The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind [Hardcover]

Bernard Nathanson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 1, 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

During a period of roughly 20 years, Nathanson performed over 75,000 abortions. Since 1975, however, he has been among the leaders of the pro-life movement in the United States. Here, in a book that is part spiritual autobiography, part political campaign and part history of abortion, Nathanson explores the factors that led him into and eventually out of the abortion business. Nathanson recounts the moral hollowness and a paternalistic treatment of women and their bodies during his early years in medicine that allowed him to abort even his own child in a cold and antiseptic matter. However, the advent of ultrasound, and its images of the fetus as a developing life, along with a progressive conversion to Roman Catholicism, convinced Nathanson of the immorality of abortion and led him into a new phase of his life as a doctor. As revealing as this story is Nathanson's condescending tone and sententious sentences (e.g., "I will spare you the ineluctable Tolstoian observation, but I implore you to consider the psychological abyss that yawned beneath me") elicit very little sympathy either for Nathanson's plight or for the pro-life position.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Nathanson cofounded the pro-choice organization NARAL in 1969 and during 1971^-72 made New York's Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health the best U.S. abortion clinic--accomplishments at the forefront of the push to make abortion commonplace. Before then, he had had a frustrating life distinguished by a love-hate relationship of epic proportions with his father. The senior Nathanson was a cold husband, a cruelly domineering parent, and a Jew who denigrated Judaism yet raised his son in it; but he was a conscientious physician faithful to the Hippocratic oath with its hard line against abortion. His son followed his example in most things, only rebelling by discarding religion and championing abortion. During the 1970s, Nathanson changed, becoming an important voice against abortion and assisted suicide and fetal tissue experimentation, too. At the end of his memoir cum apologia, he imparts that he hopes to be received into the Roman Catholic Church. Thanks to a wide-ranging vocabulary and a flare for cadenced prose, he makes most of his testimony lively and enthralling reading. Ray Olson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Regnery Publishing; 1st Edition, 7th Printing edition (April 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0895264633
• ISBN-13: 978-0895264633
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (51 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #286,964 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 105 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling November 13, 2005

By Jeffrey Leach HALL OF FAMEVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

Many people, mostly pro-life advocates, see the abortion issue as the modern equivalent of the fight to put an end to slavery. Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, a founder of NARAL and once one of America's premier abortion providers until he saw the light and changed sides, draws parallels between pre-Civil War America, specifically the Dred Scott decision, and Roe v. Wade in "The Hand of God: A Journey from Death to Life by the Abortion Doctor Who Changed His Mind." Those are heady claims indeed. To argue that abortion could bring the country to civil war seems a bit melodramatic. Certainly the other side, the pro-abortion advocates, don't see the issue this way. To them Roe v. Wade and subsequent court rulings expanding the ability of a woman to terminate her pregnancy is a right, pure and simple. It's a right that grows out of the Supreme Court's recognition of an inherent privacy right guaranteed by many of the amendments contained in the Bill of Rights. Any effort to curtail or roll back abortion, they argue, would not only allow the government to exercise control over a woman's body, it would also strike at the heart of the gender equality feminists have worked so hard to achieve over the past four decades.

Don't expect Bernard Nathanson to resolve the issue in this slim book. This is no "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for the pro-life crowd. It's close, though. "The Hand of God" tells the story of how a lowly physician came to embrace abortion, how he began to question what he did for a living, and how he found God when he embraced the pro-life movement. According to the author, his early life played a big role in his later decision to become an abortionist. His father, a Jewish physician with misanthropic tendencies, dominated most aspects of his son's life until his death at the age of ninety-four. An imposing presence with a keen intellect and a hardscrabble background, Nathanson's father passed on to his son a suspicion of the Jewish religion and a distrust of women. For example, he encouraged his son to disrespect his mother. The father also dominated Bernard's sister, interfering in her marriage and all other aspects of her life until she committed suicide in her forties. It's obvious we're not dealing with a kindly soul here, yet Nathanson's father did do a few things to help his son. He secured him a place in medical school, for instance, and passed on a love of learning that, if this book is any indication, served Bernard Nathanson well.

