Are We Any Better Than Hitler?

For the book club reading this month, I was reading, Sarah's Key. It is an absorbing novel about July 1942 when French citizens, who happened to be Jews, were rounded up and sent to their deaths. 13,000 French Jews, mostly women and children, were exterminated by order of Adolf Hitler.

The author alternates between the story of a young Jewish girl living in Paris in 1942 and the story of a middle-aged woman in modern times who is assigned to write a story about this event in French history. An event the French prefer to forget.

While the story is well-written, I admit that I stopped reading it. I'm not a fan of profanity and when I began a passage with the F-word I stopped reading the book.

Up to that point, I was riveted by the story and thought about the cruelty extended to a group of people simply because they were Jews. Hitler decided that they did not deserve to live simply because he thought Jews were inferior. Who gave him that right? And why on earth did so many people follow him? Why were so many willing to kill people--children especially? How could anyone do something like this? Why did so many turn their backs on the Jews and refuse to stop the insanity surrounding the Holocaust?

Then I have to ask myself, how are we, in our society, any different than Hitler? We have laws that protect the practice of killing innocent children every day. Over 3000 babies are aborted in this country every day. Yes, every day. Why? The majority are aborted because they are an inconvenience, because their mothers have decided they don't have the right to live. And we have groups like Planned PArenthood that applaud this so-called right.

For anyone who's read my blog before, you know that I have a son with Down syndrome. 9 out of 10 women whose pregnancies are diagnosed with Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy. They choose to kill that growing baby simply because it has too many chromosomes. So I ask you, how is that any different than what Hitler did? We are outraged that he thought Jews were inferior. We say he was the devil himself to have killed so many innocent people, so many innocent children who didn't deserve to die. Yet, we consistently protect the right of women to do the same thing. Over and over and over again.

We like to see ourselves as advanced and pretend that our society is nothing like Hitler's. And yet, we are no different. Our politicians fight to protect a woman's right to kill her baby, as if that baby has no rights. Why? Because it is inside its mother's womb? Because it can't care for itself? If we were to apply that reasoning across the board then we'd have to say that all children fall into that category.

I cannot understand why any human being would do what Hitler did. I cannot see how he could justify any of his actions. I do not understand killing others because they seem to be inferior. I also do not understand how women's hearts can fail them and they can justify killing their own babies. In our country, women use abortion as birth control and our government wants to force businesses to allow women to do so through the healthcare they provide to employees, even if that business has strongly held religious beliefs (which is a violation of the business owner's rights). We are on the same road as Hitler once was. We are deciding who has the right to live and who does not. We pretend that we are better than Hitler, but we are not. Today we decide unborn babies can die at the whim of their mothers. What will tomorrow bring? When we disrespect the life of anyone, we disrespect the lives of everyone. How can we ever hope to teach people to stop killing innocent people in theaters and schools when we allow, and even advocate, the killing of our most innocent?

I think Mother Theresa said it best, "But I feel that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a war against the child - a direct killing of the innocent child - murder by the mother herself. And if we accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love, and we remind ourselves that love means to be willing to give until it hurts. Jesus gave even his life to love us. So the mother who is thinking of abortion, should be helped to love - that is, to give until it hurts her plans, or her free time, to respect the life of her child. The father of that child, whoever he is, must also give until it hurts. By abortion, the mother does not learn to love, but kills even her own child to solve her problems. And by abortion, the father is told that he does not have to take any responsibility at all for the child he has brought into the world. That father is likely to put other women into the same trouble. So abortion just leads to more abortion. Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching the people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want. That is why the greatest destroyer of love and peace is abortion. "

And, "It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish."

If we want society to respect life, if we want to stop the violence, we must first protect all human life.

Disturbing Trend Toward Hitlerism

I read an article about a researcher who has dedicated his life to finding a way to help people with Down syndrome. After his daughter was born and diagnosed with DS, he changed his research emphasis from the brain to specifically studying DS. 

