“We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures. We succeeded because the time was right and the news media cooperated. We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions, and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only five percent. We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted [by the media] as though they had been written in law.” ~ Bernard Nathanson
Dr. Bernard Nathanson had been a leader in the movement to liberalize America’s abortion laws. After he became, first, pro-life, and later, a Christian, he admitted that the pro-abortion side had lied. He and his colleagues had claimed, “that the number of illegal abortions was more than ten times higher than it actually was.”
After Nathanson’s transition to a pro-life perspective, Robert P. George had the opportunity to hear the former abortion doctor (Nathanson’s term) speak.
George asked Nathanson a pertinent question: since he had been willing to lie in order to produce what he had thought was a good thing–legal abortion–would he now be willing to lie “to save babies”?
The question stunned Nathanson–but he answered no. When the two met privately later, Nathanson expanded upon his answer.
“You [George] said that I was converted to the cause of life; and that’s true. But you must remember that I was converted to the cause of life only because I was converted to the cause of truth. That’s why I wouldn’t lie, even in a good cause.”
When he was a champion for legal abortion, he used any means at his disposal to achieve his end. As a champion for the cause of Christ and, therefore, the cause of life, his list of potential strategies came down to one: the truth.
Five years into the aftermath of Roe v. Wade, the Chicago Sun-Times did an expose on abortion facilities in the Windy City. Reporters Pamela Zeckman and Pamela Warrick titled their work “The Abortion Profiteers.”
At several facilities, they found an assembly line process that harkened to the back-alley butchery a newly pro-life Nathanson warned us about.
One of the women took a urine sample from one of her male co-workers into the clinic. Clinic personnel told her she was pregnant. When would she like to schedule her abortion?
Doctors held competitions with each other to see who could do more abortions in a day.
But after all these years, the truth about abortion can be hard to find. Much of the media has since decided they are no longer in the truth business.
We only hear the stories of horrific abuse when they go beyond the pale.
Stories about the likes of Nareshkumar Patel tend to remain localized. It didn’t hit the national news that he, a licensed physician, had prescribed abortion drugs for women who were not pregnant. His fee? $250 for a few pills.
What would happen to the abortion “industry” if we knew how it really worked? If reporters like those at the Sun-Times still objectively conducted investigations?
We would know the truth. And the truth could set a multitude of mothers, fathers, and children free. It could also free those stuck in the abortion lie industry.
