In his new book, The Hand of God, Dr. Bernard Nathanson explains his migration from a Jewish abortionist to a Catholic pro-lifer. He also cites the anti-Catholic roots of NARAL (known as the National Association for Repeal of Abortion Laws at its inception, later as the National Abortion Rights Action League, and now the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League). According to Dr. Nathanson, it was through the work of Lawrence Lader, an admirer of the eugenicist-racist Margaret Sanger of Planned Parenthood fame, that NARAL set its guns on the Catholic Church. “Our favorite tack,” Nathanson writes, “was to blame the church for the death of every woman from a botched abortion.” Saying that “we attacked at every opportunity,” Nathanson makes it clear that NARAL’s ambition was to discredit the Catholic Church and thereby accelerate its agenda of abortion-on-demand.
Dr. Nathanson has done a public service by exposing NARAL’s roots (he has done this more authoritatively in earlier works). We welcome him into the Catholic Church. As for NARAL, it may keep changing its name, but it can’t change its stripes.
