When Jews and Nazis Agree
When the Pope compared abortion to Hitler's Holocaust in his new book "Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums", he stated that both occurred because "people decided to abrogate the law of God". The Holy Father drew immediate criticism, most notably (and ironically) from Germany's Central Council of Jews. Paul Spiegel, head of the Council, told the Netzeitung daily newspaper that such statements indicate that the Pope "has not understood or does not want to understand that there is a tremendous difference between factory-like genocide and what women do with their bodies".
Fundamentally, this disagreement is a clash of religious belief. The basis for Spiegel's discernment between the Holocaust and abortion lies in the Jewish religion itself, which does not give full human status to the unborn. Judaism rejects the idea of ensoulment at conception, as Christian believe, and Jewish law states that the fetus is merely "fluid" until 40 days after conception. The Torah is ambiguous on the question of abortion, and there is not a prohibition among the 613 written laws it contains. However, Judaism generally does not view abortion as murder, even when done for convenience, and asserts a preeminent importance to the life of the mother in every case.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is clear about unborn children: they are individual human beings, apart from their mother , and posses rights to life just as any other person. The church believes that at the moment of conception, the child is endowed with a soul, and that an abortion commits murder against this child. There is no dispensation in cases of the life of the mother, and every abortion is considered by the Church to be a grave sin, endangering the immortal soul.
While every Jew does not approach abortion so cavalierly, Spiegal does reflect the community's majority opinion. Years of polling have demonstrated that more Jews support abortion rights and the Roe vs. Wade decision than any other religious or ethnic group in the United States. During the last election, Jews voted overwhelmingly for pro-abortion candidate John Kerry, and supported his abortion position by a staggering 85-15 percent margin. Even Jewish religious leaders seem to have embraced abortion with ecclesiastical ferocity, placing themselves far outside the mainstream on this issue in the process. The Religious Action Center, based in Washington and representing nearly 2 million reformed Jews and 1,800 rabbis in more than 875 congregations throughout North America, has even lobbied against any ban on late-term abortions, up through just prior to delivery. This group has also strongly opposed parental notification and consent laws for minor abortions.
However, given history, you would think that Jews, and German-Jews in particular, would at least feel uncomfortable with abortion. After all, hundreds of thousands of Jewish babies were aborted as part of Hitler's plan to first reduce, and then eliminate, Jews. While women of more "heriditarily desirable" blood lines were prohibited by law from procuring abortions, Jewish women were encouraged to abort their children, taking advantage of Germany's abortion-on-demand laws passed on November 10, 1938 with the intention of preventing as many Jewish births as possible. Also, "heriditarily desirable" women were given financial enticements such as government housing loans and cash grants to have more children, while Jewish women were encouraged to abort their "unfit" children up through viability. These laws were a radical departure from those passed under previous German regimes, which since 1871 had protected all children by outlawing abortion for any reason.
Under Hitler, abortion was not an option unless your baby fell into the category of Underminch, or sub-human, and being Jewish was considered a birth defect and a genetic abnormality, along with mental retardation and physical deformity. Simply put, Jews were considered an inconvenient disease, and abortion was just another way to get rid of them.
Of course, all of this was simply the maturation of Hitler's eugenics philosophy, and fit in rather nicely with early 20th century leftist birth control and sex-reform movements of the Western democracies, namely America and Britain. Margaret Sanger, the movement's most famous adherent and believer of using abortion and sterilization, with or without consent, to "purify" the human race, wrote in her April, 1933 publication "Birth Control Review" that "blacks and Jews are a menace to the race". Hitler was an enthusiastic supporter of Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League (later Planned Parenthood), and coalesced his own Aryan "master race" beliefs with her beliefs that Jews and blacks are genetically inferior. Lothrop Stoddard, a member of the board of directors of Sanger's ABCL and a close confidant, went to Nazi Germany in 1940 to meet with Joseph Goebbels, and upon returning to America reported that the "Jew problem is already settled in principle and soon to be settled in fact by the physical elimination of the Jews themselves from the Third Reich." Sanger even invited Dr. Ernst Rudin, head of Nazi human experiments, to contribute to her magazine.
