Robinson, who passed away last month, was inspired to practice after she met Dr. George Tiller, who was later killed for his abortion work.

Dr. Shelley Sella
Mar 31, 2026

My flight had just landed in Milwaukee, where I was scheduled to give a talk that day for the local chapter of Medical Students for Choice. I opened an email from Dave, Susan Robinson’s husband, and read that Susan had died early that day. I was sad but not surprised. We had spoken two days earlier. At that time, I was in Chicago, and she told me that she was “circling around the drain. Truly.” Truly, because she had used the same phrase months earlier, shortly after her diagnosis of widespread lung cancer, and because she greatly surprised both herself and her legions of friends by her relative longevity.

Susan Robinson graduated from the University of California, San Diego medical school and completed her residency at Tufts, in Boston. She began providing abortion care in a spirit of defiance after three abortion providers were killed in the 1990s. Her attitude was “I’ll show them,” and she did. Before turning to third-trimester abortion care, she trained innumerable providers in California in early abortion care with impeccable technique and compassion. Her mentees are legion and continue to revere her.

Continued: https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a70884251/dr-susan-robinson-late-term-abortion/