Pro-choice rhetoric akin to Nazis
It’s a pity that Andi Berlin’s article on abortion has not produced the entertaining results she had hoped for. (“”The case for abortion: a modest proposal,”” Oct. 27) I feel compelled to point out that all “”pro-choice”” views depend on one of Andi’s statements to even justify the killing of an innocent human being: “”The reason everyone is so danged pissed off and scared to talk about abortion in the first place, is that it kills future people.”” Somehow the “”pro-choice”” devotees’ definition of what makes a person does not include those who’ve yet to take their own breath, but instead rely on the breath of another.
Let’s draw a comparison. The National Socialist Party of Germany (aka the Nazis) justified the murder of millions of Jews, Poles, Russians, Gypsies, homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses and others in two different ways. First, they defined these groups as “”parasitic”” and therefore inferior. They consumed Germany’s resources and provided little. But remove the parasite, and the nation will prosper. But in order to justify these actions in the minds of individuals, they had to dehumanize these “”inferior”” peoples (see the psychological term “”cognitive dissonance””). Applying terms like “”Untermensch,”” or “”subhuman,”” eased people’s thoughts, convincing them that they were not murdering humans but instead were merely eradicating pests.
Those who favor abortion are much like the Nazis in this regard. An unwanted pregnancy is often seen as a parasitic situation; another life is consuming the mother’s precious resources without her consent. But this other life is not even human. It is merely an embryo, a fetus or a “”future person.”” Thus there is no need to grieve an abortion; after all, the mother was an unwilling host to someone else’s survival, and she is not killing an actual person anyhow. Politicizing someone else’s future and creating terms that soothe the conscience are inexcusable justifications for genocide or feticide.
Approximately 11 million people of different ethnicities, religious persuasions, sexual preference and those who were mentally or physically disabled were put to death between 1933, when Hitler rose to power, and 1945, when he died. And yet, these 12 years hardly compare to the 42 million children mercilessly aborted every single year. Why is it that so many oppose the war in Iraq and yet continue to defend the war on the unborn?
Jonathan Rutherford
psychology senior
Editorial page no place for opinions
Do you expect to reach out to people and persuade them to vote for Obama by smearing McCain? (“”McCain campaign reaches demagogic lows,”” Nov. 4) I guess your whole argument was to show that McCain is running a dirty race, but all it shows is that you lack journalistic skills. You criticize the smearing, but that is the exact tactic you just used to write your article. It shows you lack journalistic experience.
If you were a true journalist and wanted to cover the topic of smearing in the campaign, you need to cover both sides. You could have pointed out how the left made a huge deal out of a wardrobe that Palin never bought. You could have showed that this whole election was a dirty race and that young people want all candidates to run clean elections, but you chose to make your opinion clear.
In my opinion, supporting only one side of an argument is not what a true journalist does. Good journalists make an argument for both sides, and let their audience decide what stance to take. I would like to see arguments from both sides in the future rather than read a biased opinion which readers can’t respect.
Jamie Hamlin
accounting junior
McCain support a ‘heroic effort’
Congratulations are due to Laura Donovan for the remarkable strides she has made in her valiant battle with gerontophobia. It seems like only yesterday that she was airing her petty grievances against the “”pervasive older community”” that had infiltrated the UA campus and made the “”standard undergraduates uncomfortable or confused.”” Yet, we learn that she supports John McCain. (“”Coming to terms with GOP’s likely defeat,”” Nov. 4) One can only imagine the heroic effort it must have cost her to vote for a 72-year-old man, who, if he’d been enrolled in one of her classes, would have undoubtedly inspired one of those “”instinctive reactions”” that she feels toward people who seem “”out of place.””
If she has made substantial progress in combating this particular phobia, however, she remains subject to a number of other equally irrational fears. Chief among these is the mistaken notion that the effects of the Republican debauch of the past eight years will evaporate overnight if Barack Obama wins the presidency. Never fear, Donovan: Whether it’s our diminished moral standing in the world or the massive debt we have acquired through the borrow-and-spend policies of the GOP, we are in no danger of getting out from under Bush’s shadow anytime soon. Donovan, you also fear that the industrious people of this country will stop working if they have to pay higher taxes. To be honest, though, poverty is not quite the gravy train that you and the editorial board of The Wall Street Journal make it out to be. When these rational actors compare the disadvantages of a higher tax rate with those of higher infant mortality, I imagine that they will continue to work despite the disincentives to which you allude.
Best of all, Joe the Plumber may well outlive the campaign that invented him – although he may have to abandon his hopes of the cabinet-level appointment he would have undoubtedly received in a McCain administration, Mr. Wurzelbacher is reported to have landed a country-western recording contract! Congratulations once again, Donovan. It’s heartening to see that you are less terrified by people who are over 25. I wish you continued success in your efforts at dispelling the many phantoms that haunt your right-wing imagination.
Michael Parker
English graduate student
