Secular Pro-Life
  • Home
  • About
    • Meet The Team
    • Mission and Vision
    • Frequently Asked Questions
    • Stances
      • Abortion
      • Religion
      • Contraception
      • The Rape Exception
    • Terms and Conditions
      • Opt-out preferences
  • Presentations
    • Building Bridges
    • Secular Post-Abortion Healing
    • Deconstructing Three Pro-Choice Myths
    • Don’t Feed The Trolls
    • Overlooked Findings of the Turnaway Study
    • A Secular Case Against Abortion
  • Content
    • Index
    • Blog
    • Research
      • Abortion Law and Abortion Rates
      • Abortion Law and Pregnancy Rates
      • Later Abortion
      • Embryonic Hearts
    • Collections
      • Becoming Pro-Life
      • They can hear you
      • Parents can hear you
      • Our children’s heartbeats
      • Ask An Atheist
      • LGBTQ and Pro-Life
      • Fixed that meme for you
      • For the biology textbook tells me so
    • Print Materials
      • 100 Pro-Life Sign Ideas
      • Overview of SPL
      • 3 Reasons to tell people you’re pro-life
      • How to talk (not fight) about abortion
      • Bridges PRC Curriculum
      • Fetal Remains Disposition Protocol
      • FAQ handout
      • Presentations overview card
    • Store
  • Contact
    • General Inquiries
    • Book a Speaker
  • Get Involved
    • Why support SPL?
    • Donor Opportunities
    • Volunteer Opportunities
    • Volunteer Survey
    • More Surveys
      • Why do you support SPL?
      • Best and Worst Abortion Arguments
      • “Ask An Atheist” Interview
      • Non-Traditional Pro-Life Survey
      • LGBT Pro-Life Survey
      • Parents experiences with prenatal screening
      • Your experiences with adoption
      • Your experiences with processing abortion
  • Donate
  • Search
  • Menu Menu

Secular Pro-Life mourns the passing of Nat Hentoff

January 11, 2017/0 Comments/in Uncategorized /by Kelsey Hazzard

We shared this on our social media when news first broke, but for those who missed it, Nat Hentoff died on Saturday, January 7 at the age of 91. He lived a long life, and a principled one. He was a vocal advocate for civil liberties, particularly freedom of speech, and courageously included the rights of unborn children within the scope of his activist work. The New York Times reports:

In the 1960s and ’70s, he wrote books for young adults, nonfiction works on education, magazine profiles of political and religious leaders and essays on racial conflicts and the Vietnam War. He became an activist, too, befriending Malcolm X and joining peace protests and marches for racial equality. …While his sympathies were usually libertarian, he often infuriated leftist friends with his opposition to abortion, his attacks on political correctness and his criticisms of gay groups, feminists, blacks and others he accused of trying to censor opponents.

The obituary doesn’t mention it, but Hentoff was also an atheist. The Friendly Atheist acknowledged his death but, sadly, referred to his right-to-life advocacy as a “blemish” on his record. He wouldn’t have cared; in his lifetime, he was routinely punished for his pro-life views. But he did what he knew was right, and I hope more will come to know his courage.

Hentoff was a consistent voice for the rights of the oppressed, including unborn children, death row inmates, and victims of censorship. In his later years, he served on the board of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), which protects freedom of speech for college students; although FIRE is officially neutral on abortion, it often winds up defending pro-life students just by virtue of the fact that abortion advocates resort to censorship so frequently. The right-to-life and freedom-of-speech battles are very closely intertwined, and I highly recommend Nat Hentoff’s classic Free Speech for Me—But Not for Thee to any pro-life advocates needing a primer on First Amendment issues.

In case that wasn’t enough, he was also a famous jazz critic, political columnist, Guggenheim fellow, National Press Foundation lifetime achievement award winner, and recognized as a “Great Defender of Life” by the Human Life Foundation in 2005.

Rest in peace, Mr. Hentoff. You paved the way and you will be deeply missed.
 

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Reddit
  • Share by Mail
https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png 0 0 Kelsey Hazzard https://secularprolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/SecularProlife2.png Kelsey Hazzard2017-01-11 12:54:002021-11-08 12:21:21Secular Pro-Life mourns the passing of Nat Hentoff
0 replies

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Follow via Email

* indicates required

Categories

  • Ableism
  • Abortion pills
  • Administrative
  • Adoption & Foster Care
  • Biology
  • Bodily Rights
  • Dialogue strategy
  • en español
  • Later Abortion
  • Legislation, laws, & court cases
  • Miscarriage & Pregnancy Loss
  • Personhood
  • Philosophy
  • Pro-Life Demographics
  • Rape Exception
  • Religion
  • Research
  • Speeches, Discussions, Presentations
  • SPL Emails
  • They Can Hear You
  • Top SPL Articles
  • Top SPL Graphics
  • Uncategorized
  • We Asked You Answered
  • Year In Review
  • Your Stories

Archive

It’s crucial that we demonstrate that anyone can–and everyone should–oppose abortion. Thanks to you, we are working to change minds, transform our culture, and protect our prenatal children. Every donation supports our ability to provide nonsectarian, nonpartisan arguments against abortion. Read more details here. Please donate today.

DONATE
SUBSCRIBE
© Copyright 2025 Secular Pro-Life. All rights reserved. Website Design by TandarichGroup
Americans United for Life releases annual state rankings The Walk for Life is just a week away!
Scroll to top
Manage Consent

To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.

Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage {vendor_count} vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}

Subscribe for Livestream Updates and More

* indicates required

Interests

Want to receive our email newsletter?

We’d be happy to keep in touch. Subscribe for access to our newsletter and other updates.