Abortion Is Not Genocide

[debrand]

http://jmuwomensstudentcaucus.wordpress ... not-nazis/

I am not breaking the link because I don't think that the blog owner would mind being discussed.

To have abortion compared with the horrors of genocide is absurd. Aborted fetuses aren’t “killed†based on religious, ethnic, racial nor gender related reasons. Millions of human beings were tortured and killed in genocides in the 20th century alone by oppressive governments and leaders for superficial reasons. Following the analogy, GAP believes women can be compared to Nazi’s of the holocaust. To compare these atrocities to the choice a woman makes about her future and the possible future of a child is wildly inappropriate.

I would add that it is reprehensible to compare a thinking human with a brain to a lump of cells that has not yet formed the ability to experience pain or thought. They aren't the same.

[devilsadvocate]

Well, the author is incorrect in saying that aborted fetuses aren't aborted for gender reasons. Abortion of female fetuses for being female happens regularly in India and China, as I think most people here know.

As for the race issue, some people do contend that there is a racist component to the fact that in the US, the rate of abortion is a lot higher in black women than it is among women of other races. This article states: "According to the Census Bureau, the rate of abortions in 2006 among black women was 50 per 1,000, compared with 14 for white women and 22 for "other" women. Those figures fairly reflect historical trends, although rates generally have declined somewhat over the years."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011 ... k-children

Would I make an analogy that abortion is like the Holocaust? No. But Godwin's Law of the internet (see here if you don't know what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law ) exists for a reason. A lot of people are tempted to try to compare something they believe is horrible to something that MOST people agree was one of the most horrible things that ever happened. This is not unique to pro-lifers, and it doesn't mean that someone doesn't understand that the Holocaust was a terrible thing. People are just prone to trying to use that analogy because they think it will have a powerful impact on people.

[Rosa]

So how do people worried about race and abortion consider the higher rates of low birth rate, infant mortality, and maternal mortality for African American women who continue their pregnancies? Is the overall higher death and illness rate among Black Americans, commonly partly attributed to the stresses of living with racism, also genocide?

[Esteleth]

Yes, of course.

Because a poor African-American woman who has an abortion because she cannot afford to have a baby is a murderer, but the politician who sees to it that she can't get food stamps to feed the kid she already has is in favor of family values.

Also, the appropriate response to the abortion of female fetuses in China and India is to call for a ban on abortion, not to work to make daughters as desirable as sons. Can't have that feminism stuff, after all.

[valsa]

I think abortion rates have a classist component, not a racist one. A majority of women, of all races, abort due to financial concerns. The rates of abortion are probably higher for black women because poverty disproportionately affects black people.

[debrand]

Well, the author is incorrect in saying that aborted fetuses aren't aborted for gender reasons. Abortion of female fetuses for being female happens regularly in India and China, as I think most people here know.

As for the race issue, some people do contend that there is a racist component to the fact that in the US, the rate of abortion is a lot higher in black women than it is among women of other races. This article states: "According to the Census Bureau, the rate of abortions in 2006 among black women was 50 per 1,000, compared with 14 for white women and 22 for "other" women. Those figures fairly reflect historical trends, although rates generally have declined somewhat over the years."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011 ... k-children

Would I make an analogy that abortion is like the Holocaust? No. But Godwin's Law of the internet (see here if you don't know what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law ) exists for a reason. A lot of people are tempted to try to compare something they believe is horrible to something that MOST people agree was one of the most horrible things that ever happened. This is not unique to pro-lifers, and it doesn't mean that someone doesn't understand that the Holocaust was a terrible thing. People are just prone to trying to use that analogy because they think it will have a powerful impact on people.

I have not reviewed this site but it states that:

The abortion rate among women living below the federal poverty level ($9,570.) is per women (below 100% of poverty) is nearly four times that of women above 200% of poverty (112 vs. 29 per 1000 women).

My guess is that poverty is a large factor in the increased number of African American women who have abortions. I would like to know if wealthy African American women have more abortions than wealthy white women. My guess would be that they do not.

http://www.womenscenter.com/abortion_stats.html

It appears that one way to lower abortion rates is to help women climb out of poverty. Most prolifers don't appear to want to take on the extra tax burdern to do so.

[Effie]

Yes, of course.

Because a poor African-American woman who has an abortion because she cannot afford to have a baby is a murderer, but the politician who sees to it that she can't get food stamps to feed the kid she already has is in favor of family values.

This! :clap: I think this really says it all, how completely and utterly wrong the anti-abortion people are.

Also, the appropriate response to the abortion of female fetuses in China and India is to call for a ban on abortion, not to work to make daughters as desirable as sons. Can't have that feminism stuff, after all.

Well, what to say... I guess it's "luck" they don't have forced abortion on male fetuses (because that would probably be their alternative solution? :( ). North Korea for example has had forced abortion recently due to starvation in their country. (I know this is off-topic. I just realized we have never discussed forced abortion before. I think that forced abortion or a ban on abortion is like choosing one evil over another. Because no matter what, someone else is deciding over a woman's body.)

[debrand]

Would I make an analogy that abortion is like the Holocaust? No. But Godwin's Law of the internet (see here if you don't know what I mean: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law ) exists for a reason. A lot of people are tempted to try to compare something they believe is horrible to something that MOST people agree was one of the most horrible things that ever happened. This is not unique to pro-lifers, and it doesn't mean that someone doesn't understand that the Holocaust was a terrible thing. People are just prone to trying to use that analogy because they think it will have a powerful impact on people.

