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Abortion in Auschwitz


GeoBQn

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Thank you for sharing this, GeoBQn,

Dr Perl's story brought tears to my eyes. What incredible courage she had in the face of such horror!

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Anti-choicers(I won't call them pro-life because they don't really care about the life and health of the mother) don't want this story talked about because it is really hard to condemn her for murdering babies but at the same time they want to hold the moral highground that abortion is always murder. Well, if abortion is murder, she murdered thousands of people, but most anti-choicers don't want to say that. So instead of having to look at what they really believe(maybe abortion isn't murder) they just ignore this story.

They'd have to do some serious fact-twisting before they talked about Dr. Perl. They're good at twisting facts, though, so it's only a matter of time.

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Pro-lifer here - and still a bit tearful from reading the article. I've been to Auschwitz before (which was a terrible but really worthwhile experience that will never ever leave me) but even so had never heard of this doctor. It was such - well, I don't know what to say - complex time and place, and people were making "choices" they would never have made in normal life under the unbelievable stress and trauma of the holocaust. I'm thinking of the women who would apparently run away from their children who were screaming "mama!" claiming they weren't mothers, in order to try and survive the first selection process when mothers and children were automatically sent to their deaths. Or the women in the puff houses (brothels) or those who worked at processing their fellow Jews towards the death chambers or who stole food. None of these were bad people, just people trying to survive.

I think Dr Perl was trying to help and to save lives, and in extremis we all have to make choices based on the deepest personal morality, regardless of normal social norms or religious rules or the law. Because I pro-life I am also a pacifist and against the death penalty in all cases, but if I had, say, the chance to kill Hitler I'd be very tempted and I think I'd probably do it. I personally find it hard to make judgements on something that was so beyond all norms, when the babies would die if they were born, and perhaps by taking the life of the unborn, the mother would be able to live.

So I can't say I am rejoicing that those babies were aborted because they should have had the chance to be born to happy, healthy, free mothers living in a safe place and whether they were aborted or born, that was never going to happen which breaks my heart - but I understand the motivation and can try to imagine the pain and fear and stress Dr Perl, her colleagues and their patients were living through - and so I have nothing but respect for them and their fortitude.

I knew a priest who was pacifist and against the death penalty say that he would have killed Hitler if he'd had the chance. Father Joe was a great priest.

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Why would Dr. Perl be viewed in any different light than the staff at mental hospitals who euthanized their entire patient base before letting the Nazis get hold of them for human experimentation and extermination? It's the same concept, except those doctors were euthanizing already living individuals to spare them a more horrific death and Dr. Perl stop births and saved the lives of the mothers. In both cases, these doctors had to violate their own normal moral codes to focus on the greater good under the horrors of a nightmare. None should be condemned but are heros for focusing on compassion and trying to save what lives could be saved and comforting those who could not be saved.

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Why would Dr. Perl be viewed in any different light than the staff at mental hospitals who euthanized their entire patient base before letting the Nazis get hold of them for human experimentation and extermination? It's the same concept, except those doctors were euthanizing already living individuals to spare them a more horrific death and Dr. Perl stop births and saved the lives of the mothers. In both cases, these doctors had to violate their own normal moral codes to focus on the greater good under the horrors of a nightmare. None should be condemned but are heros for focusing on compassion and trying to save what lives could be saved and comforting those who could not be saved.

Links? I'll be interested to read about their stories. I only heard about the eugenetics of the Nazis, not the euthanizing of patients by doctors to spare them.

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I haven't heard of that either. Amazing how much is left out in teaching history, especially from a Christian point of view. The mental hospital case would be another one that a lot of fundies would have a hard time dealing with. I was raised with the "two wrongs don't make a right" and "do the right thing even if it is very hard" along with the idea that euthanasia and abortion are always wrong and the people who do those things are horrible monsters. So to tell these stories where abortion and euthanasia were the right choices to make and the people who did it were not bad people would challenge those teachings.

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There is a movie about Dr Perl: Out of the Ashes. Very, very moving.

I always laugh when people say: abortion is amoral. Not so for many religions. In Judaism, a fetus is not considered a person until it draws breath, and there is a mitzvah that the living should always take precedence ( mother's life, impact that a child would have on a family etc etc). It would be considered a sin for a woman in Auschwitz to continue a pregnancy at the risk of jeopardizing her life. It may sound harsh, but the outcome of a pregnancy is always uncertain, therefore any and all measures should be taken to preserve the life that is already in existence. I doubt fundies have ever/would consider that approach.

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Thank you for sharing this, GeoBQn,

Dr Perl's story brought tears to my eyes. What incredible courage she had in the face of such horror!

Yes, her courage and that of the women having manual abortions with no medications is just amazing. I hope her love and care was some comfort to her patients.

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There is a movie about Dr Perl: Out of the Ashes. Very, very moving.

I always laugh when people say: abortion is amoral. Not so for many religions. In Judaism, a fetus is not considered a person until it draws breath, and there is a mitzvah that the living should always take precedence ( mother's life, impact that a child would have on a family etc etc). It would be considered a sin for a woman in Auschwitz to continue a pregnancy at the risk of jeopardizing her life. It may sound harsh, but the outcome of a pregnancy is always uncertain, therefore any and all measures should be taken to preserve the life that is already in existence. I doubt fundies have ever/would consider that approach.

