Today the pro-life community mourns the passing of Dr. Benard Nathanson as he lost his battle with cancer. Dr. Nathanson was a former abortionist who became pro-life through the technology of the ultrasound. He fought boldly for the protection of the unborn and is probably most widely known for his film The Silent Scream. Before his conversion, however, he was a founding member of NARAL. Jill Stanek writes today:
As one of the founding members of NARAL, Dr. Nathanson later described the lies he and his fellow abortion proponents devised to push the legalization of abortion. These included fabricating polls saying Americans supported abortion as well as illegal abortion statistics. “The actual figure [of illegal abortions] was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000,” Nathanson later said.
Perhaps Dr. Nathanson’s greatest contribution to the pro-life movement was his production of the documentary, The Silent Scream. This remarkably powerful film showed a baby gaping his or her mouth in a silent scream of agony while being aborted.
You can read the rest of her post here.
Steven Ertelt at LifeNews.com has also written about Nathanson today.
Nathanson wasn’t always pro-life and he started out as an abortion practitioner based in New York City who presided over more than 75,000 abortions.
But the doctor hoped he saved many more lives than that after witnessing an ultrasound and becoming pro-life. He then dedicated his life to ending abortions and his video, the Silent Scream, is considered a classic because it was the first to use the technology of ultrasound to make the unambiguous case that unborn children are human beings who deserve legal protection starting at their earliest days.
Quoting Nathanson himself, he continues:
“Once we had ultrasound in place, we could study the fetus and see it was a member of our community. If you don’t do that, you’re just a creature of political ideology. In 1970, there were approximately 1,100 articles on the functioning of the fetus. By 1990, there were 22,000. The data piled up swiftly and opened a window into the womb,” Nathanson continued.
Please read the rest of his article here.
Dr. Nathanson wrote about his journey from pro-abortion to pro-life in his autobiography called The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind.
The pro-life community is grateful to this doctor who admitted he was wrong and fought for the rest of his life to save the smallest members of our community who are fully persons, and fully persons from conception.
4 Now the word of the Lord came to me, saying, 5 “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:4-5)
