In 1969, Dr. Bernard Nathanson served as the medical adviser for the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws (now Pro-Choice America). After abortion was legalized in 1973, he became the director at the Center for Reproductive Health, which he claimed was "the largest abortion clinic in the Western world." Later in his life, Nathanson said, "I knew every facet of abortion. I helped nurture the creature in its infancy by feeding it great draughts of blood and money."

But in 1974, in an article published in The New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Nathanson expressed his growing uneasiness with abortion. He wrote: "I am deeply troubled by my own increasing uncertainty that I had in fact presided over 60,000 deaths. There is no longer serious doubt in my mind that human life exists from the very onset of pregnancy." His unease was intensified by the arrival of ultrasound technology. Nathanson said,

For the first time we could really see the human fetus, measure, observe it, watch it, and indeed bond with it and love it …. I changed my mind because the new scientific data … persuaded me that we could not indiscriminately continue to slaughter what was demonstrably a human being.

Nathanson's initial insight about the humanity of the unborn child had nothing to do with religion. As a matter of fact, at the time he considered himself a "Jewish atheist." But before his death in 2011, Nathanson converted to Christianity (Roman Catholicism). When asked why he was baptized and received into the church, he said, "[Because] no religion matches the special role for forgiveness [in Christianity]."

Possible Preaching Angles: This is a powerful story about the sanctity of human life, but it's also an effective way to proclaim the good news of Christ's forgiveness to anyone who has participated in an abortion.