Bernard Nathanson - a thorn in NARAL's side

When I was researching Dr. Bernard Nathanson for this post, I learned about his colleague Dr. Lawrence Lader. The two of them together made up stuff about abortion (this is a well known fact now). Along with feminist Betty Friedman, the three of them created what would become NARAL:

"Nathanson began performing abortions in the 1960s and later headed a major New York clinic where he oversaw 60,000 abortions. In 1969 he joined with feminist Betty Friedan and activist Lawrence Lader in founding the National Assn. for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now known as NARAL Pro-Choice America, and served as its medical director."

Here's the interesting thing about Mr. Lader. I found at least five obituaries (1) for him. But not one of them mention his association with Bernard Nathanson. Yet all of them mention his relationship Betty Friedman. I also noticed that none of the obituaries mention the lies the two men made up about abortion.

Nathanson and Lader had three ways of doing this (2):

"The First Key Tactic was to capture the media: We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal enlightened, sophisticated one. 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% 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..." 

"The Second Key Tactic was to Play the Catholic Card: We systematically vilified the Catholic Church and its “socially backward ideas” and picked on the Catholic hierarchy as the villain in opposing abortion. This theme was played endlessly. We fed the media such lies as “we all know that opposition to abortion comes from the hierarchy and not from most Catholics” and “Polls prove time and again that most Catholics want abortion law reform.” And the media drum-fired all this into the American people, persuading them that anyone opposing permissive abortion must be under the influence of the Catholic hierarchy and that Catholics in favor of abortion are enlightened and forward-looking. An inference of this tactic was that there were no non-Catholic groups opposing abortion. The fact that other Christian as well as non-Christian religions were (and still are) monolithically opposed to abortion was constantly suppressed, along with pro-life atheists’ opinions." 

"The Third Key Tactic was the Denigration and Suppression of all Scientific Evidence that Life Begins at Conception
...A favorite pro-abortion tactic is to insist that the definition of when life begins is impossible; that the question is a theological or moral or philosophical one, anything but a scientific one. Fetology makes it undeniably evident that life begins at conception and requires all the protection and safeguards that any of us enjoy. 

Why, you may well ask, do some American doctors who are privy to the findings of fetology, discredit themselves by carrying out abortions? Simple arithmetic: at $300.00 a time 1.55 million abortions means an industry generating $500,000,000 annually, of which most goes into the pocket of the physician doing the abortion...[note that these numbers were written in 1997. I wonder what the current income from abortion is now in the US?]"

I can only imagine that Dr. Bernard Nathanson became a huge thorn in NARAL's side: after he spilled the beans about their lies and after becoming pro-life.

Of course their relationship wouldn't be mentioned in Lader's obituary. What was I thinking?

(1) Lawrence Lader's obituaries:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/10/nyregion/10lader.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/10/AR2006051002319.html

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/may/14/local/me-lader14
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1630078/posts
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/obituaries/articles/2006/05/15/lawrence_lader_leading_abortion_rights_activist/?page=full

(2) Source: Bernard Nathanson: “Confessions of an Ex-Abortionist” In The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind. Copyright © 1997 Regenery Publishing (www.regnery.com)