I think you mean immoral, not amoral. I try to suppress my desire to nitpick on people's spelling mistakes, but amoral means something completely different than immoral.

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Anti-choicers(I won't call them pro-life because they don't really care about the life and health of the mother) don't want this story talked about because it is really hard to condemn her for murdering babies but at the same time they want to hold the moral highground that abortion is always murder. Well, if abortion is murder, she murdered thousands of people, but most anti-choicers don't want to say that. So instead of having to look at what they really believe(maybe abortion isn't murder) they just ignore this story.

I don't think most pro-lifers care nothing for the life and health of pregnant women - I've certainly never met one who didn't care for the woman and only cared for the unborn. And I think most of the pro-life people I know would be very interested in discussing this case, because it really makes one think deeply and highlights the love and compassion needed and the fact that there are no glib or easy answers. I've actually chatted about the story with some pro-life friends after church today and none of us had heard of Dr Perl but we all want to know more and all found her story as I was able to summarise it really moving.

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I think you mean immoral, not amoral. I try to suppress my desire to nitpick on people's spelling mistakes, but amoral means something completely different than immoral.

:roll: I stand corrected...must be the fact that English is my, wait, let me count, yes 3rd language.

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I don't think most pro-lifers care nothing for the life and health of pregnant women - I've certainly never met one who didn't care for the woman and only cared for the unborn.

Aw, you're adorable.

Do we have a cheek-pinching or head-patting smilie? We really should.

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:roll: I stand corrected...must be the fact that English is my, wait, let me count, yes 3rd language.

Oh my god. You speak so many languages, you are so cool. :roll:

I would be pleased if I used the wrong word in my third language and somebody corrected me. Especially if otherwise my communication skills were so good that the person didn't even suspect that it wasn't my native language.

Whatever. I'm sorry I pointed out that you used the wrong word (especially when I made the point that I try to resist doing so, but I wanted to do it in this context because it makes a huge difference to the meaning of what you're saying) instead of giving you the deference you deserve because English is your third language.

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I don't think most pro-lifers care nothing for the life and health of pregnant women - I've certainly never met one who didn't care for the woman and only cared for the unborn. And I think most of the pro-life people I know would be very interested in discussing this case, because it really makes one think deeply and highlights the love and compassion needed and the fact that there are no glib or easy answers. I've actually chatted about the story with some pro-life friends after church today and none of us had heard of Dr Perl but we all want to know more and all found her story as I was able to summarise it really moving.

So you care about the health of the woman. Her emotional health too? Why force her to do something that could be emotionally and physically damaging or you know, kill her? If you care about the woman why say, it doesn't matter what you want with your body, the unborn is more important?

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:roll: I stand corrected...must be the fact that English is my, wait, let me count, yes 3rd language.

By using the wrong word, your sentence conveyed a meaning you didn't intend. Abortion is amoral, meaning that it is neither moral nor immoral.

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Gotta try to find an online source. My source is a book on my bookshelf that I read years ago. I'll try to find one after the kids go to bed tonight.

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Aw, you're adorable.

Do we have a cheek-pinching or head-patting smilie? We really should.

We have this:

:romance-caress:

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I don't think most pro-lifers care nothing for the life and health of pregnant women

Maybe it is just the thousands or more that I have encountered, but I have met a lot that feel this way. Upwards of 90%.

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Warsaw ghetto hospital. At the end, when the Nazis were exterminating the ghetto, at least one doctor began to give the children lethal doses of morphine to spare them the torture the Nazis would force them to endure.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-0 ... o-morphine

I've heard the story before. I've read about it. I thought it was more than one doctor, but I have only EVER heard it told in praise of the heartbreaking choice necessary to protect and spare the children.

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I don't think most pro-lifers care nothing for the life and health of pregnant women - I've certainly never met one who didn't care for the woman and only cared for the unborn. And I think most of the pro-life people I know would be very interested in discussing this case, because it really makes one think deeply and highlights the love and compassion needed and the fact that there are no glib or easy answers. I've actually chatted about the story with some pro-life friends after church today and none of us had heard of Dr Perl but we all want to know more and all found her story as I was able to summarise it really moving.

If the people in the antiabortion movement cared as much about a mother's actual life as a fetuses potential life they would never propose forcing her to proceed with an unwanted pregnancy.

I don't think those who have never experienced an unwanted pregnancy realise what an awful thing forcing a woman to continue one is.

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Warsaw ghetto hospital. At the end, when the Nazis were exterminating the ghetto, at least one doctor began to give the children lethal doses of morphine to spare them the torture the Nazis would force them to endure.

http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/1993-0 ... o-morphine

I've heard the story before. I've read about it. I thought it was more than one doctor, but I have only EVER heard it told in praise of the heartbreaking choice necessary to protect and spare the children.

Thank you for finding this. I'm going to try and get a copy of her memoirs. I've never heard of her, but she saved children from suffering and needs to be remembered.

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Maybe it is just the thousands or more that I have encountered, but I have met a lot that feel this way. Upwards of 90%.

I would say 100% of the anti-choicers that have come here have claimed to value the life of women, but their words and beliefs showed otherwise.

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What an amazing person. Can't believe I've never heard of this before

I cried at this. I also cried when I thought of the pain they went through. Just imagine it.

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