Huckabee likens abortion to a holocaust

[babylonsister]

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2007/10/20/huckabee-likens-abortion-to-holocaust/

October 20, 2007
Huckabee likens abortion to a holocaust

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee.

(CNN)–Speaking before a gathering of Christian conservative voters, GOP presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee said legalized abortion in the United States was a holocaust.

"Sometimes we talk about why we're importing so many people in our workforce," the former Arkansas governor said. "It might be for the last 35 years, we have aborted more than a million people who would have been in our workforce had we not had the holocaust of liberalized abortion under a flawed Supreme Court ruling in 1973."

Huckabee also spoke adamantly of the need for conservative lawmakers to show no compromise on fighting for a constitutional amendment that defines marriage between a man and a woman. "I'm very tired of hearing people who are unwilling to change the constitution, but seem more than willing to change the holy word of God as it relates to the definition of marriage," he said.

Huckabee, spoke before the Family Research Council's Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Saturday.

[BOSSHOG]

1. Those not aborted would be harvesting lettuce and onions?

Surely huckleberry gave em a few halleluhahs' and praise the lord, Yeah onto the unwashed linkage abortion and holy-cawst, praise the lord I say praise the lord.

[Neoma]

2. Such bullshit.

[OKNancy]

3. Yup. Got to have those poor people having babies

instead of abortions for our workforce.
OK, OK... I know that's not what he said, but damn we have enough people already.

[...of J.Temperance]

6. The fact is

It's nobody's business if a woman chooses that she has to have an abortion....nutjobs like Huckabee would have it, that if a woman was raped or a girl was a victim of incest, they'd be FORCED to undergo the further trauma of carrying a rapists creation or an incest creation to full term, and give birth to it....and the nutters like Huckabee have NO RIGHT to impose that sort of trauma on ANYONE.

Abortion shouldn't even BE a political issue, it's a PERSONAL issue, it's NOT a political issue.


On Edit: Dammit spelling error

[...of J.Temperance]

4. These people are insane and very offensive

I don't really think they're normal people, by their comments, it shows that there's something deeply twisted and FU about them.

Huckabee's a nutjob.

Also saying such an outrageous thing, is incredibly disrespectful to those who suffered through The Holocaust.

[TwilightGardener]

5. Wow. Just...wow.

Add that to his "if we let gays marry, then soon people will want to marry their children or their pets" and you have a religious freak on the order of Pat Robertson or Gary Bauer. But--he lost the evangelical straw poll to a Mormon.

[radiclib]

7. Right. Think of how much bigger our prison population could be.

What do nimblefucks like Huckabee think happens when unwanted pregnancies become unwanted children? :banghead:

[rockymountaindem]

8. I saw poster saying the same thing today

erected by some nutbars outside a PP clinic. It's just as offensive in person.

[Inuca]

9. For quite some time now, I found the guy completely SCARY

he sounds so nice and reasonable most of the times, there is undoubtely something likeable about him, but underneath that all he is a complete wingnut. Or just nuts.

[Lucinda]

10. He's gonna get a big fundie boost from this weekend.

I'm not sure if they are going to think he's electable enough to support... But they will like Huckabee a lot more after this weekend. He's funny, and is saying exactly what they want to hear.

Scary stuff.

[Faygo Kid]

11. So women who choose abortion commit genocide? Where is the outrage?

Are they enthusiastic participants or just willing dupes in Huckabee's holocaust? What the hell is he saying here? The Holocaust is a specific historic event of unprecedented proportions. Even the Armenian genocide is not called a "holocaust." That term should never be used except to describe THE Holocaust, and Huckabee is throwing it around to describe American women exercising their right to choose? The Constitution has to conform to Huckabee's interpretation of the holy word of God?

He is nuts, and all those enablers who think he is such a "nice guy" - and this means you, Jon Stewart - need to splash some cold water on their faces and figure out the truth. He's also likely done now.

Or so we can hope (and pray).