Unfortunately, the Hippocratic Oath Nathanson took after completing medical school didn't quite make the desired impression. His specialization in obstetrics and gynecology coupled with the tumult of the 1960s soon brought the good doctor into contact with several physicians interested in overturning the nation's abortion laws. The author plunged in with both feet, and soon found himself overseeing a clinic in New York that performed tens of thousands of abortions. Before his conversion to the pro-life movement, Nathanson went through a couple of marriages and even personally performed an abortion on a woman pregnant with his own child. The last several chapters of the book move beyond the personal into philosophical and medical discussions on life, death, and the ethics of the abortion debate. Nathanson convincingly argues that new medical techniques prove that life begins much earlier than previously believed. He also contends that abortion is a gateway that could, if it continues to be the law of the land, lead to legalized euthanasia and the establishment of third world "fetus farms" that would supply stem cells and organs for those suffering from various diseases in this country. "The Hand of God" paints a pretty bleak picture of the abortion scene.

By far the most effect part of "The Hand of God" deals with Nathanson's discussions of the types of medical doctors that inhabit abortion clinics. Think alcoholics, drug users, quacks, and bottom of the class physicians. It's ugly beyond belief. He provides a few names and cases concerning doctors who had their licenses yanked for maiming and/or killing patients while performing abortions. One surgeon actually quit performing the procedure at the halfway point and sent the woman home because her husband didn't have enough money to pay for the operation. She later died. We tend to think of these things happening in the bad old days before Roe v. Wade turned the back alley butcher into a white coat wearing surgeon in a licensed clinic, but Nathanson's carefully documented accounts show the fallacy of that sort of thinking. Abortion clinics still draw the bottom feeders because of the morals involved. Most doctors don't want anything to do with terminating pregnancies unless the mother's life is in imminent danger. Perhaps most physicians still take the Hippocratic Oath seriously. Whatever the case, ethics still play a big role in who will or will not perform abortions in the nation's clinics.

I decided to read Nathanson's book after reading about his conversion to Roman Catholicism in Dave Shiflett's "Exodus: Why Americans Are Fleeing Liberal Churches for Conservative Christianity." I'm glad I did. I've never been a knee jerk pro-lifer despite being a strident conservative, but this book has moved me further in that direction. There is something seriously wrong with a culture that endorses abortion as a means of birth control, and there is definitely something amiss about allowing a minor to terminate a pregnancy without parental consent. I won't even get into the immorality of partial-birth abortion; I was against that procedure long before I read this book. I heartily recommend "The Hand of God." Prepare yourself, however. You might just find yourself agreeing with the good doctor by the time you turn the final page.

36 of 38 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking Honesty February 26, 2002

By Terrence J. Sexton

Format:Paperback

Imagine you are an abortionist, responsible for the deaths of hundreds, or even thousands, of human beings. How will you tell your story to others?

Perhaps, in an effort to ease your burning conscience, you will write a rambling, disjointed rationalization of your own behavior. Perhaps you will denounce those who disagree with you, resorting to ad hominem attacks.

Or perhaps you will write the kind of book Bernard Nathanson did. Perhaps you will undertake a serious examination of conscience, admit your grievous errors, and dedicate the rest of your life to saving the lives of those whom you have placed in danger.

Nathanson has seen abortion from the inside. He led the crusade to make it legal and pervasive. He performed abortions himself and taught others how to do them. He knows firsthand how this gruesome procedure affects the mother, the doctor, and most importantly, the baby. His credibility and standing on this issue are unparalleled.

I cannot recall reading another book, apart from St. Augustine's Confessions, in which the author has so thoroughly cataloged his own failings and his efforts to ameliorate their effects. This type of candid reflection is painful for the author, but enormously valuable and instructive for the rest of us.

I highly recommend this book, both for its analysis of abortion and its illuminating honesty.

53 of 59 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Public airing of one's sins - not an easy thing to do April 12, 2000

By Tim Drake VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

That's what Dr. Bernard Nathanson does with this book, and that is why I sing its praises and his.

Here is a man who was responsible for the legalization of abortion in the United States, coming to terms with the dreadful consequences of his actions, publicly sharing an obviously painful part of his life, and seeking forgiveness.

This is a beautiful testimony, even if it is difficult to read at times. Nathanson leads us through his life in a Jewish home and the events which led to his work as an abortionist and with NARAL.

His vocabulary can be a bit challenging at times, but it is very much worth the effort.

Especially chilling are Nathanson's predictions for the future. He predicts that just as we now have abortuaries one day we will have "death with dignity centers" - legalized places where we can bring our elderly to have them put to death.

The book brings the reader right up to his potential conversion to Catholicism. Not long after the book was published, Dr. Nathanson entered the Catholic Church.