Published January, 2001
Janet remembers the day she changed her mind about abortion. Her fingers held onto the knob of the car radio, and she threatened to turn it off. “I had made up my mind about abortion when I was in college in the early 70’s, and after that I never wanted to talk about it. My mind was made up.
“I figured I was in control. If he said something that made me mad…I would just turn the radio off.” Thirty minutes later, as pastor David Moore finished, Janet finally turned the radio off and sat in silence. “I couldn’t believe it. For 25 years, I had believed abortion was necessary, and it only took 30 minutes for him to make me change my mind.”
January 22, marks the anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court 1973 decision Roe v. Wade. “I thought they had made the right decision,” Janet remembers. In the almost 30 years since Roe v. Wade, more than 32 million legal abortions have been performed in the United States. Experts estimate nearly 4,300 abortions are performed each day in the U.S.
These numbers only hint at the vast number of people involved in providing abortions. “When I opened my mind that day in the car,” Janet says, “I started doing a lot of reading. I know the news on television shows a lot of pro-choice people. But I started reading stories about people who used to perform abortions. They talked about their experiences, real experiences inside the operating room.”
One of the first doctors to perform abortions was Bernard N. Nathanson, M.D. He tells about his decision to perform abortions in several movies and books. At the time of Roe v. Wade the medical community maintained that the fetus was simply a “blob of tissue.”
However, as Dr. Nathanson explains in his ground-breaking 1983 film The Silent Scream, technology changed all of this. Doctors could see into the womb and observe the fetus. Using ultrasound, in The Silent Scream Dr. Nathanson pointed out the features of a living fetus and described his movements in the womb–kicks, yawns, and scratching.
The movie then allowed the viewer for the first time to see the fetus react to the abortionist’s suction tube inside the mother. The baby jerked away from the metal instrument and tried wildly to escape, even as the tube began to tear apart the baby and suck it out of the womb.
Dr. Nathanson quit performing abortions and became one of the earliest and most vocal pro-life spokesmen. Even the surgeon who performed the film’s abortion, viewing it later it with Dr. Nathanson, was so moved by what he saw that he vowed never to perform another abortion.
They highlight the power of technology to reveal the truth about the fetus. Shari Richard is an expert in high resolution ultra-sound technology who knows abortion first-hand. As a college student and pregnant, Shari decided to have an abortion. She asked her doctor if it was a baby. “He said it was only a blob of tissue.”
Years later, as a student in the ultrasound program Shari remembers, “That’s when I first saw active little babies with fingers and toes.” She was overwhelmed by guilt over her own abortion.
Today, Shari operates Sound Wave Images. Today’s technology, with better equipment and computers, allows clearer images of the baby. “We can even see the heart beating three weeks after conception. And when you realize the seven-week-old fetus is less than one inch long and we can see tiny fingers, toes and eyes, it’s incredible.”
Dr. Nathanson and Shari Richard are only two of the many medical and clinic personnel who knew abortion first-hand and have now become pro-life. “I know it’s not the popular story that media likes to tell,” Janet says.
She thanks David Moore for his open and compassionate radio message on abortion. “Thirty years is a long time to have an opinion,” Janet smiles softly. “I thought I was open-minded because I called myself pro-choice. I’m glad I kept the radio on that day. I’ve learned a lot since then.”
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The Hand of God, Bernard Nathanson, MD, 1996. The co-founder of the National Abortion Rights Action League examines and explains his change from an abortion provider to the most visible leader in the pro-life movement.