Oh look, another rant!

[amadeupname]

Today's rant inspired by maladaptive's most recent post.

I've noticed a disturbing trend in the pro-life movement -- more disturbing than the desire to control our uteruses, I mean. (What IS the plural for uterus, anyway? Uterii? Uterae? Uteres?) They've apparently decided to compare abortion to the Holocaust - I've even heard it called the "American Holocaust". I've seen that phrase on T-shirts, along with the predictable "Abortion is Murder" and the like.

The problem with this analogy is that -- now, bear with me people, and try not to faint from the shock -- abortion and the Holocaust are not even remotely the same thing. Abortion consists of a doctor removing an unwanted life form from a woman who could have any number of varying reasons to not want to be pregnant, and I can guarantee you most of them aren't having abortions because they hate children and want them all to die. The Holocaust, on the other hand, was caused by a sick, twisted individual who had an irrational hatred of anyone who didn't fit his idea of the perfect human, and consisted of over eleven million people being killed in death camps through various horrifying means. The survivors were in pretty bad shape themselves, and some of them didn't live too long after they were liberated. Call me crazy, but I'm not seeing the parallels here.

If there are any Jewish people on my f-list (or just reading this entry, that would be great plzkthxbai), what are your opinions on this? I'm guessing I'm not ever going to get the opinion of an actual Holocaust survivor, but an actual Jewish person's perspective would be appreciated. I mean, just because I'd assume that a comparison between a horrific act of violence and hatred toward a group of people and a controversial arguement between what is and is not considered murder would offend me if I belonged to the former group, that doesn't mean that it holds true for anyone in that group, right?

Also, this is not supposed to be an abortion debate in the typical sense. I'm not getting into whether it's right or wrong, just whether it's right or wrong to use this kind of analogy.

Comments

[hidden-now5.livejournal.com]

uterus, uteri
uteri, uterorum
utero, uteris
uterum, uteros
utero, uteris

Ha! Take that 4 years of Latin.

I hate pro-lifers who do all this stupid hyperbole. It gives rational pro-lifers like me a bad name. In some senses it can be related to a holocaust (not necessarily the holocaust of the 1940's), but this is just a prime example of making anything mean anything you want it to. There are better ways, and I'm glad that those are at least making a more positive impact.

[thesaneminority.livejournal.com]

That still depends on your view of abortion, I guess. A holocaust is a mass slaughter, and I don't see abortion as slaughter of any kind. But we're not getting into that, because I'd rather not have that kind of drama in my personal journal, thank you very much. ;)