "How many people can say - I haven’t wasted my life. I have no regrets… I’m very pleased about the whole business.“

The Backstory:

Though Robinson said she was proud of her work as a late-term abortionist, she had previously complained about not being respected in the medical industry, saying:

“If you do abortions, it is very hard to get the privilege to work in a hospital, because they don’t like abortion providers.

They are almost all done in outpatient clinics, free-standing clinics, in this country. Being an abortion provider is very stigmatized. Other doctors look down on you and think of you as like the lowest of the low.”

Yet she still openly discussed her work, and in one CMP video, spoke about committing late-term abortions.

"The fetus is a tough little object, and taking it apart, I mean, taking it apart on day one is very difficult," she said in the first clip, and in the second, added, "You go in there, and you go, 'Am I getting the uterus, or the fetus? Oh good, fetus. [stabbing sound effect] What have I got? Nothing. Let’s try again.'”

In an interview with the Hairpin, she also admitted that most of the late-term abortions she committed were not due to health reasons (neither the babies nor the mothers):

[A] large percentage of our patients had no idea that they were pregnant. People go, “How could this possibly be?” Well, look at that reality show. It happens. Maybe you’re a little heavy and you already have irregular periods, or you had intercourse once, several months ago, and the guy said he pulled out and there’s no sex education in your school so you think everything’s fine. Or you never have periods because you’re very thin, or a doctor has told you you were infertile.

I could tell you a million reasons why women who are perfectly smart — and they are, these are not stupid women — don’t come to know they are pregnant. They have no weight changes, they don’t feel sick, they don’t feel movement, or if they do they think it’s gas. Suddenly someone says, “Hmm, your stomach’s looking big, have you taken a pregnancy test?” And the person may have taken a test, and it may have come out negative — I’ve had women that only got a positive on their third test. And either way they think they just got pregnant. They have no idea they’re in their 24th week.

So they make an appointment for an abortion, and it takes a few weeks, and they have their ultrasound and find out that they’re at 27 weeks, which is too far for an abortion anywhere. So then what happens?

They either give up or have a baby, or they go on the Internet and they find us.

In a separate interview with the Irish Independent, Robinson said New Mexico's lack of any restrictions on abortion allowed her to commit abortions even on full-term babies.

"[T]here is nothing legal to stop me from doing any abortion that I think is appropriate. Of course, that is a mixed bag, for me," she said, adding that it can be difficult to accurately date a preborn child's gestational age once the mother gets to 30 weeks.

"Let's say the woman is at 31 weeks. Well, given the inaccuracy of the ultrasound she could perfectly be 34 weeks. How would I feel if that happened?"

And it had happened, according to Robinson.

After committing one abortion, she saw the body and realized the baby was 37 weeks, which is considered full-term. She said she was devastated.

However, while babies killed in earlier abortions, like at 30 weeks (which Robinson found acceptable) may not be full-term, survival rates at that gestation are incredibly high.

The Bottom Line:

Two of the abortionists featured in "After Tiller," Susan Robinson and LeRoy Carhart, have now passed away. Shelly Sella and Warren Hern are still alive but have reportedly retired.