Today's Holocaust

Please take your time to read the whole thing, even if you don't agree. You might learn something new - and if you have anything like this you would like me to read, send it to me and I will. I might learn something new.

I wrote this paper for my final project in my Holocaust Literature class last year.

If you want to know the results of the survey I have since deleted, see "Invalid Item" 

Today’s Holocaust

         In 1973, the country erupted into controversy over a Supreme Court case. Thirty-two years later, the debate is still just as much of an issue as it was then. The question is should abortion be legal, and if so, under what circumstances. Abortion has raised the issue of whether or not the unborn are children, or simply some “tissue.” And we wonder if it’s just an issue that concerns a woman and what she wants to do with her body, or if there really is more to it than that - if there’s someone else involved. But while we’re wondering, every day, thousands of abortions take place, without consideration for what we might not have taken the time to explore. These issues include when a heart first begins to beat, when brain waves can first be recorded, when tiny fingers and toes can be seen, and when we become human.

         According to Webster’s Handy American Dictionary, abortion is the “end of pregnancy by expulsion of fetus before it is viable.” However, the term is also used of pregnancy terminations even after the point where, with modern medicine, a premature baby would be viable, or able to survive outside the womb. There are two categories of methods of abortion: medical and surgical. In a medical abortion, a combination of drugs are taken to end the pregnancy, and surgery is not required. These are also called chemical abortions. Surgical abortions include a variety of procedures where the fetus is removed with instruments.

         The two sides of the abortion issue are pro-life and pro-choice. Pro-lifers believe that abortion kills a child and is therefore wrong. Pro-choicers believe that abortion is a woman’s right, and that she should have the choice to have an abortion if she wants. In the mission statement of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the leaders in the pro-choice movement, it says, “the mission of Planned Parenthood is: to provide comprehensive reproductive and complementary health care services in settings which preserve and protect the essential privacy and rights of each individual.” (plannedparenthood.org). On the other side of the issue, in the mission statement of National Right to Life, the leaders in the pro-life movement, it says, “The ultimate goal of the National Right to Life Committee is to restore legal protection to innocent human life.” (nrlc.org). It also says, “The National Right to Life Committee has been instrumental in achieving a number of legislative reforms at the national level, including a ban on non-therapeutic experimentation of unborn and newborn babies, a federal conscience clause guaranteeing medical personnel the right to refuse to participate in abortion procedures, and various amendments to appropriations bills which prohibit (or limit) the use of federal funds to subsidize or promote abortions in the United States and overseas.” (nrlc.org).

         At the heart of the abortion debate is the issue of when life begins. If life begins at birth, then abortion isn’t wrong. But if life begins at conception, then abortion is killing a human being. The medical evidence for life beginning at conception is very strong.

         According to justthefacts.org, by 18 days after conception, the heart begins to beat; the eyes, lungs, and stomach start to be noticeable, the brain is developing and the foundations for the nervous system are established. By four weeks, the heart is pumping blood throughout the tiny baby’s body, the spine and muscles are forming, and arms, legs, eyes, and ears are visible. By day 40, brain waves can begin to be detected. Fingers and toes are visible in the sixth week; the liver is producing blood cells, tooth buds form in gums, and the brain starts to control movement of muscles and organs in the seventh week. By the eighth week - two months - the formation of the organs is complete, cartilage begins to change to bone, and everything is now present that is in a fully formed adult. All a baby needs is time to grow. These are examples of how an unborn child is human before birth, not why. None of these things make us human by themselves, and without these, we would still be human. For example, having a beating heart does not make you human because a heart attack does not make you any less human.

         The main issue, then is what does make the unborn human, or if they are not, then what changes to make them human once they are born. There are only four basic differences between the born and the unborn. They are size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency.

         First of all, size does not make a person human. An embryo or fetus is smaller is smaller than a newborn or adult. However, a child is smaller than an adult, men are usually bigger than women, and sumo wrestlers are bigger than jockeys. But short people are no less valuable than tall ones, large and small deserve the same basic human rights. Therefore, a person’s size is no reason to take their life.

         Second, level of development does not make a person human. A preschooler is less developed than a high schooler, and the developmentally disabled may never reach the level of development of their peers without disabilities. Some people argue that self-awareness makes us human, but newborns do not acquire that until at least 3 months after birth, and anytime a person is sleeping, unconscious, or under anesthesia, they do not have self-awareness then either. Children are no less valuable than adults, the gifted and developmentally disabled deserve the same basic human rights, and just because someone is sleeping or under anaesthesia is no reason to take their life.

         Third, environment, or location, does not make a person human. Getting in or out of a car, or walking into a room does not change who or what a person is. Drivers are no less valuable than pedestrian, submariners and mountain climbers deserve the same basic human rights. Therefore, a person’s location is no reason to take their life.

         Last, degree of dependency does not make a person human. An unborn child depends on their mother for everything, but many adults also depend on someone or something to keep them alive. Some people depend on an oxygen tank to breathe, some depend on an inhaler when they have an asthma attack. People depend on blood donors when they need blood. People with AIDS or other diseases that get progressively worse depend more and more on someone or something else. And conjoined twins depend on each other for many things - if they are joined at the head, they may share major blood vessels that supply their brains with oxygen. But the handicapped are no less valuable than the able-bodied, blood donors and blood recipients deserve the same basic human rights. Therefore, a person’s degree of dependency is no reason to take their life. So there is nothing different before birth than after birth that would disqualify the unborn as being human, without also disqualifying the entire human race from being human.

