“Phá thai là lò thiêu sống độc ác nhất…”

“Phá thai là lò thiêu sống độc ác nhất…”

Bác sĩ Bernard Nathanson, người từng đứng đầu phong trào ủng hộ phá thai nhưng sau đó đã thay đổi lập trường và xin gia nhập Hội Thánh công giáo, vừa qua đời ở tuổi 84. Khi còn là người lãnh đạo phong trào ủng hộ phá thai, ông là thuyết trình viên chính trong Hội nghị quốc tế lần thứ nhất về Luật phá thai năm 1969. Cũng năm đó, ông là thành viên sáng lập Hiệp Hội Quốc Gia Đòi Quyền Phá Thai tại Hoa Kỳ (NARAL). Nathanson ước tính ông chịu trách nhiệm về 75.000 vụ phá thai, bản thân ông thực hiện 5.000 vụ, trong đó có lần giết cả con mình khi bạn gái ông mang thai.

Vào thập niên 1970, ông thay đổi lập trường. Trong cuốn sách tự thuật, Nathanson cho biết chính sự phát triển của kỹ thuật siêu âm, cho thấy hình ảnh những thai nhi, đã gây chấn động mạnh trong tâm hồn ông. Sau đó, ông trở thành nhà hoạt động tích cực cho phong trào phò sự sống, nổi tiếng với lời tuyên bố: “Phá thai là lò thiêu sống độc ác nhất trong lịch sử Hoa Kỳ”.

Ông đã thực hiện hai tài liệu quan trọng về phá thai: “Tiếng gào thét im lặng” (1984) và “Sự suy tàn của lý trí” (1987). Năm 1979 ông viết cuốn “Hoa Kỳ phá thai”, cũng là năm ông có ca phá thai cuối cùng. Năm 1996, Nathanson viết cuốn Tự thuật với tựa đề “Bàn tay của Thiên Chúa: Hành trình từ sự chết đến sự sống của một bác sĩ phá thai đã thay đổi quyết định”. Ông mô tả bản thân là người Do thái vô thần và đã xin gia nhập Công giáo năm 1996 nhờ sự giúp đỡ của cha John McClosky, một linh mục thuộc Opus Dei. Vào ngày lễ Đức Mẹ Vô nhiễm nguyên tội năm 1996, ông được Đức hồng y John O’Connor rửa tội tại Nhà thờ chính tòa St. Patrick tại New York.

Trao đổi với phóng viên Zenit, cha McCloskey cho biết: “Nathanson là khuôn mặt nổi bật trong phong trào phò sự sống. Lương tâm đã dẫn ông từ chỗ là một bác sĩ Do thái vô thần đến chỗ nhìn nhận bằng chứng khoa học cho thấy thai nhi đã là con người từ lúc thụ thai và phải tôn trọng sự sống từ lúc thụ thai đến khi chết… Cũng theo hành trình đó, sau nhiều năm tìm hiểu, ông đã đón nhận hồng ân đức tin công giáo.”

Hiện diện trong lễ rửa tội của ông còn có cha Richard Neuhaus, cha Paul Marx và đức ông William Smith. Người đỡ đầu cho ông là Joan Andrew-Bell, một nhà hoạt động trong phong trào phò sự sống.

Cha McCloskey nhận xét: “Nathanson đã hiến trọn phần đời còn lại để đi khắp thế giới gieo rắc sứ điệp phò sự sống, qua các diễn văn cũng như bài viết. Tôi tin rằng sự hoán cải hai lần của ông (từ ủng hộ phá thai đến phá thai – từ vô thần đến niềm tin công giáo) sẽ được nhìn như thời điểm bước ngoặt trong cuộc chiến đấu chống phá thai và sẽ dẫn đến kết điểm dứt khoát tại Hoa Kỳ, và hy vọng cả trên thế giới”.

Theo Zenit.

CONFESSION OF AN EX-ABORTIONIST

By Dr. Bernard Nathanson

I am  personally  responsible  for 75,000  abortions.  This  legitimises  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  (NARAL)  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 U.S. Supreme Court

to issue  the decision  which legalised 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 from illegal abortions was around

200-250  annually.  The figure  we 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

legalising 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

legalisation.                                                                           

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 prenatal research unit, just at the start of a great new

technology  which we now  use every day to study the foetus in the womb. A favourite 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.  Foetology  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 foetology,  discredit  themselves by

carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300 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.                                     

Nguồn: http://www.aboutabortions.com/DrNathan.html

 *****

Bernard Nathanson: Requiescant in Pace

Monday, February 21, 2011 A.D. | Author: Donald R. McClarey

One of the great strengths of the pro-life cause is its ability to make converts among its adversaries.  Bernard Nathanson was a prime example.  An obstetrician\gynecologist, Dr. Nathanson became an abortionist out of ideological committment to what he perceived as a necessary element in the liberation of women.  During his career as an abortionist, he took the lives of 75,000 unborn children.  One of them was his own child:   ”In the mid-sixties I impregnated a woman… and I not only demanded that she terminate the pregnancy… but also coolly informed her that since I was one of the most skilled practitioners of the art, I myself would do the abortion. And I did.”  He was a founding member of the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws. 

Unlike most of his colleagues in the abortion trade, Nathanson was not a marginally skilled doctor.  He was highly trained and kept up with medical developments.  When ultrasound came along in the seventies he began to use it and quickly reconized its worth in pre-natal examinations.  It also revealed to him something he had done his best to ignore:  the humanity of the unborn.

In 1979 he wrote Aborting Americawhich told his role in legalizing abortion in this country and his uncomfortable discovery that the unborn were fully human. 

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 from illegal abortions was around 200-250  annually.  The figure  we 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 legalising 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 legalisation.  

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.

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 prenatal research unit, just at the start of a great new technology  which we now  use every day to study the foetus in the womb. A favourite 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.  Foetology  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 foetology,  discredit  themselves by carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic at $300 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.

In 1984 he made the film Silent Scream, the first part of which is shown in the video at the beginning of this post, to show America the reality of abortion.  He remained a dedicated pro-lifer to the day of his death, today, at age 84.  Born into a Jewish family, Nathanson spent most of his life as an atheist, until 1996 when he converted to Catholicism.  May he now be enjoying the Beatific Vision.  Nathanson’s life is proof of the power of redemption, and that no matter how scarlet our sins we can all be made white as snow with the Grace of God.  The still small voice of God in every human soul is the greatest ally of the pro-life cause, and why it will ultimately prevail.

Nguồn: http://the-american-catholic.com/2011/02/21/bernard-nathanson-requiescant-in-pace/