Other than those who follow Orthodox traditions, most Jews are uncomfortably close to Hitler's and Sanger's abortion views, as are all supporters of abortion. While Hitler believed Jews were "Underminch", and Sanger condoned abortion of "undesirable" children for the benefit of society, so most Jews view unborn children today, with as little regard for their humanity. Whether they know it or not, many Jews have become ardent supporters of the very philosophy that killed them by the millions during Hitler's rule.
The Pope is exactly right. There is little functional difference between the killing of Jews for political philosophy or killing of babies for personal expediancy. Human arrogance, which assigns relative value to human beings based on usefulness and conveniance, has proven horribly dangerous. It makes little difference whether that arrogance is found in a Nazi laboratory or a Jewish synogogue.
Fundamentally, this disagreement is a clash of religious belief. The basis for Spiegel's discernment between the Holocaust and abortion lies in the Jewish religion itself, which does not give full human status to the unborn. Judaism rejects the idea of ensoulment at conception, as Christian believe, and Jewish law states that the fetus is merely "fluid" until 40 days after conception. The Torah is ambiguous on the question of abortion, and there is not a prohibition among the 613 written laws it contains. However, Judaism generally does not view abortion as murder, even when done for convenience, and asserts a preeminent importance to the life of the mother in every case.
The Catholic Church, on the other hand, is clear about unborn children: they are individual human beings, apart from their mother , and posses rights to life just as any other person. The church believes that at the moment of conception, the child is endowed with a soul, and that an abortion commits murder against this child. There is no dispensation in cases of the life of the mother, and every abortion is considered by the Church to be a grave sin, endangering the immortal soul.
While every Jew does not approach abortion so cavalierly, Spiegal does reflect the community's majority opinion. Years of polling have demonstrated that more Jews support abortion rights and the Roe vs. Wade decision than any other religious or ethnic group in the United States. During the last election, Jews voted overwhelmingly for pro-abortion candidate John Kerry, and supported his abortion position by a staggering 85-15 percent margin. Even Jewish religious leaders seem to have embraced abortion with ecclesiastical ferocity, placing themselves far outside the mainstream on this issue in the process. The Religious Action Center, based in Washington and representing nearly 2 million reformed Jews and 1,800 rabbis in more than 875 congregations throughout North America, has even lobbied against any ban on late-term abortions, up through just prior to delivery. This group has also strongly opposed parental notification and consent laws for minor abortions.
However, given history, you would think that Jews, and German-Jews in particular, would at least feel uncomfortable with abortion. After all, hundreds of thousands of Jewish babies were aborted as part of Hitler's plan to first reduce, and then eliminate, Jews. While women of more "heriditarily desirable" blood lines were prohibited by law from procuring abortions, Jewish women were encouraged to abort their children, taking advantage of Germany's abortion-on-demand laws passed on November 10, 1938 with the intention of preventing as many Jewish births as possible. Also, "heriditarily desirable" women were given financial enticements such as government housing loans and cash grants to have more children, while Jewish women were encouraged to abort their "unfit" children up through viability. These laws were a radical departure from those passed under previous German regimes, which since 1871 had protected all children by outlawing abortion for any reason.
Under Hitler, abortion was not an option unless your baby fell into the category of Underminch, or sub-human, and being Jewish was considered a birth defect and a genetic abnormality, along with mental retardation and physical deformity. Simply put, Jews were considered an inconvenient disease, and abortion was just another way to get rid of them.
Of course, all of this was simply the maturation of Hitler's eugenics philosophy, and fit in rather nicely with early 20th century leftist birth control and sex-reform movements of the Western democracies, namely America and Britain. Margaret Sanger, the movement's most famous adherent and believer of using abortion and sterilization, with or without consent, to "purify" the human race, wrote in her April, 1933 publication "Birth Control Review" that "blacks and Jews are a menace to the race". Hitler was an enthusiastic supporter of Sanger, the founder of the American Birth Control League (later Planned Parenthood), and coalesced his own Aryan "master race" beliefs with her beliefs that Jews and blacks are genetically inferior. Lothrop Stoddard, a member of the board of directors of Sanger's ABCL and a close confidant, went to Nazi Germany in 1940 to meet with Joseph Goebbels, and upon returning to America reported that the "Jew problem is already settled in principle and soon to be settled in fact by the physical elimination of the Jews themselves from the Third Reich." Sanger even invited Dr. Ernst Rudin, head of Nazi human experiments, to contribute to her magazine.
