It was last week; I was on Fannin with my father, inside the 610 loop, as I was going to the Texas Orthopedic Hospital (in Houston). I was relaxing and sipping on my diet Dr. Pepper when we came across Planned Parenthood. I wasn't shocked when I saw some extreme Catholic protesters. I merely rolled my eyes and muttered something about "don't they have anything better to do" when I actually read one of their signs. It said "Abortion-- Even Worse Than The Holocaust". I choked on my drink. Were they serious??? Were they actually comparing a woman's right to her own body to a senseless, disgusting genocide administrated by a sick extreme racist group??? I was SO angry, my dad had to calm me down by saying "They're just trying to make women feel bad with shock value." Like, I seriously wanted to go over there and... hit them. It was totally disrespectful. I mean, like they would even know what it's like to have all of their family suffering and starving and dying simply because of their religion/race/ethnicity/sexual preference. I can only imagine how a Holocaust survivor must feel about this bullshit. It's insulting to compare their pain to the choice of a medical procedure. What's even more crazy is that 89% of abortions happen before the 12th week of pregnancy, and according to this doctor , a fetus does not feel pain during an abortion. Yes, they consider a PAINLESS (for the fetus, of course) operation to be WORSE than the Holocaust.
It's asinine.
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Have you heard of the Genocide Awareness Project? they're fucking sicko's. you probably shouldn't look at their website, but they basically do the shit you're talking about and tour the country. they came to my university twice while i was there, and they are AWFUL. we had counter-demonstrations, but the group had a ton of money and were pretty abusive.
What works for me when I see/hear about protesters who compare abortion to any WWII atrocities (Holocaust, Nazis, Hitler, etc.), is to play by the rules of the Internet and invoke Godwin's Law.
I'm sorry, but if you resort to a comparison of anything to the Holocaust, you automatically lose the debate. Do not pass Go; do not collect $200. Comparing to the Holocaust (or Nazis, or Hitler) is either intellectually lazy or a disingenuously overstating of the facts (and probably both at once). FAIL!
If all people have to go on are ridiculous comparisons to Hitler, I feel perfectly justified in laughing at their argument as a whole.
The most disrespectful thing I've ever heard from an anti-choicer was on a leaflet I found. it said 'Abortion - worse than rape' Under this it said 'when a woman is raped, she is robbed of her purity. Abortion robs her of her motherhood!'
I mean, what the fuck is this about a woman being impure after rape? Sod that. And 'robbed of her motherhood' again assuming women are ALWAYS coerced or misinformed. GRRRRR.
So is that an attempt to disrespect as many people as possible as once, or what? To fit as much bullshit on a sign? Some kind of twisted world record attempt? No, wait, they're just wrong.
Sigh. Godwin's Law, as stated above.
How HORRIBLE. Regardless of how one feels about abortion, one should at least have the decency to make accurate parallels. Or perhaps there is no such thing as an accurate parallel that is shocking enough?
My best guess is that they chose to Holocaust to disrespect as many people as they possibly could at once, and because it is unbelievably attention-grabbing.
It is also related to another peeve of mine: the "feminazi" label. SERIOUSLY?! I could go on all day about why that is wrong...
But LlesbianLlama, don't you know that a woman who doesn't laugh at a sexist joke is OBVIOUSLY doing so because she's too busy plotting to invade Poland? And that women who think that they deserve the same rights as men are EXACTLY as evil as people who to try kill of entire groups of people just because they don't like their religion/race/ethnicity/sexual orientation?
Anyway, here's my favorite link for when an anti-choicer comes in and compares the holocaust to abortion: Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism | The Holocaust as a Compariative Device: The Holocaust and Abortion. They point out that Hitler was, technically pro-life in that he sought to outlaw abortion and contraception for German women and "to do away with the idea that what one does with one's own body is each individual's business".
I have seen that before, and I tell you it took everything I had not to run my car off the road or even to start aiming at protestors...
It's sick there is nothing that compares with the Holocaust...to even try and compare abortion, a woman's choice, to a disgusting, senseless, horrifying mass murder of 11 million people, for just being different than what was deemed the model...
Abortion is legal; women choose it as an option they do not need to be compared to Nazi's when they feel that it is the right choice for them...frankly it is no one else's business, but I know it is too much to ask for anti-choicers to mind their own business, (because what would they be doing if they weren't making young women feel shame) but at least choose comparisons that do not demean what those who survived the Holocaust and those who did not went through, by saying that abortion is worse, because it isn't I don't know of anything that is worse than the Holocaust...
Even if you are anti-choice you have to see how offensive that comparison is...or you should...because again that is just so offensive that I do not even know how to respond without screaming...
NettleSyrup, WOW.
That is ultimately sickening to hear... WORSE THAN RAPE?? You have GOT to be kidding me! Sadly, though, I can believe that an anti-choicer said that. They do tend to go to amazing lengths to make women feel like shit, surprise surprise.
Yeah, I've seen this before. On my own college's campus. My college is Catholic but it's in a city with a large Jewish population. I covered it here,
there's a lot of swearing and anger in that particular post.