Exposing the Lies: Continuing the Legacy of America’s ‘Abortion King’

By Jim Tonkowich Published on May 23, 2017

“A medical education is not a philosophical education,” writes Charles K. Bellinger at Public Discourse. It’s the first line of his article about the new book by “Christian” abortion doctor Willie Parker, Life’s Work: A Moral Argument for Choice.

Christian abortion doctor? Sure, why not? I’m told there are Christian porn stars too and goodness only knows what else.

Parker, let it be said, has moved on from his Bible-believing past to the liberal mainline Christianity he now practices. And since most Protestant Mainline churches today believe little more than the platform of the left wing of the Democratic Party — including support abortion or get out — I’m sure he fits right in.

Despite the title, Parker’s book, according to Bellinger is a philosophical and theological wasteland. It brims, he writes, with clichés, contradictions and outright lies. Bellinger sites, for example, this bit of nonsense: “As a Christian and as a scientist, I can authoritatively attest that life does not begin at conception.” That’s genuine anti-science.

Bellinger concludes, “In sum, the pro-choice worldview is fully on display in this book, with all of its ignorance, arrogance, and violence.” And why not? Abortion in America was founded on lies designed to encourage ignorance, arrogance and violence.

America’s ‘Abortion King’

That’s the message of the new book by Terry Beatley, What If We’ve Been Wrong?: Keeping My Promise to America’s “Abortion King.” The book is the result of an interview she conducted with Dr. Bernard Nathanson shortly before his death in 2011.

In the 1960s, Nathanson co-founded the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL). He aggressively lobbied and propagandized for unrestricted abortion. He convinced Planned Parenthood to get into the abortion business. And he grew rich performing abortions and instructing others to do the same.

But ultrasound imaging emerged in the 1970s. Nathanson suddenly had the ability to see what was going on in an abortion. He began to rethink his position. As a result, he reversed not just his view of abortion, but the entire course of his life.

Nathanson left NARAL. He left his abortion practice. And he left the abortion movement to become a passionate pro-life advocate. He worked to expose what he called “the dishonest beginnings of the abortion movement.” Dishonest beginnings that he created by crafting deceitful public relations campaigns based on slogans, invented statistics, personal attacks and outright lies.

Nathanson also forsook his “atheistic Judaism” and was baptized into the Catholic Church in 1996.

The ‘Facts’ Behind the Abortion Industry

In his own writings, Nathanson admitted that even NARAL’s board minutes included “nonsensical medical and scientific claims.” Those claims included the widely reported “statistic” that, prior to 1973, sixty percent of Americans favored unrestricted abortion. It was, Beatley notes, probably closer to half a percent.

Beatley writes that Nathanson “acknowledged that the bigger the lies, the more likely Americans would believe them … By simply repeating the slogans and false data, the media created its own narrative and the doctor’s lies became the marketed ‘truth,’” concluding, “It was propaganda and it worked.” It worked in the court of public opinion and it worked in the Supreme Court’s misbegotten Roe v. Wade decision in 1973.

And as Willie Parker’s book indicates, it’s still working.

Unexamined assumptions, entrenched worldviews, and the “facts everybody knows” continue to empower abortion advocacy. They help fund the abortion industry. They sear consciences. They poison our politics. And they result in the deaths of millions of unborn children.

Telling the Truth in the Face of Old Lies

In her book, Terry Beatley weaves her own story of pro-life advocacy with Nathanson’s. Hence the subtitle of the book: Keeping My Promise to America’s “Abortion King.”

Her promise wasn’t to write a book. Nathanson told most of the story himself in his book Aborting America and the film The Silent Scream. Her promise was to continue Nathanson’s legacy of telling the truth in the face of lies. These are the popular old lies Nathanson created.

Willie Parker’s book is a clear indication that many in America have not tired of those old lies. Perhaps Terry Beately’s book can act as an antidote for the American’s who have had quite enough of the lies by now.

As Fr. Paul Scalia wrote about the book, “Terry was tasked by the cofounder of NARAL … to teach the truth of how he used propaganda to deceive Supreme Courts justices, legislators and the American public. He equipped Terry with the truth. Now it’s our turn to listen, learn, and respond to the truth.”

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