Other than those who follow Orthodox traditions, most Jews are uncomfortably close to Hitler's and Sanger's abortion views, as are all supporters of abortion. While Hitler believed Jews were "Underminch", and Sanger condoned abortion of "undesirable" children for the benefit of society, so most Jews view unborn children today, with as little regard for their humanity. Whether they know it or not, many Jews have become ardent supporters of the very philosophy that killed them by the millions during Hitler's rule.
The Pope is exactly right. There is little functional difference between the killing of Jews for political philosophy or killing of babies for personal expediancy. Human arrogance, which assigns relative value to human beings based on usefulness and conveniance, has proven horribly dangerous. It makes little difference whether that arrogance is found in a Nazi laboratory or a Jewish synogogue.
posted by Mark Outland at 2:16 PM
2 Comments:
I'd suggest you do a bit more research on the Jewish religion before you accuse of of having no respect for human life and deserving of the Holocaust. The Catholic belief that life begins at conception is based on your belief that human life begins at ensoulment and ensoulment occurs at conception. The Catholic church also believes that a woman should die rather than even use hormonal contraception for legitimate health reasons (i.e., GTD/molar pregnancy) because the possibility that ovulation may occur and fertilization actually happen that the fact the endometrial lining is not a hospitable for implantation as it may (or may not) be if she were not using hormonal contraception (never mind the fact that the fertilization to implantation rate isn't really that great). In a nutshell your religion puts the possibility of creating a zygote above the life of an actual human being; whereas mine puts the actual human being first. We also value quality of life over mere quantity, especially when that entails prolonging the act of dying. But then, what do we know, we're as barbaric as the Nazis because we do not agree with the Catholic Church which has never been known to engage in less than stellar and highly moral behavior that has always treated all life as sacred and worthy of respect, especially Pius's complicity with the Nazis, the Spanish Inquistion and the Crusades because it's not immoral or showing any lack of respect to be complicit in or directly engage in the torture and murder of those who do not accept Jesus as their saviour and mutually consenting adults that engage in acts of homosexuality.
You should really submit this piece to your local newspaper as an editorial, let's see if all your fellow Catholics agree with you (as well as the rest of the world).
Allow me to take each point in order.
#1: I am very familiar with the Jewish religion, and I defy you to find any error in my representation of Jewish belief. Since you are most likely a secular Jew, I most likely know more about Judaism than you do!
#2: Your irrationality and sensitivity have gotten the best of you, as no honest reading of the commentary would even suggest that the Jews were deserving of mass murder. It is, after all, a pro-life commentary!
#3: You are a bit behind the curve, as the fictitious complicity between Pope Pius and the Nazi's has been well refuted by all reputable Jewish organizations. You might want to put dowm the ADL literature long enough to catch up on your reading.
#4: Hitler and his regime were also big believers in the "quality" of life argument. That is why they murdered the mentally retarded, those with epilepsy, birth defects, etc. . .oh yes, and the Jews as well, obstensibly to improve the quality of life of the Germans.
#5: You need to spend less time being cranky, and more time being literate. Read some history about the Crusades, and you will find that the main focus of the Crusaders over many years, was the removal of Moslems from areas of Christian importance, such as the Holy Land. Had this been more successful, Israel would not be facing the problems it faces today from fanatical Islamic madmen.
#6: You used the word barbaric, not I, but Jews need to take repsonsibility for their actions and beliefs. Complaints about the Holocaust ring empty if those same individuals are in favor of killing the most defenseless among us, the unborn child.
#7: I am not aware of the Catholic Church having recently tortured and murdered those who do not accept Christ, or homosexuals. This comment is simply absurd and really caused your credibility to disintegrate.
#8: Simply because I agree with the Pope's and the Catholic Chruch's pro-life stand does not neccessarily mean I am a Catholic. There are millions of non-Catholic Christians and Orthodox Jews who believe that way, as well.
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