The Silent Scream- How sweet did thou sound?
This article goes in tribute to a man whose life showed the world how prayer can soften the stone hearted and how God’s mercy, love and forgive can conquer hatred and evil in today’s modern broken world. A Tribute to a Great Soul, Dr. Bernard Nathan son the once notorious doctor who drove the Pro Abortion Movement in America, but later changed his stance and became one of the Strongest Pro Life activists to make aware the world of the horrors of abortion and stand in defense of the Unborn Child, who passed away in New York City on the 21st of February 2011.
“I am personally responsible for 75,000 abortions”, Dr. Nathanson would regretfully say. Nathanson was born in New York City on July 31, 1926, the son of a Jewish gynecologist. A graduate of Cornell University, he earned a medical degree in 1949 from McGill University in Montreal. As a younger man, he had been strongly pro-choice, and he states that he performed an abortion on a woman whom he had impregnated. Nathanson was an obstetrician-gynecologist who in 1969 helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now called NARAL Pro-Choice America. When abortion was legalized in New York the following year, he became director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, an abortion clinic. It was while working at the abortion clinic that Nathanson said he developed misgivings about the procedure. He said the use of ultrasound images led to his change of heart.
After joining the anti-abortion movement, Nathanson lectured internationally. A frequent visitor to the Ronald Reagan White House He narrated the 1986 anti-abortion film "The Silent Scream,” graphically depicting the abortion of a 12-week-old fetus. On his previous work as an abortion provider, he wrote in his 1996 autobiography Hand of God, "I am one of those who helped usher in this barbaric age."
Nathanson developed what he called the "vector theory of life", which states that from the moment of conception, the fetus has a self-directed force of life that, if not interrupted, will lead to the birth of a human baby. Nathan also produced "Eclipse of Reason," a film about a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion, in which the fetus is partially extracted before being destroyed. He published several books, including an autobiographical account of his experiences.
As years went by Nathanson regretted his past, he went about searching for redemption and peace. After a long struggle he finally found it when in converted to Catholicism on Easter Sunday in 1996 at the age of 69. Before that he had been an Atheist who was divorced 3 times.
He wrote in his memoir that he knew "every facet of abortion.""I helped nurture the creature in its infancy by feeding it great draughts of blood and money," he wrote. "I guided it through its adolescence as it grew fecklessly out of control."
He may have killed thousands but In the years following his conversion He did so much to atone for the wrong he did by Fighting for the Unborn Child. Truly a modern day Saint Paul. May he be a source of inspiration for us and let us learn through this that Prayer can soften stone hearted hearts. Rest in Peace Dr. Nathanson
------------William Afonso