Dr. Bernard Nathanson, the prominent New York physician who played a key role in the crusade to legalize abortion only to later experience a change of heart and become a passionate pro-life leader died on Monday.
For many, Nathanson’s life will be viewed strictly through the lens of his involvement in the cultural debate over abortion. However, his story of conversion to the Catholic faith offers a powerful testimony that should not be lost amidst the focus on his long and storied career on both sides of the abortion divide.
I first began to piece together the story of Nathanson’s conversion when I read Karl Stern’s The Pillar of Fire, an autobiography penned by the world renowned psychiatrist and professor at McGill University in Montreal. I was gripped by Stern’s account of growing up as a Jew in Nazi Germany and later discovering peace through his conversion to Catholicism.
One of Stern’s best students during his years as a prominent professor in Montreal was a brilliant young Jewish-atheist from New York City named Bernard Nathanson. Stern developed a close relationship with this young man and later offered him a prestigious fellowship to continue his studies in psychiatry. However, Nathanson passed on the opportunity and instead pursued specialties in gynecology and obstetrics. Years later Nathanson was one of the founding members of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), and as the director of the largest abortion clinic in the United States, he was directly responsible for more than 75,000 abortions.
In the late 1970s, Nathanson was transformed by the advent of new technologies such as ultrasound which confirmed the reality of human life in the womb. He quit the abortion business and went on to become a leader in the pro-life movement. He also thought back to his close friend and mentor Dr. Karl Stern…and picked up a copy of The Pillar of Fire. He read these lines which must have seemed as if they were written directly for him:
“There is only one way: Jesus Christ. If we are concerned with the suffering of those innocent ones, we have first to look at Him. If we are concerned with the Evil which has brought it about, we have first to look to ourselves. Everything else is deception. If I want to renew the world I have to begin right in the depth of my own soul.”
Thus began Nathanson’s spiritual conversion.
On December 8, 1996 Dr. Bernard Nathanson was baptized into the Catholic Church by New York’s John Cardinal O’Connor. One of the guests that day was Chuck Colson, of Watergate fame and, following his own conversion, now a prominent evangelical leader. He penned these eloquent thoughts which capture once again the spiritual forces at work in struggle for human life…and ultimately for human souls:
“This week I saw fresh and powerful evidence that the Savior born 2000 years ago in a stable continues to transform the world. Last Monday I was invited to witness a baptism in a chapel of St. Patrick’s cathedral in New York City. The candidate for baptism was none other than Bernard Nathanson, at one time one of the abortion industry’s greatest leaders, a man who personally presided over some 75,000 abortions, including the abortion of his own child…I watched as Nathanson walked to the altar. What a moment. Just like the first century–a Jewish convert coming forward in the catacombs to meet Christ….I looked at the cross and realized again that what the gospel teaches is true: in Christ is the victory. He has overcome the world, and the gates of hell cannot prevail against His church…And this is the way the abortion war will be won, through Jesus Christ changing hearts, one by one. No amount of political force, no government, no laws, no army of Planned Parenthood workers can ever stop that. It is the one thing that is absolutely invincible…That simple baptism, held without fanfare in the basement of a great Cathedral, is a reminder that a holy Baby, born in a stable 20 centuries ago, defies the wisdom of man. He cannot be defeated.”
--David Naglieri
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