Ainsley Earhardt and Dr. Anthony Levatino on Fox & Friends, Feb. 28, 2019. (YouTube)

During a discussion about extreme abortion laws being passed at the state level, Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhardt, who has a three-year-old daughter, became visibly shaken and near the point of tears as former abortionist Dr. Anthony Levatino described a second-trimester dismemberment abortion, and explained why the death of his five-year-old daughter compelled him to stop the anti-life work he was doing.

In the introduction to the segment on Feb. 28, Earhardt explained that Dr. Levatino, a board-certified OB/GYN and an attorney, had performed 1,200 abortions in his career and about 100 second-trimester abortions. His young daughter was struck by a car and killed in 1984 and this led him to stop doing abortions.

“When I graduated from medical school in 1976 I was dedicated pro-choice, and as a gynecologist-in-training I learned to do abortions, both first and second trimester," said Dr. Levatino. "In practice, I performed 1,200 abortions over a four-and-a-half, five-year period. Ten percent of those, about 120, were second trimester abortions, up to 24 weeks."

“I was quite dedicated to it, this was a woman’s choice," he said. "I was an obstetrician, and I was going to provide that care. On June 23, 1984, my daughter Heater was hit by a car in front of our home, and ultimately died. …"

(YouTube)

“If you haven’t lost a child yourself, you have no idea, I hope you never find out," said the doctor. "But what do you do after a disaster? You bury your child and you try to get back into your life. I don’t know exactly how long it was after that I was scheduled for a D&E second-trimester abortion. But I showed up at the hospital just like I had 100 times before, thinking of it as routine."

At this point the conversation became graphic and host Ainsley Earhardt seemed to be emotionally shaken.

"A second-trimester D&E abortion is a brutal, inhumane procedure," said Dr. Levatino. "This is a morning show so I cannot describe it, but let’s just say that they call it dismemberment abortion for a reason. And I started that abortion and just stared at what I had just pulled out of the uterus. When you do an abortion, you have to -- believe it or not -- you have to keep inventory, you have to make sure that you get everything."

“And for the first time in my career, after all those years and all those abortions, I looked, I really looked at that pile of body parts on the side of the table, and I didn’t see her wonderful right to choose, I didn’t see what a great doctor I was helping her with her problem, and I didn’t even see the $800 cash I just made in fifteen minutes," he said.

"All I could see was somebody’s son or daughter," said the doctor.

Dr. Anthony Levatino testifies before Congress about abortion procedures. (C-SPAN screenshot)

He continued, “And it struck me in that moment, that this patient had -- figuratively, never literally -- came to me and said, ‘Here’s $800, kill my son or daughter.’ And I was the kind of person who would look her right back in the eye with no hesitation and say, ‘Sure, I’ll do that.’”

Ainsley Earhardt then interjected, “Pretty powerful. I’m the mother of a little girl and I look at your little girl Heather and think about Hayden [Earhardt], and I just can’t imagine. Some of these doctors want to do late-term abortions, and I can’t even picture what that would be like.”

Under Roe v. Wade, late-term abortions are legal and they regularly occur. In recent weeks, several states have passed or proposed extreme abortion legislation that would allow abortion up to the moment of birth, including New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Mexico and Virginia.

At the federal level, 44 Democratic senators voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act, which would have required for a baby that survives an abortion to receive immediate medical care and be admitted to a hospital.

Under current law, a baby that survives an abortion can be left alone on a table to die.