In this article, he pointed out that another group is working just as hard as he is. This group is dedicated to preventing DS. At first, I thought it meant they would be able to manipulate the genetic material to undo DS, but in further study, this group is actually working to make more testing available so people can abort pregnancies earlier. This group is advocating killing babies that are "imperfect" and have an extra chromosome.

As I've thought about this, my mind goes back to what I learned about Adolf Hitler. He wanted to create a "super race." He decided that only certain people should live and as a result millions of people were butchered. He was a madman out of control in his pursuit of perfection. And he talked thousands into following him.

Everyone is appalled at what he did to the Jews and those he determined were not suitable to live anymore. He gassed them, experimented on them, shot them, and treated them inhumanely as if they were no better than the dirt under his shoe. He did his best to eradicate the world of "imperfect" human beings and thousands enabled him to do so. A few very brave people stood up to his tyranny and protected those he targeted. To this day, we teach our children what a monster Hitler was for murdering so many people simply because he thought they didn't deserve to live.

And yet, our society embraces the idea of aborting babies who are "imperfect." We fund research and encourage people to develop better testing so we can eradicate those who are not perfect. Our society acts as though it's noble to rid a couple of an "imperfect" child by allowing them the right to abort that baby.

How is that any different that what Hitler did? How are we any better than the man responsible for so many deaths? Apparently, we haven't come very far from Hitler's idea of perfection and the pursuit of that perfection to the point of terminating those who do not meet the definition.

We may see ourselves as an advanced society but how advanced can we be when we encourage selective births by terminating those we think are imperfect?

Grandpa and Abortion

My grandparents raised my sister and me after the death of both our parents. I'm very thankful they were willing to take on two little girls in their retirement years and raise us. I know they did the best they could, but Grandpa and I never really saw eye-to-eye. He hated the Mormon Church and always encouraged me to leave it. He only had one rule for me growing up: never come home with a baby. He told me I could experiment with whomever and whatever I wanted as long as I never brought home a baby. I could get pregnant I just couldn't bring the baby home.

While many teens might have loved only having one rule, I didn't. And I chose to live my life very differently. I found the LDS Church and hung onto it for dear life while traversing the tumultuous tides of adolescence. Today, I am ever so grateful that I made those choices early on.

Grandpa was in favor of abortion. He used to start arguments with me about it and maybe that's why I feel so strongly about it now. I remember talking about a friend of mine, who was married and quite young at the time, whose pregnancy had been diagnosed with Down syndrome. Grandpa asked how far along she was and when I said she was halfway through the pregnancy he said, "Oh, it's too late to get rid of it." I still remember that pit-of-the-stomach feeling that he could so easily dismiss the life of a child just because it would have an extra chromosome.

Grandpa has since passed away, but that memory popped into my mind when my own son was diagnosed with DS. How would Grandpa have felt when my son was born? Would he have encouraged me to give him up for adoption? Would he have never accepted my son? Would he have ignored him, or worse been mean to him? I don't dwell on these questions, or the answers, because they are painful. But the truth is, Grandpa was, and is, not alone in the opinion that abortion is a viable option for an unwanted pregnancy, especially one diagnosed with problems.

90% of all women whose pregnancies are diagnosed with DS choose to terminate the pregnancy and end the child's life. That thought sickens me. I cannot imagine my life without my son. I cannot imagine throwing away his life simply because it takes him a little longer to do things.

He has a speech delay. So what? He isn't potty-trained. So what? He laughs, he sings, he plays, he gives hugs and kisses. And when all is said and done he will be the one who's rooting for me to make better choices so that I can be with him forever.

I choose to look at my life with Grandpa as a blessing. It was in his home that I first formed my own testimony and where I learned what I truly wanted to do with my life. I am thankful that though we disagreed on almost everything on a daily basis, it helped me to make life-altering decisions. Grandpa may never have accepted my son, but I know, without any doubt, that my son was meant to come to my family and that he has a great mission ahead of him. Whatever that mission is, it would never happen if I'd listened to Grandpa and aborted him.