Comparing ABORTION to other forms of HISTORICAL GENOCIDE

Point of Comparison, Final Solution (E. Europe, 1930s-1940s), Slavery (U.S., 1700s-1800s), Abortion (U.S., Today)

Personhood is always redefined to exclude the intended victim class. In 1935, the Nuremberg Laws codified the exclusion of Jews from German society. The next year, the Reichsgericht (Germany's highest court) essentially legalized the Holocaust. Cartoons routinely depicted Jews as pigs, dogs, rats, and other vermin.

In 1857, the U.S. Supreme Court declared Blacks "...a subordinate and inferior class of beings..." in [Dred] Scott v. Sandford. Black slaves were often assigned diminutive names, such as "Mingo," that were normally reserved for pets.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court found that "the word 'person,' as used in the [Constitution], does not include the unborn." Today, unwanted children are spoken of in dehumanizing terms: "embryo," "fetus," "products of conception," etc.

Genocide often framed in the language of "choice." The Nazis asserted that the racial make-up of the German nation was an internal matter for the German people to decide. They also emphasized Hitler's choice, his "Will to Power," as a Nazi propaganda film put it.

In the Senatorial debates of 1858, Stephen Douglas said that he was personally opposed to slavery but that each state should have the right to choose whether to be a slave state or a free state.

Pro-abortion advocates argue that if pro-lifers don't like abortions, they shouldn't have them. Abortion is not mandated; it is a matter of personal "choice."

Victim class tends to be people who have what we want or get in our way.

Eastern Europeans owned land that the Nazis wanted for lebensraum ("living space") for the German people. Jews owned material wealth that Nazis wanted for themselves.

Blacks owned the work product that slave owners desired for themselves. The loss of this uncompensated work product would deprive slave owners of material wealth they desired to maintain.

Killing babies is often justified based on the desire to acquire material wealth and /or maintain lifestyle. Babies get in the way of career development, women's rights, sexual freedom, etc.

Victim class is often seen as a "disease" on society or as diseased themselves.

"Parasites" and "bacilli" were words used by Nazis to describe Jews and others targeted for extermination. Benjamin Rush, a leading American scientist who personally opposed slavery, speculated that all blacks were really leprous, diseased, whites in need of a cure.

In his medical textbook Abortion Practice, Warren Hern analogizes the unwanted, unborn child to a disease, the treatment of choice for which is abortion.

Resources are inadequate to care for intended victim class if they are allowed to live.

The Nazis justified killing "useless eaters" based on the fact that they were using up resources needed by the German people.

Pro-slavery advocates justified the continuation of slavery because they said the slaves, if emancipated, could not take care of themselves and would be a drain on society's resources.

Pro-abortion advocates attempt to justify abortion by stating that there are inadequate resources to care for all unwanted babies if they are not killed by abortion.