The co-founder of NARAL, who became prolife.
An atheist, turned Catholic
We just received this:
Dr. Bernard Nathanson, Pro-Life Champion, died at home
By Christopher and Joan Bell
FOR INFORMATION CALL 201.920.4986
Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D., former abortionist, whose conversion was a modern-day St. Paul story, died today, Feb. 21, at 84. He became one the most eloquent and informed pro-life voices in America and his death, at his New York residence after a prolonged battle with cancer, with his wife Christine by his side, will not silence his defense of life.
Bernard delivered our first daughter and became Joan’s godson.
Joan first met Bernard in Delaware at a pro-life meeting during 1980. He later visited Joan in a Florida prison where she was incarcerated for a peaceful, prayerful attempt to stop abortion.
She said about him, “His intellect was incredibly diverse. When he visited me in Florida he brought a large stack of books and he questioned me on a wide range of subjects including philosophical, historical , medical and theological. What an incredibly sharp mind with deep ethical insights he had.”
She add, “I was deeply honored by his presence in my life. He was a great doctor as well. I loved him and his goodness very much. He had a very great attraction to goodness and truth. I could feel his love for the pre-born children, including each child he had aborted and each child threatened by abortion today. It was a profound experience being in his presence and seeing the love and contrition in his eyes. I believe he came to totally accept God’s forgiveness. It all seemed real to him. His conversion is like St. Paul’s.”
Christopher first met Bernard at a N.J. Right to Life banquet where they sat together on the Dias. Bernard was fasting, as he often did, before speaking. He launched a boycott of McDonald’s hamburger restaurants at that banquet after explaining that McDonald’s foundation was funding research on unborn babies.
Christopher and Joan, along with hundreds of other pro-lifers including Bernard were in front of Planned Parenthood in New York City peacefully trying to stop abortions during 1990. Christopher saw how pensive Bernard was and asked, “May I ask you a question?” Bernard said, “Anything except about my spiritual life.” He was obviously contemplating the journey of his soul. He’d later explain that it was the love he saw in the pro-lifers he met which helped him believe in God.
It was then through the intellectual stimulus of Fr. C.J. McKlosky, a priest of the Prelature of Opus Dei, that Bernard found his way to accepting Baptism in the Catholic Church. Joan was his godmother. Bernard attended the baptism of Mary, our daughter whom he delivered, in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral at the hands of Cardinal John O’Connor. Mary, who was then 4, witnessed Bernard’s baptism at the hands of Cardinal O’Connor in the same crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on December 9, 1996.
Bernard was married in a Catholic ceremony to Christine Reisner, who was with him at the time of his death. She is the daughter of Dr. Edward H. Reisner Jr., a hematologist who was a longtime colleague of Bernard’s’s at St. Luke’s Hospital. Bernard is also survived by his son, Joseph, who’s mother, Adele Roban was always pro-life and once ran for the U.S. Senate on the Right to Life Party Line.
Born in New York to a Jewish family, Bernard received his medical degree from McGill University Medical College in Montreal, Canada, and served as a doctor in the U.S. Air Force for a few years. After his military stint, he built a thriving New York medical practice, at one time working at the same hospital as his father. In the late 1960’s, he was one of the founders of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now called Naral ProChoice America), and later became the operator of the nation’s busiest abortion clinic, located in New York.
An obstetrician-gynecologist, Bernard estimated that he oversaw the performance of about 75,000 abortions in the 1960s and 1970s before performing his last procedure in 1979 and turning his support to the pro-life movement. He wrote a number of books, including the biographical “The Hand of God,” and produced the famous 1986 film “The Silent Scream,” showing ultrasound images of an unborn child shrinking from the instruments of an abortionist. Bernard said that the development of quality ultrasound technology and a class in perinatology brought him face to face with the personality of the pre-born child. Then he knew abortion is the murder of an individual human being. He said, “Even as an atheist I knew that it was just wrong.”
After joining the pro-life movement, he lectured widely, published numerous scholarly articles, and earned a master’s degree in bioethics from Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, where he also became a visiting scholar.
A Funeral Mass is planned for St. Patrick’s Cathedral by Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan, the current head of the Archdiocese of New York.
christopher bell +
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With God all things are possible.
Posted by: Nancy | February 21, 2011 at 06:04 PM
No matter what sins we have committed in our lifetime, God's Son, Jesus, paid full price on that cross. God loves each one of us UNCONDITIONALLY! The conversion of Dr. Bernard Nathanson from Death to LIFE is so profound and teaches all of us that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD!. May the soul of Dr. Bernard Nathanson through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen. May he be welcomed into heaven and see beloved Cardinal John O'Connor.
Posted by: Eileen Peterson | February 21, 2011 at 07:37 PM
condolences in Christ to all who knew and loved this man.
Dr. Marrero
Posted by: Lisa A. Marrero, MD | February 21, 2011 at 10:07 PM
Dr. Bernard Nathanson was (IS)my great hero. His witness was invaluable in winning people over to the Pro Life cause. My deepest sympathy to his family and friends. I hope he is in Heaven with our dear Fr. Morrow, the prolife priest who died 5 months ago.
Posted by: Margaret Seymour | February 22, 2011 at 07:58 AM
Thank you, Joan and Chris, for this touching memorial to Dr. Nathanson. The depth and scope of his conversion experience will continue to soften the many hearts hardened by abortion, even and especially now after his death.
Posted by: Judith Anderson | February 22, 2011 at 10:54 AM
This extraordinary narrative by Chris and Joan Bell about Bernard Nathanson's life and conversion needs to be read and promoted far and wide by every means possible by all of us who are united in defending unborn children in the womb. May he rest in peace!
Posted by: Elizabeth Rex, PhD | February 27, 2011 at 08:37 AM