CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST

Brown Bomber

Dr Bernard Nathanson was a primary driving force in the push for changes in US abortion laws. He was also an abortionist who carried out 10's of thousands of abortions. He was at one time director of the largest abortion clinic in the world.

With the invention of the ultrasound Dr Nathanson came to believe that the abortions he had carried out and tirelessly campaigned for was in fact murder and he became an active anti-abortion campaigner.

He was the medical expert and narrator of the controversial abortion film "The Silent Scream" [Mod] which can be found on YouTube[/Mod]

WARNING: GRAPHIC & DISTURBING. Contains actual footage of an abortion.

Dr Nathanson also exposed the lies, manipulation, deception and trickery of the abortion lobby of which he was a leading member in his "confession".

CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST

By Dr. Bernard Nathanson

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 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 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 cfrom illegal abortions was around 200 - 250 annually. The figure 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 perinatal research unit, just at the start of a great new technology which we now use every day to study the fetus 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. Fetology 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 fetology, 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.

Sacksian

Dr Nathanson admitted to being deliberately deceptive when supporting changes in abortion laws and was as deliberately deceptive with this film, after his conversion to Catholicism via Opus Dei.

30 years after this film was produced, it has had no impact. It's sensationalist propaganda.

His first piece of deception was unncecessary and his second ineffective.

This was ignored in the same way that today's Youth Defence propaganda is ignored as they sensationalise and exploit extremely difficult personal choices.

Personally, I would be much closer to the Islamic view of abortion than the Opus Dei view.

In Islam, abortion is generally allowed up to four months after conception and, in some cases, abortion is permitted in the case of fetal deformity.

Brown Bomber

Sacksian wrote: »

Dr Nathanson admitted to being deliberately deceptive when supporting changes in abortion laws and was as deliberately deceptive with this film, after his conversion to Catholicism via Opus Dei.

30 years after this film was produced, it has had no impact. It's sensationalist propaganda.

His first piece of deception was unncecessary and his second ineffective.

This was ignored in the same way that today's Youth Defence propaganda is ignored as they sensationalise and exploit extremely difficult personal choices.

Personally, I would be much closer to the Islamic view of abortion than the Opus Dei view.

In Islam, abortion is generally allowed up to four months after conception and, in some cases, abortion is permitted in the case of fetal deformity.

Did he have a time machine?

Silent Scream was 1984 his conversion was 1996. In 1984 he was an atheist or a self-described Jewish-atheist.

And the film had a huge impact. It was even screened in the White House by the President.

The film itself is not the topic of the thread but was background. The conspiracy is the corruption and deception of the abortion lobby.

Sacksian

I wouldn't say the film had a huge impact outside of its ideological and political base, particularly the Republicans in 80s. Have attitudes to abortion changed much since its release?

But, sorry, you are indeed correct about the date of his conversion, his religious status was independent of his proclivity for deception. No Time Machine involved.

And it seems his ideological successors have carried on in this vein.

Good info on deception of the anti-abortion lobby, including conspiring to prevent oversight of their funding sources from http://www.youthdefence.ie (currently - as their site seems to have been dosed with some truth serum).

Should lobbyists from the States have that much of an influence in Irish politics? I don't think so but I respect that others disagree. They're obviously not getting much support from Irish people.

I think the point about Americans and others living abroad wanting to keep Ireland in a regressed state because of some weird moral fantasy is a good one though - maybe even a much larger and more relevant conspiracy?

Charity Status?

Youth Defence are classified as a charity, in Irish law a charity must disclose donations over €100 and are not allowed to accept donations over €2500. They have yet to allow the Public Office Commission to see where they are getting their money from...what we do know is that they are certainly funded from outside of Ireland by right-wing neo-conservative Americans (more below). Indeed, ...their donation form ... has only recently been changed to the currency of Ireland, the Euro. This website isn’t even hosted in Ireland. It’s on a North American server.

Office Association & Hiding the Books

Youth Defence claim to be based at Life House, Number 60a, Capel Street, Dublin. The small office is shared among quite a few anti-choice organisations. They include: Coir, the Life Institute, the Mother & Child Campaign, Pro-Life Alliance, prolifeinfo.ie, Truth TV, and of course Youth Defence. That’s quite a few different organisations running from one small office. You’ve got to wonder whether funds are transferred between them legally. Probably not, what a silly question. Irish authorities have never been allowed to get their hands on their accounting books. Why, you ask. Well, these crafty so-and-so’s continue to evade the authorities. An Irish registered charity must document all donations above a certain amount. However, Youth Defence and their cohorts, while it’s plain to see are lobbying entities (funded by charity), refute this and claim they are “education spreading” entities.

Why does the funding come from America?

Well, that’s easy to answer, if these American men below can secure Ireland as remaining without abortion then they can use our country as a beacon for their anti-choice campaigns in America. They can show that Ireland remains strongly Catholic, and the last great bastion of Christian faith in Europe, fighting the so-called “good fight”.

They have zero problem with Irish women leaving Ireland for Britain to have abortions. Zero. They just want Ireland to remain “abortion free” so they can claim a moral victory in Western Europe and try to push for a similar occurrence in America.

Brown Bomber

I have no time for the US religious right/ New Right / Neocons at all but almost all of the Daddy Warbucks types are anti-Catholic. See latin America for the best examples of this.

And isn't Planned Parenthood, the US org founded by a racist and a eugenicist pumping millions of dollars into abortion in the 3rd world formally affiliated with the leading Irish lobby?

Personally I wish they'd all **** off interfering but it likely goes both ways.

