CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST
By
Dr. Bernard Nathanson
Author
of "The Silent Scream"
I am personally responsible for
75,000 abortions. This legitimizes my credentials to speak to you with some
authority on the issue. I was one of the founders of the National Association
for the Repeal of the Abortion Laws (NARAL) in the U.S. in 1968. A truthful
poll of opinion then would have found that most Americans were against
permissive abortion. Yet within five years we had convinced the U.S. Supreme
Court to issue the decision which legalized abortion throughout America in
1973 and produced virtual abortion on demand up to birth. How did we do this?
It is important to understand the tactics involved because these tactics have
been used throughout the western world with one permutation or another, in
order to change abortion law.
THE FIRST KEY TACTIC
WAS TO CAPTURE THE MEDIA
We persuaded the media that the cause of
permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. Knowing
that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply
fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we
had taken polls and that 60% of Americans were in favour of permissive
abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to
be in the minority.
We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program
of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done
annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000 but the figure
we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000. Repeating the big lie often
enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions
was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was
10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans
convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law. Another myth we fed
to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean
that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In
fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth
control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1500%
since legalization.
THE SECOND KEY
TACTIC WAS TO PLAY THE CATHOLIC CARD
We systematically vilified the Catholic Church
and its "socially backward ideas" and picked on the Catholic
hierarchy as the villain in opposing abortion. This theme was played
endlessly. We fed the media such lies as "we all know that opposition to
abortion comes from the hierarchy and not from most Catholics" and
"Polls prove time and again that most Catholics want abortion law
reform". And the media drum-fired all this into the American people,
persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the
influence of the Catholic hierarchy and that Catholics in favour of abortion
are enlightened and forward-looking. An inference of this tactic was that
there were no non-Catholic groups opposing abortion. The fact that other
Christian as well as non-Christian religions were (and still are)
monolithically opposed to abortion was constantly suppressed, along with
pro-life atheists' opinions.
THE THIRD KEY
TACTIC WAS THE DENIGRATION AND SUPPRESSION OF ALL SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE THAT
LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION
I am often asked what made me change my mind.
How did I change from prominent abortionist to pro-life advocate? In 1973, I
became director of obstetrics of a large hospital in New York City and had to
set up a prenatal research unit, just at the start of a great new technology
which we now use every day to study the foetus in the womb. A favorite
pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is
impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one,
anything but a scientific one. Foetology makes it undeniably evident that
life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that
any of us enjoy. Why, you may well ask, do some American doctors who are
privy to the findings of foetology, discredit themselves by carrying out
abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300.00 a time 1.55 million abortions means
an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the
pocket of the physician doing the abortion. It is clear that permissive
abortion is purposeful destruction of what is undeniably human life. It is an
impermissible act of deadly violence. One must concede that unplanned
pregnancy is a wrenchingly difficult dilemma. But to look for its solution in
a deliberate act of destruction is to trash the vast resourcefulness of human
ingenuity, and to surrender the public weal to the classic utilitarian answer
to social problems.
AS A SCIENTIST I
KNOW, NOT BELIEVE, KNOW THAT HUMAN LIFE BEGINS AT CONCEPTION
Although I am not a formal religionist, I
believe with all my heart that there is a divinity of existence which commands
us to declare a final and irreversible halt to this infinitely sad and
shameful crime against humanity.
[Dr.
Nathanson has since converted to Catholicism, being baptized in 1996.]
This was formerly
at: http://www.catholic-dispatch.com/confessi.htm
The pictures have
been removed, but the text is unchanged.
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