261 - Aborting America

Aborting America
By Bernard N. Nathanson with Richard N. Ostling
New York, Doubleday & Co., 1979. 320 pp. $ 10.00.

This work is the product of a conversion experience. A prominent obstetrician/gynecologist who advocated reform of abortion laws and abortion on request in the '60s now becomes an advocate for abortion only when the mother's life is at stake.

The book has two parts. The first section is Nathanson's account of his early life (including an abortion for a pregnant girl friend), his part in the abortion reform movement in New York, what abortion was like, from a doctor's perspective, in hospitals before and after New York's abortion reform law, and his experience as director of the largest early abortion clinics. The second section is a summary of abortion arguments, a survey of biological data about the fetus (which Nathanson calls "alpha" in a praiseworthy attempt to find a neutral word), and finally, Nathanson's own views on abortion.

Conversion stories can be intrinsically compelling because they touch a fundamental human experience. This one has potential because of the abortion controversy, but really fails in the end, for several reasons. The slick magazine style, presumably heightened by Richard Ostling, a former staff correspondent for Time who helped Nathanson write the

262 - Aborting America

book, undermines the story's authenticity. But the problem is more than stylistic. Almost without exception, the people with whom Nathanson worked prior to his conversion are portrayed with the clever quip and the slightly malicious phrase which makes them appear ridiculous or worse. Women, particularly feminists, are favorite targets. Betty Friedan becomes "a stumpy figure whose body seemed composed of stacks of various - sized auto tires. Her nose tyrannized her face. It hung, suspended, like a magnificent belvedere over her mouth." Has the convert's ardor clouded his writer's perspective?

Finally, Nathanson never really enable the reader to understand is journey to conversion. Rather, he tells us about what he did before his change of mind. What motivated Nathanson's conversion is never made clear. Performing 1500 abortions began to disturb him. He reviewed the scientific evidence for "human life" before birth and found that the fetus can be said to exist as "human life" (his quotes) in the sixth week of pregnancy. Therefore, he concludes abortion can never be justified unless, based on clear medical evidence, the mother's life is at stake.

The virtue of the second section of the book is that he attempts, and often succeeds, in avoiding polemic. The major problem is that many other persons, theologically trained or otherwise, may not be able to make so simple a transition from scientific data to ethical and sociological conclusions. Since the author also explicitly rejects any religious grounds for his position, his account does not explore what might have been fundamental aspects of the abortion debate for many readers of a theological journal.

Belle Miller McMaster
Office of Corporate Witness in Public Affairs
Presbyterian Church in the U.S.
Atlanta, Georgia