Earlier, we reported that CBR intern Seth Gruber was exposing abortion at Westmont College, the Christian school where he is a student.  There is a great discussion going on right now on Seth’s blog.

One commenter wrote:

I would like to take a moment to remind everyone that Nazi Germany and abortions have very little to do with one another.

Here is my response, except I have revised the opening statement:

The commenter is, of course, correct.  Abortion and the Holocaust have nothing to do with each other … if.  If — only 2 letters, but such a big word.  If the preborn child is not a living human being, then there is no relevant similarity between the abortion and the Holocaust.  But if the preborn child is a living human being — science tells us that it is both alive and human — then abortion kills 1.2 million living humans ever year.  In that case, there are many similarities between abortion and the Nazi Holocaust.

1. In both cases, rights of personhood have been denied the victim class.  In Germany, it was a judicial decision by the Reichsgericht in 1936.  In the US, Roe v. Wade legalized abortion in 1973.
2. In both cases, the perpetrators have used dehumanizing language to justify their actions.  Nazis called their victims rats, pigs, vermin, untermensch (subhuman), etc.  In the US, wanted preborn children are routinely called “babies.”  However, unwanted perborn children are never called babies, but are instead called products of conception, mass of cells, blob of protoplasm, “potential” life, etc.  Even though embryo and fetus are medical terms that define age — so are infant, adolescent, and teenager — they are often used in ways that incorrectly suggest something less than human.
3. In both cases, the perpetrators believed that what they were doing was actually good for society.
4. In both cases, the victims had something that was wanted by those in power, or the vicitms simply got in the way.  Jews got in the way of a racially pure society.  Eastern Europeans had lebensraum (living space) that the Nazis wanted for the German people.  Unplanned babies get in the way of career development, acquisition of material wealth, maintenance of lifestyle, etc.  They get in the way of sex without responsibility.
5. Victims have been spoken of as a disease on society or diseased themselves.  Nazis described Jews and others as “parasites” and “bacilli”.  In his medical textbook Abortion Practice, Warren Hern analogizes the unwanted preborn child to a disease, the treatment of choice for which is abortion.
6. In both cases, the perpetrators have asserted that resources are inadequate to care for the victim class, if they were allowed to live.  Nazis called their victims “useless eaters.”  Pro-aborts awfulize the birth of unplanned children by saying that nobody will take care of all of them and that their presence will endanger the planet.
7. Genocide is often framed in the language of “choice.”  The Nazis asserted that the make-up of the German nation was an internal matter for the German people to decide.  Abortion advocates argue that abortion should be a matter of “choice.”

Yes, there are many similarities that can help us put this present version of genocide in its proper perspective.

For more, see our brochure, How can you compare abortion to genocide?

Dehumanization – one of our most effective Genocide Awareness Project (GAP) panels.

Tags: abortion debate, Eastern Europe, Germany, Nazi Holocaust, untermensch

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2012 at 5:12 am and is filed under Pro Life Apologetics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.