By Msgr. Noel C. Burtenshaw

His introduction to the practice of medicine was an introduction to the practice of abortion. And Dr. Joseph Randall continued to practice abortion for 10 years.

Now Dr. Randall has stopped and looks back at that career and speaks freely about it.

Joseph Randall, who has a busy practice in Smyrna in the field of obstetrics, graduated from Albany Medical College in New York in 1969. After a short absence in Hartford, he returned to Albany for his residency. It was at that point in 1970 that the operations to abort fetuses began.

“You must remember,” says this enthusiastic physician, “that abortion was legal in New York before the rest of the nation. So I was introduced to it early and did it as part of my course. In fact, our chief of staff, who afterwards became chief at Johns Hopkins, encouraged us to get interested. Abortion was going to be with us. It was the coming thing.”

Dr. Randall performed abortions on women ten weeks pregnant and under. The fetus, in those early years, was simply called “tissue” and “products of conception.” “That’s what they were to me,” says the doctor. “I had no qualms about doing them.”

To complete his service in the Army, Joseph Randall was sent in 1973 to Fort McPherson in Atlanta. “The Army did not do abortions so I began to moonlight in one of Atlanta’s abortion clinics. There we did abortions on women pregnant under 12 weeks.”

The doctor, at this time, was feeling badly about his “healing vocation” and the fact that he was mixed up in abortions. The clinic kept getting better equipment. Suction methods were being used. Although Joseph Randall was feeling badly, he numbed his feelings and got on with the job.

“The money was good,” he freely admits. “I was making $70,000 a year. I had been divorced. The support payments had to be made. I went along without question.”

But the new equipment at the clinic began to open Randall’s eyes. “The new methods of studying the fetus clearly showed certain things to me that I could not ignore. The fetus could obviously hear sounds. In the womb it turned away from them. It shied away from light. It could feel. These sensations were obviously felt. They pointed out the HUMANNESS of the fetus.”

Dr. Joseph Randall was fast reaching an intellectual decision. He was confronting life in the womb. And the abortion procedures he was practicing were taking those lives.

About two years ago the abortion clinic began using what is called a “D and E” abortion method. It means dilation and evacuation. “The baby is actually torn from the womb,” says Dr. Randall showing with his hands the violent way the fetus is taken out. “However, even before the D and E, an ultrasound video is performed. The video allows you to see the baby – it is obviously human. A mother is never allowed to see that video – even today – it is too strikingly human. She could not have the abortion if she saw it.”

Now, things began to happen fast for the young doctor. He returned to the practice of obstetrics. “It is a difficult job, you have to take calls, get up at night.” He did it and once more began feeling like a doctor. He started back to church. He had been raised a Methodist but he never took practice of his faith seriously. “I started going to the Mount Paran Church of God. The girl I dated was disgusted that I did abortions. I began reading and studying Scriptures. I was mixed up and depressed. I did not know it but the staff in the office was praying for me. I began to change.”

Dr. Joseph Randall believes he received the gift of the awesomeness of God and his creation. He started serious reading. In October 1983 he accepted Christ and his life turned around. There would be no more abortions performed by him.

What about incest or rape? How would he feel if a victim of either came to him. “Well, first of all,” says Randall, “my staff quickly tells patients seeking abortions that they are in the wrong office so I don’t see them. However, let me say that I believe the fetus is a human life; therefore, under no circumstances could I destroy it. Even though a woman has been victimized, her conception is a child. I cannot take that life.”

Joseph Randall has a new purpose in his life. His pain has disappeared. He believes he has a new service to offer. “We must encourage pro-lifers to get out of the pews and into action. We are watching a silent holocaust, human beings are being legally destroyed. We need action.”

“We also need to take greater care of young women who are single and pregnant,” he says. “They should have no fears because many hands are there to befriend them and care for them and their baby.”

He is now a busy doctor but obviously out there in Smyrna he is more. He is happy in his ministry of healing.