A monster among men
Dr. Bernard Nathanson (1926-2011) was a man of action. As an obstetrician and gynecologist living in New York, in 1969 he became the co-founder and president of NARAL (National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws), one of America’s first pro-abortion advocacy lobbies for women.
In 1971, after New York legalized abortion, Nathanson directed the Center for Reproductive and and Sexual Health in New York City–at the time, the largest abortion clinic in the western world.
In 1973, with the advent of ultrasound technology, his focus switched from solely on the woman to the developing unborn baby inside the womb.
This intellectual and scientific revelation haunted him, until he stopped performing abortions altogether and began advocating for the defenseless pre-born.
After this, Dr. Nathanson changed. He produced two documentaries exposing the procedures of abortions (in real time) and wrote two books–one explaining the moral evils of killing the unborn–the other an autobiography on how God saved him from despair.
He was baptized and received into the Catholic Church in 1996.
How can a man who advocated for death with such gusto–overseeing some 75,000 abortions in his lifetime–even performing one on his own child, stop, turn, and march in the opposite direction with the same energetic zeal?
The answer is love.
Too unlovable for love?
The truth is, no one is too broken, too shameful, too undesirable, or too unlovable for love.
One is able to look upon his own deficiencies, mistakes and failures and not fall into despair only if he knows love–who is a Person and his Advocate–and only if he is willing to come to Him.
Looking for love
All human beings thirst for love, but there is one secret that remains elusive to some: the realization that looking for love is not some human initiative; one has to first receive it to give it.
And it is infused into us only when we want to receive it.
Emmanuel
The word, ‘Emmanuel’, means ‘God with us’.
That means love is ready and waiting to give of itself to us in this very moment, especially in the Body and Blood in the Eucharistic Presence.
Dr. Nathanson’s response
With this harrowing and baffling change in Dr. Nathanson’s life, how can one learn from his response to the love he found?
One can deduce that such an all-encompassing love longs for a response.
Dr. Nathanson could have discovered life in the womb and continued to perform abortions, justifying his behavior with the excuse of ‘good intentions‘ by providing a ‘service’ to women and girls.
Yet he did not. Instead he ran towards to truth, and distributed it to the masses.
How does the average Christian respond to the love that is entrusted to Him by Christ Himself?
How have Christians been stewards of that love?
“… failure to communicate.”
In the 1967 film, Cool Hand Luke, the warden of the Florida prison remarks to Luke Jackson (Paul Newman) in front of his fellow prisoners, “What we’ve got here, is failure to communicate,” before kicking him into the ditch.
One could argue, instead, is that “What we’ve got here” today, is failure to love.
Like Dr. Nathanson, mankind is in desperate need of the renewing love of Christ.
For who else could save him?
And to whom else can he turn?
“… but he is patient with you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet 3:9).
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/2peter/3