A Silent Scream

Dr. Bernhard Nathanson described himself as a “Jewish-Atheist”. As a board certified gynecologist and obstetrician in New York State, he became one of the founding members of “Pro-Choice America”. He provided expert medical advice and information to the legal team who successfully argued before the U.S. Supreme Court the Roe v. Wade decision. For a time he was the Director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (CRASH), New York’s largest abortion clinic. In his own words, he recalls that he is personally responsible for as many as 75,000 abortions, one of which was to a woman that he personally got pregnant.

Then came clear Ultra Sound in the late 1970’s. When Dr. Nathanson began to see babies in the womb moving around, sucking their thumbs and toes, responding to sound, and having hiccups, he began to rethink his position on abortion. At the same time, he was dealing with internal demons haunting his personal life. He had gone through three messy divorces, his sister had committed suicide, and he had learned that his grandfather hadn’t died of natural causes, but had in fact committed suicide when Bernhard was just a little boy. Finally, with nowhere else to turn, he sought out the witness and counsel of Father John McCloskey. Dr. Nathanson turned to Jesus Christ, and became a Christian.

In 1984, he wrote, directed and filmed a documentary called “The Silent Scream”. The film is extremely graphic, and depicts the abortion process via ultrasound. It vividly shows an abortion taking place. In detail, the unborn child is shown making facial contortions and appears to be screaming out in pain and torment during the process. The video became such a powerful tool of “right-to-life”, that it was used in the re-election campaign of Ronald Reagan.

I hadn’t thought about this film in a long time. Until this past weekend.

I was sitting with total disgust in the pit of my stomach as I watched the Iron Bowl. I saw an impotent Auburn offense fail to move the ball against a stingy Red defense. I saw an Auburn defensive line overpowered by a Tide offensive line. And I saw coaching emotion and adrenaline at a high level on the home side of the field, and a seemingly lack of emotion on the other. I couldn’t yell. I couldn’t fuss. I couldn’t cuss…well, mostly because there were kids in the room, but still…..my body was in contortions, but I could make no sound. All I could do was make a silent scream.

Now please don’t misunderstand. In no way am I comparing losing a football game, albeit THE game, to an abortion. There is no comparison. But frankly, I had forgotten about the film “the Silent Scream” until Saturday. And then I remembered it as I was thinking to myself, “all I can do is scream silently”.

Maybe it was God reminding me not to take a football game so seriously because there were things much more important, like matters of life and death, going on around me. Maybe He was trying to make sure I kept all these things in perspective. I don’t know.

What I DO know is this. Auburn lost the Iron Bowl…first time in seven years. A lot of faithful Tigers like myself want to yell, spit, curse, and even scream. And that’s o.k.
But

There are other screams going on today as well. And those screams are silent. They need a voice. A voice like mine…..which on THIS issue, won’t be silent anymore.

Stop Abortion Now.

WJLaneSR