         During the Holocaust, there were many groups that were considered less than human. They were separated out from the “Aryan master race” and slaughtered by the thousands. These victims included Jews, communists, homosexuals, gypsies, the physically and mentally disabled, Polish, Russian, other Slavic peoples, Jehovah’s Witnesses, some Catholic and Protestant clergy, common criminals, political activists, trade unionists, and “enemies of the state.” (The Holocaust -Wikipedia.org).

         Prisoners from these groups could be subject to death in the gas chambers, death by starvation or exhaustion, and cruel experimentation. There was no reprieve for anyone, not even babies or children. The victims were made to suffer before they were killed. In the gas chambers, thousands of people were suffocated at once by poison gas. One type of experimentation was freezing experiments, where the victims were placed in a tank of ice water for up to three hours. Another experiment was high altitude experiments, where victims were taken up to high altitudes without pressurization or oxygen to test the capacity of the human body to survive at high altitudes. In experiments with poison, poison was put into the victims’ food or they were shot with poison bullets. With incendiary bomb experiments, the Nazi doctors wanted to test various drugs to treat phosphorus burns, so victims were burned with phosphorus from these bombs. (Nazi human experimentation -Wikipedia.org).

          Many people are outraged about what went on in the Holocaust, however, the methods of abortion are just as brutal and torturous. The most common method used during the first 12 weeks is suction aspiration. The cervix is dilated and a suction curette - a tube with a knife-edged tip - is inserted into the womb and connected by a tube to a vacuum machine, with suction 29 times as powerful as a vacuum cleaner. The knife tears the baby and placenta into tiny pieces that are sucked the tube into a bottle and thrown away. Dilation and curettage (D&C) is similar to suction aspiration, but with the addition of a hook-shaped knife to cut the baby to pieces. The pieces are then scraped out through the cervix. (There is also a therapeutic D&C which is done for reasons other than pregnancy.) Dilation and evacuation (D&E) is done up to 18 weeks. Forceps grab part of the child, and the teeth of the forceps bend and tear apart the child’s bones. The procedure is repeated until the baby is dismembered and can be taken out. The spine usually has to be snapped and the skull crushed for them to be removed. Saline injection is used after four months. A long needle is used to inject a strong saline solution into the baby’s amniotic sac, so they swallow the fluid and are poisoned by it, and the salt burns off their outer layer of skin. It usually takes over and hour for them to die. Within a day the mother gives birth to a dead or dying baby, but in many cases the baby is born alive, then left alone to die. In prostaglandin chemical abortion, chemicals are given to the mother to make her uterus contract. These contractions are much more violent than natural contractions, strong enough to crush the baby. The baby is often killed by the contractions, and is sometimes decapitated. In hysterotomy or C-section abortion, which is used mainly in the last three months of pregnancy, the umbilical cord is cut while the baby is still inside the womb and the baby suffocates, or is sometimes removed and neglected to die. With partial-birth abortion, the entire baby’s body is delivered, except the head. The abortionist jams scissors into the baby’s skull, then opens them to enlarge the skull. The scissors are removed and the child’s brain is sucked out with a suction catheter. The skull collapses and the dead baby is removed.

         None of these methods would be torture if the baby could not feel pain before birth, but the truth is, they do feel pain. In fact, they can feel pain with more sensitivity and for longer than older children and adults. The mechanism that “dampens down” the pain messages of an older child or adult is not present in premature babies or newborns. The nerve pathways that carry pain-inhibiting messages from the brain stem to the spinal cord are not yet mature at birth, and they mature later than the rest of the nervous system. At 7 weeks after conception, the unborn child will twitch or turn their head away from a stimulus in the same way they do at all stages of life. If the baby is laying on their mother’s spine, it will move to get away from that uncomfortable position. (justthefacts.org).

         In the twelve years of the Holocaust, from 1933 - 1945, approximately 9 million people were systematically targeted and killed. (The Holocaust - Wikipedia.org). But in only six years (1990-1996), and only in the United States, 10,354,400 babies were killed by abortion. (Women’s Issues - about.com). That’s 1 million more than the Holocaust in only half the time. Many more babies have been aborted since that time.

         Planned Parenthood says their mission is to preserve and protect the rights of each individual, yet they do not consider the rights of the unborn they are taking away. They say they want to preserve and protect privacy - but “privacy” cannot be allowed to mask the abuse of rights.

         People are outraged by acts of genocide like the Holocaust, and rightfully so. Yet the world is silent about abortion. We are silent while approximately 1.4 million babies are killed each year in the US. We were silent when 39,430,810 babies were killed from 1973 to 2004. And we are silent with approximately 46 million abortions in the world each year. When does the silence end? It’s time to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves.

Works Cited

"Abortion in the United States." National Right to Life. 18 Dec. 2005 <http://www.nrlc.org/
abortion/facts/abortionstats.html>.
"Abortion Statistics 1973-1996." About.com. 2005. 18 Dec. 2005 <http://womensissues.about.com/cs/
abortionstats/a/aaabortionstats_2.htm>.
"Different Types of Abortion." LifeSite. Niagra Region Right to Life Association. 18 Dec. 2005
<http://lifesite.net/abortiontypes>.
"The Holocaust." Wikipedia. 22 Dec. 2005. 21 Dec. 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Holocaust>.
Just the Facts. 1999. 18 Dec. 2005 <http://www.justthefacts.org/clar.asp>.
Klusendorf, Scott. Life Training Institute. 18 Dec. 2005 <http://www.prolifetraining.com>.
"Nazi Human Experimentation." Wikipedia. 22 Dec. 2005. 21 Dec. 2005 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Nazi_human-experimentation>.
"NRLC Mission Statement." National Right to Life. 18 Dec. 2005 <http://www.nrlc.org>.
"Planned Parenthood Mission and Policy Statements." Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.
2005. 19 Dec. 2005 <http://www.plannedparenthood.org>.