====

Here is a more recent example of the deception and lies of the abortion lobby

The media love an apostate, and Ron Fitzsimmons is the apostate of the moment. In November 1995, at the start of Congress' battle over so-called "partial-birth abortions," Fitzsimmons, the executive director of the National Coalition of Abortion Providers, went on Nightline to argue against a ban. Even ardent pro-choicers concede the grisliness of the procedure--in which delivery is induced, the fetus' skull is crushed, and its brains are suctioned. So, Fitzsimmons now says, he deliberately underestimated how often the procedure is performed and claimed incorrectly that most such operations were necessary for the mother's health.






But last week Fitzsimmons came clean. "I lied through my teeth," he said in an interview with the American Medical News. This became front-page news and revived the partial-birth-abortion issue. Congress failed to override President Clinton's veto of a ban last fall. But there is speculation that Clinton will change his position now that the truth has been revealed.



Media accounts of Fitzsimmons' confession have been stirring. First, there was the critical moment of moral doubt: The day after appearing on Nightline, Fitzsimmons says, he felt "physically ill. ... I told my wife, 'I can't do this again.' " Next, heroic outrage: He stepped forward when he could no longer watch the debate be "engulfed by spins and half-truths." Finally, redemption: accolades from pols and pundits. On Meet the Press, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan, D-N.Y., declared in his conscience-of-the-nation mode: "Mr. Fitzsimmons did the honorable thing."

Sacksian

Brown Bomber wrote: »

Here is a more recent example of the deception and lies of the abortion lobby

That article does cover deception and obfuscation in the abortion debate but I'm not sure if you read the whole thing as I think you might have been inadvertently deceived yourself.

The snippet you provided is a misleading summary of how the article continues....

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/hey_wait_a_minute/1997/03/abortion_apostate.html

But the media are being as credulous about Fitzsimmons' new story as they were about his old one. For starters, why did it take him 16 months to retract lies he claims to have immediately regretted?

Then there's the underplayed fact that Fitzsimmons' mendacity could not possibly have influenced the national debate, because the segments of the Nightline interview in which Fitzsimmons says he lied through his teeth never aired!

...

Fitzsimmons now endorses the pro-life movement's figure of 5,000. But that figure is as unreliable as the pro-choice movement's 500. None of the groups that provides reliable statistics about abortion tallies up the total numbers of IDEs. ...Whether the correct figure is nearer 500 or 5,000, it is a minuscule percentage of the 1.5 million abortions performed each year in the United States.

....

You might think, from the attention paid to Ron Fitzsimmons' recantation, that he was a major player in the abortion debate. But most reporters who cover abortion--to say nothing of pro-choice insiders--say they had never heard of him. "This guy came out of the blue," says an official at one major pro-choice group. At best, Fitzsimmons is a B-league lobbyist. His group, a trade association, represents 220 clinics (but not Planned Parenthood, the largest abortion provider in the United States).

And this is the conclusion should probably just replace every single abortion debate there is....

If a fetus is a fully human life, then all abortion is murder and the debate over any particular procedure is beside the point. But the pro-life movement recognizes it has lost the larger debate, and has therefore adopted a step-by-step strategy. If abortion is not wrong--irrespective of the circumstances--then the issue becomes a tradeoff among unpleasant alternatives. And the question is not which of these alternatives is more unpleasant, but whether the government should be making the decision.

Brown Bomber

can I ask what your argument is. Are you saying that this abortion lobbyist didn't in fact lie?

SoulandForm

I have never been pregnant but I have friends who have been and from talking to them I find it hard to believe that human life begins at conception. That said it should be obvious that late term abortions such as are legal on the UK mainland are actual murder. Than there is the fact of abortion being used as a weapon of eugenics and population control. Than there is the fact of it being part of the whole "social liberal" agenda foisted onto Ireland both north and south in order to facilitate the type of capitalism we have presently which demands maximum flexibility from the working population (particularly maybe the female).

derry

SoulandForm wrote: »

I have never been pregnant but I have friends who have been and from talking to them I find it hard to believe that human life begins at conception. That said it should be obvious that late term abortions such as are legal on the UK mainland are actual murder. Than there is the fact of abortion being used as a weapon of eugenics and population control. Than there is the fact of it being part of the whole "social liberal" agenda foisted onto Ireland both north and south in order to facilitate the type of capitalism we have presently which demands maximum flexibility from the working population (particularly maybe the female).

The reality in the world of pro abortion is they can never except any limit.It can often start that abortion is legal below 3 months there is no human there and then exceptions stretch that to four months then six then nine months.Eventually they accept and push for that that it isn't murder to kill children below three years of age as they are not fully aware so if you have young children and want to do post birth abortion that OK with their death cult logic .Then eventually it becomes anybody who isn't a useful person should be killed so unemployed get exterminated or those who don't pass the leaving cert you name it .
The abortion lobby is using the abortion issue to push open the door on euthanasia their real agenda and that is where the real conspiracy lies tney will often opt to use slow creep agenda to change abortion laws for their final target euthanasia agendas
So even if your not religions the granting the idea that human life doesn't at conception opens the door to these death cults to eventually exterminate your kids because your not useful to the world as your maybe only a factory worker or low level person who has no right to breed .
Catholic of which I am one know that life begins at conception as new human soul and human entity comes into existence and that is what separates us from animals we have souls which make us human .

Derry

ArmaniJeanss

derry wrote: »

The reality in the world of pro abortion is they can never except any limit.It can often start that abortion is legal below 3 months there is no human there and then exceptions stretch that to four months then six then nine months.Eventually they accept and push for that that it isn't murder to kill children below three years of age as they are not fully aware so if you have young children and want to do post birth abortion that OK with their death cult logic .
Derry

Not one pro-abortion person has ever said that.