By The Associated Press
NEW YORK — Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, an early abortion-rights champion who oversaw tens of thousands of the procedures before having a change of heart and becoming a prominent anti-abortion activist, died Monday at his Manhattan home of cancer, said his wife, Christine Reisner-Nathanson. He was 84.
Nathanson was an obstetrician-gynecologist who in 1969 helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now called NARAL Pro-Choice America. When abortion was legalized in New York the following year, he became director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, an abortion clinic.
He estimated he oversaw about 75,000 abortions in the 1960s and ’70s before turning away from abortion rights, his wife said. It was while working at the abortion clinic that he said he developed misgivings about the procedure.
