DR. BERNARD NATHANSON—R.I.P. How The Hand of God worked on a former abortion Doctor who became my friend.

DR. BERNARD NATHANSON—R.I.P. How The Hand of God worked on a former abortion Doctor who became my friend

By Chris Slattery, EMC Frontline Pregnancy Care Monday, February 21st, 2011

My wife Eileen and I mourn the death of our dear friend and mentor, Dr. Bernard Nathanson. I met Bernie in late 1970s, when I was a young salesman in the magazine industry. after he'd published his first book, Aborting America.

I got to know him at talks at Human Life International, before he released his first, earth-shaking film, The Silent Scream. He explained the sinister and deceptive way in which abortion had been legalized by lies and manipulation. I could see how much difference one man could make. He got me angry, and motivated me to dedicate my life to this cause.

When Bernie and his partners founded NARAL--the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws--and set out to legalize abortion, they were lionized at first by the media. They coddled the press with lies and exaggerations. In 1972, the year before Roe vs. Wade, the Centers for Disease Control reported that there were 39 deaths from illegal abortions. But Bernie simply made up the figure of "5,000 to 10,000 per year," and the press bought it.

He estimated that through the abortion clinic he and his partners founded in Manhattan, the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), he was responsible for the deaths of 60,000 children. But with the development of ultrasound in the 1970s, Bernie began to realize what he had been doing. He changed his mind about abortion and set out to do whatever he could, by speaking, writing, and making films, to right the wrong he had done. The same media and opinion-makers who had praised him now attacked him as an opportunist, a quack, and an eccentric.

He wouldn't be stopped. His three books and three films became the primary tools of many pro-life activists. I can tell you that over the years, his films alone had a huge impact on expectant mothers, and saved the lives of tens of thousands of children in our EMC FrontLine Pregnancy Centers and elsewhere.

He went back to school, getting a degree in bioethics from Vanderbilt University in 1996. He became an expert witness before legislatures and juries, using his authoritative voice to teach the uninformed about the reality of life in the womb and the deceptions of the abortion industry. He is a featured speaker in the current film about that industry, Blood Money.

He became a consultant to us when we opened our first pregnancy center in Manhattan on East 23rd Street and he helped provide pre-natal care to our moms, and he did a fund-raiser for us in his townhouse in Chelsea, and spoke for us elsewhere. He also helped with my wife's own pre-natal care when Eileen had a difficult pregnancy with our third child, Brigid.

After he renounced abortion, Bernie was still not a religious man. He described it as a seminal moment in his awakening when he and I next to each were among hundreds of pro-lifers dragged away from the doorways of Planned Parenthood on E 22nd Street, and Second Avenue in Manhattan. On that cold January morning in 1989, with Operation Rescue we helped shut down seven abortion mills in New York. Planned Parenthood, his former ally, sued us and about 6 other rescue leaders in Federal court.

Bernie carried a very heavy burden of guilt for his crimes. He began talking with Fr. C. John McCloskey of the Prelature of Opus Dei, and read a great many excellent spiritual books at his suggestion. Then the man who in the 1960s had fought to destroy the reputation and influence of the Church now asked to be baptized a Catholic. He had a wholehearted conversion, praying for forgiveness and God's mercy.

In 1996, in the crypt under St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York, pro-life heroine Joan Andrews Bell acted as Bernie's godmother. I was his Confirmation sponsor. And John Cardinal O'Connor said Mass and administered First Holy Communion to Bernard Nathanson.

It's with great sorrow that we lose our movement's most famous defector from the abortion industry. Like St. Paul, he struggled against the Light, but came to his senses a new man and became the Truth's champion.

Bernie fought the good fight, and has finished the race.

God bless you, Dr. Nathanson, and may you rest in peace.