Editor,
It deeply disturbs me that anti-abortion groups on campus associate abortions with the Holocaust. My intentions are not to criticize their platforms, beliefs or moral values. I simply want to indicate that by making comparisons to an event in history that has nothing to do with abortions is both ill-founded and wrong.
The Holocaust is a specific genocide in history in which more than 12 million people were ruthlessly killed by the Nazi Party. These people did not consist entirely of Jews - as many believe - but also of the mentally and physically handicapped, homosexuals, gypsies and countless other minority groups across Europe that did not fall under Hitler's Aryan race. These people, unlike the embryos, were consciously aware of what was happening to them and those around them. Also, what the Nazis did in the Holocaust can by no means be compared to what doctors do when they perform an abortion. Sure, the end result of both is death, but the transition into that state is completely different in either instance. The psychological and physical
damage inflicted upon the victims of the Holocaust are in many cases hard to imagine. Doctors do not gas unborn babies. Doctors do not burn unborn babies alive. Doctors do not conduct inhuman medical experiments on unborn babies, and by no stretch can stem cell research be implied here. Doctors do not make lampshades of the fragile skin of an unborn baby.
Obviously, this sad list could continue to grow until it reached the borders of infinity. Many of the horrors of the Holocaust are being discovered every year, and many will never reach the pages of history. Had these people done the slightest degree of research into the topic, I doubt they would have ever made such a drastic comparison. If they still want to compare abortion to a holocaustic event, then I urge them to use the word genocide. This word would give the same desired effect and make it its own entity without degrading the Holocaust. Again, I implore these people to use reason, if only once, to see that abortion is in no way parallel to the Holocaust. By making such assumptions, they are insulting the survivors, the victims and the very recollection of the Holocaust.
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Heather Miley
UNM student
