Day: February 21, 2011

Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, R.I.P.

Bernard Nathanson R.I.P. — Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, one of the founders of the NARAL ProChoice America before become a leading pro-life advocate, died this morning (Feb. 21, 2011)  in New York. The cause of death was cancer. He was 84.

Dr. Nathanson’s first experience with abortion came as a student at McGill University Medical College in Montreal when he paid for one his girlfriend after getting her pregnant.

After becoming an obstetrician, he got another girlfriend pregnant during the 1960s and performed the abortion himself. He became an advocate for legal abortions, and was instrumental in overturning New York State’s century-old abortion law in 1970 which was signed by Republican Gov. Nelson Rockefeller.

He said he and other abortion advocates knowingly lied about the number of women who died from illegal abortions claiming it to be 10,000 rather than the actual few hundred, and vilified the Catholic Church for it’s pro-life teachings as a premeditated attempt to get media attention.

At the height of his success the new technology of ultrasound convinced him everything he had believed was wrong. He came to understand that from the time of conception the unborn child has a self-directed force of life that, if not
interrupted, will lead to the birth of a human baby; and that the United States  Supreme Court got it horribly wrong when it ruled that it was simply “potential life” in Roe v. Wade.

Dr. Nathanson performed his last abortion in 1979 and declaried himself to be pro-life. In 1985 he made the earth-shaking film The Silent Scream, which shows sonogram images of a child in the womb shrinking from an abortionist’s instruments, and was one of the lest talked about but most influential films of the decade.

For about 15 years after declaring himself to be a pro-lifer, Dr. Nathanson described himself as a Jewish atheist. In December 1996, he was baptized into the Catholic Church by Cardinal John O’Connor at a private Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

“I was in a real whirlpool of emotion, and then there was this healing, cooling water on me, and soft voices, and an inexpressible sense of peace,” he said. “I had found a safe place.”

Dr. Nathanson was divorced three times before being married in the Church. He is survived by his wife, Christine, and a son, Joseph, from a previous marriage.

A more detailed obituary can be found at the National Catholic Register.

 

Bernard Nathanson R.I.P.

Bernard Nathanson R.I.P. -- Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, one of the founders of the NARAL ProChoice America before become a leading pro-life advocate,

$42M Aker Bailout And Corbett

$42M Aker Bailout And Corbett  — The $42 million bailout of the Aker Philadelphia Shipyard green-lighted by Gov. Corbett might not have been received with the sneering contempt that it has if people actually trusted this state’s government.

And organized labor.

OK, that last sentence was placed to give you a belly laugh.

The money will be used to build two tankers for use between U.S. ports in compliance with the Jones Act. These will be 17th and 18th ships built at the yard since it opened as a private facility in 2000. It had been the former Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.

Aker employs about 1,000 people during construction albeit 700 have been laid off since July.

Columnist Chris Freind has noted that the market for ships is saturated and that there are no customers for these particular, expensive vessels. “Build it and they might come” is not a practice most businesses would adopt assuming, of course, they had to use their own money.

Still, Corbett could always answer that a cleanup of a large, abandoned industrial site in South Philly might very well cost $42 million if not more, unemployment compensation payouts for 1,000 workers would likely run into the eight figures, and that the deal calls for Aker’s European owners to kick in $210 million.

If he should ever give a press conference.

But how about thinking outside the box?

If Corbett’s goal is to help the shipyard weather a world-wide economic downturn, maybe rather than using crony capitalism to flood the market with unwanted ships he could have had Pa. pay for Aker to refurbish national treasures like the USS Olympia and the SS United States , now rusting at Delaware River piers.

He could have required the unions to accept the employment of 100 apprentices from Philadelphia and Delaware County vocational schools who would be paid minimum wage and could be fired at a moment’s notice without being covered by unemployment comp.

Granted something like that would require our government to show some imagination and organized labor to demonstrate reason, so let’s chalk that up to wishful thinking.

But if Corbett really wants to help Aker and save what’s left of the Philadelphia industrial base, he would put aside all central planning schemes and get back to the basics as to why entrepreneurs set up shop at certain places and only go to others if they are paid millions and millions. Can anybody say property tax breaks for everybody, not just Europeans threatening to leave?  Can anybody say “right to work”?

 

$42M Aker Bailout And Corbett