I hope that it doesn't come off like I am picking on you because I've responded twice to what you wrote.

The difference is that most people who are guilty of violating Goodwin's Law will not protest clinics or try to get laws passed based on extreme statements that they have made. Many pro lifers honestly believe that abortion is the same as genocide. I think that some common sense discussion as to why abortion does not equal the Holocaust would be helpful. Many of these people have never had to think these issues through before.

If pro life was really about saving unborn babies, there would be more emphasis on providing poor women with childcare and access to education. Free birth control and sex education for the young would be emphasized. The reason that a majority of pro lifers are against these very practical ways to lower the numbers of abortion is because ultimately they don't want to save the fetus. They want to prevent people from having sex outside of marriage.

Note: I've come across pro life people who do support birth control and sex education. They are just in the minority of their group

[desertvixen]

Because a poor African-American woman who has an abortion because she cannot afford to have a baby is a murderer, but the politician who sees to it that she can't get food stamps to feed the kid she already has is in favor of family values.

This. I agree with valsa that it is more of a class issue than a race issue.

[Rosa]

Forced abortion is a horrible issue, and it has been an issue inside the USA fairly recently - in the '90s labor advocated exposed forced abortions among women workers in the Marianas Islands, which make goods labeled "Made in the USA". There are also reports of forced abortions in some of the special trade zones in Mexico that get preferential status with the US.

Along with the history of forced sterilization and forcing Native kids away from their families, these are all serious issues. Some anti-abortion folks (Catholics mostly IIRC) were active on the issue of labor rights in the Marianas, but folks like Operation Rescue sure weren't.

[freejoytoo]

What gets me the most is that countries with forced abortions aren't pro-choice, as people like ChrisLukas seem to think. Pro-choice does not equal pro-abortion and I'm as against forced abortion as I am against forced birth. It's about CHOICE.

[pomology]

http://jmuwomensstudentcaucus.wordpress.com/2011/11/03/abortion-is-not-genocide-women-are-not-nazis/

I am not breaking the link because I don't think that the blog owner would mind being discussed.

I would add that it is reprehensible to compare a thinking human with a brain to a lump of cells that has not yet formed the ability to experience pain or thought. They aren't the same.

I mean, that's true and I think that's why they put killed in quotation marks, BUT I think the point that they are making, even assuming that abortion is equivalent to murdering a human being, it is highly offensive and ridiculous to compare it to genocide.

[keeperrox]

I think abortion rates have a classist component, not a racist one. A majority of women, of all races, abort due to financial concerns. The rates of abortion are probably higher for black women because poverty disproportionately affects black people.

I totally agree with this and will take it one further. From my experience working in inner city schools, but growing up in a solidly middle to upper middle class community, teenagers living in poverty will carry a pregnancy to term with much more frequency than one who comes from a financially stable home. I'm sure I could find statistics to support that, too. It's a huge component of what keeps these girls living in poverty.

[chiccy]

Indeed abortion is not genocide: not by any stretch of the imagination. To say so is to trivialize genocide, even if you believe that abortion is murder. I say this as someone who is relatively pro-life.

[ADoyle90815]

This! :clap: I think this really says it all, how completely and utterly wrong the anti-abortion people are.

Well, what to say... I guess it's "luck" they don't have forced abortion on male fetuses (because that would probably be their alternative solution? :( ). North Korea for example has had forced abortion recently due to starvation in their country. (I know this is off-topic. I just realized we have never discussed forced abortion before. I think that forced abortion or a ban on abortion is like choosing one evil over another. Because no matter what, someone else is deciding over a woman's body.)

This. Either forcing women to have abortions, or banning them altogether is taking away a woman's choice in what she does with her own body.

[Georgiana]

Actually, China has responded to the crisis of gender-related abortions by banning parents from discovering the gender of the child before birth. While they are allowed ultrasounds (where available) for pre-natal care, doctors do not tell the parents the gender of the child. If a couple finds out the gender of the child and then aborts it, this is a serious crime. However, this is not too large of an issue because those parents affluent enough to afford an ultrasound are usually modern enough to want a girl (to abort a girl is considered VERY backwards in developed areas). In the countryside, where for social reasons having a son is still a bit of a necessity, the one-child-law is relaxed to allow couples to have that son in the case of a first-born daughter (which is why China's birthrate has stabilized around 2 not 1). Are there cases of forced abortions in China? Yes. I wont lecture about the way China enforces its legislation, but the overall trend they have is to legislate an ideal, but enforce the legislation only in places where conditions permit. They recognize that developed and non-developed China have two different needs, and they enforce accordingly.

(btw I double majored in Mandarin/China Studies and lived in China for a considerable amount of time. I speak from both education and personal experience.)

[Eclipse]

Calling abortion genocide is absurd.

Genocide has a very specific definition. As defined by the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide is:

"genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

(a) Killing members of the group;

(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;

© Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;

(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;

(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."

Could abortion be used used as a tool for genocide? Yes, but the way it is practiced in Canada, the US, Europe and most of the rest of the world is not genocide. The fact that a certain social-economic group has a higher abortion rate is explained through economics, not by genocide. If North Korea forces women to get abortions due to famine, its still not a genocide as it doesn't meet the above definition. Forced abortion is horrible as it should be a choice to have one or not to have one.

The group she discussed visited my campus while I was in undergrad. I protested their presence. The administration made them turn their posters inward, so if you wanted to look at them you had to go into the enclosed space the inward facing posters formed. No one I talked to on campus had any support for them. Everyone was quite incensed, including my evangelical friend.