Former Leading Abortion Advocate Remembers Myths of Illegal Abortions

Source: WorldnetDaily; December 20, 2002

Former Leading Abortion Advocate Remembers Myths of Illegal Abortions

Washington, DC -- "Women must have control over their own bodies."
"Safe and legal abortion is every woman's right."
"Who decides? You decide!"
"Freedom of choice -- a basic American right."

The "pro-choice movement's" emotionally compelling slogans -- fierce rallying
cries of the most successful political marketing campaign in modern history,
which made abortion-on-demand legal in the U.S. -- have been powerful
rhetorical weapons for fighting off efforts to reverse Roe v. Wade, coming up
on its 30th anniversary next month.

"I remember laughing when we made those slogans up," recalls Bernard
Nathanson, M.D., co-founder of pro-abortion group NARAL, reminiscing about
the early days of the pro-abortion movement in the late '60s and early '70s.

"We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion.
They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are
very, very cynical."

Besides having served as chairman of the executive committee of NARAL --
originally, the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, and
later renamed the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League --
as well as its medical committee, Nathanson was one of the principal
architects and strategists of the abortion movement in the United States. He
tells an astonishing story.

"In 1968 I met Lawrence Lader," says Nathanson. "Lader had just finished a
book called 'Abortion,' and in it had made the audacious demand that abortion
should be legalized throughout the country. I had just finished a residency
in obstetrics and gynecology and was impressed with the number of women who
were coming into our clinics, wards and hospitals suffering from illegal,
infected, botched abortions."

"Lader and I were perfect for each other. We sat down and plotted out the
organization now known as NARAL. With Betty Friedan, we set up this
organization and began working on the strategy."

"We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal,
enlightened, sophisticated one," recalls the movement's co-founder. "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 percent of Americans were in favor 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 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 1,500 percent since legalization."

What was the result of NARAL's brilliantly deceitful marketing campaign,
bolstered by thoroughly fraudulent research?

In New York, the law outlawing abortion had been on the books for 140 years.
"In two years of work, we at NARAL struck that law down," says Nathanson. "We
lobbied the legislature, we captured the media, we spent money on public
relations. … Our first year's budget was $7,500. Of that, $5,000 was allotted
to a public relations firm to persuade the media of the correctness of our
position. That was in 1969."

New York immediately became the abortion capital for the eastern half of the
United States.

"We were inundated with applicants for abortion," says Nathanson. "To that
end, I set up a clinic, the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health
(C.R.A.S.H.), which operated in the east side of Manhattan. It had 10
operating rooms, 35 doctors, 85 nurses. It operated seven days a week, from 8
am to midnight. We did 120 abortions every day in that clinic. At the end of
the two years that I was the director, we had done 60,000 abortions. I
myself, with my own hands, have done 5,000 abortions. I have supervised
another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So I have 75,000
abortions in my life. Those are pretty good credentials to speak on the
subject of abortion."

But something happened to Nathanson -- something profound. Just as it
happened to countless other abortion practitioners, abortion facility owners
and staffers. Just as it happened to Norma McCorvey -- the real name for
"Jane Roe," the plaintiff in the Supreme Court's 1973 Roe v. Wade abortion
decision.

These pioneers of the pro-abortion movement have all arrived at the same
conclusion -- that abortion is the unjust killing of a human baby -- and have
come over to the other side of the raging abortion debate