[TwilightGardener]

12. Tell it to MSNBC--they promote him on every program. Even Keith

Olbermann constantly throws his name around. He's a fucking wack-job.

edit to add: a couple weeks ago, he declared at the Tweety debate that he would ignore Congress telling him "no" and take military action against Iran anyway if he wanted to. He would be a fucking dictator, WORSE than Rudy, because he believes God is on his side.

[Faygo Kid]

14. Agreed. I hope Keith calls him out on Monday.

Charming "just folks" guy who would eliminate the Constitution faster than Cheney if he had a chance. Will he get away with this? Probably. I hope Frank Rich takes this on in tomorrow's NY Times.

[IndianaGreen]

13. But incinerating pregnant women in Fallujah is a virtue...

I just love the hypocrisy of many of those that call themselves "pro-life."

OTOH, groups like Pax Christi are truly pro-life for they are just as opposed to abortion as they are to the war, and to torture.

It is also pro-life to provide women with the information and the tools to prevent unwanted pregnancy, to provide pre and post-natal care to women and their babies, to provide single payer cradle-to-grave health care to all Americans, and if necessary, to provide safe abortion services to women that request it.

[bluestateguy]

15. How to reduce abortions

Universal health care for all.

A healthy, growing economy for all Americans, and not just the wealthy few.

Invest in education, including free college tuition for all students who have good grades.

Raise the minimum wage to a living wage, and rebuild unions.

Do these things and you'll reduce abortions by far more than you ever would with cumbersome new laws.

[TwilightGardener]

17. Yep--and included in that universal health care, serious public-health education

and access to affordable birth control for teenagers and adults.

[muntrv]

16. So if those fetuses hadn't been aborted, they would be doing the jobs

that Mexicans do? Tom DeLay said that same bullshit.:dunce:

[TwilightGardener]

18. Yes--it would solve the immigration problem. That's quite a leap of logic, isn't it?

[davidinalameda]

19. anti-choice advocates have been using the same rhetoric for years

this is nothing new

[TwilightGardener]

21. Yes--I have heard the Holocaust invoked for abortion before--but not by

a presumably non-fringe, plausible Presidential candidate. It's offensive, and shows extremely poor political judgment.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

20. If Huckabee believes abortion takes a human life then how could he say otherwise?

I am delighted when people follow the logical implications of their convictions. It's better than the duplicitous "Lets pretend we all get along even though I think you are actually Hitler" game.

If I thought abortion was murder I would have little choice but to say the same thing.

The point is that saying abortion is murder is not any less right or wrong than likening abortion to a holocaust. The one follows the other quite sensibly. So normal everyday pro-life people who say abortion is the "taking of an innocent life" should be subject to precisely the same level of derision or condemnation as Huckabee.

[TwilightGardener]

24. I am personally pro-life myself, in that I believe that life begins at

conception (I am Catholic)--however, I do NOT believe that abortion is in ANY WAY related to the Holocaust OR murder, because it comes down to the intent of the person committing the act of ending the life. A mother who decides to terminate a fetus is not a murderer, in my eyes--she is simply asserting control over her body and her life, in a way I do not necessarily agree with--but I believe the choice is ultimately hers. I am willing to bet that I am pretty close to the middle of the rest of the country in my views. To compare a woman's decision to end a pregnancy to genocide or the willful taking of a human life AFTER it's born is a ridiculous leap. And Huckleberry did it intentionally to inflame the passions of the conference-goers and make headlines. He's disgusting.

[sam sarrha]

22. what about all the poor childerns who will die from lack of medical care from the Veto

F'n wet brain fetal alcoholic drug addict narcissistic psychopath does enjoy the suffering and death of others... Senator Stark the first to stand up an tell the truth... the F'n wet brain fetal alcoholic drug addict narcissistic psychopath.

Senator Stark is the First to stand up and tell the Truth, the Emperor has no clothes and is F'n bat shit crazy..

[la la]

23. huckabee thinks

his dimples will get him through--just smiles while making insane statements--kind of like shrub, but not quite as creepy.

[billyoc]

25. This should inspire a new generation of clinic bombers.

Looks like the Christian Falangists have found their candidate. :eyes:

[bliss_eternal]

26. Apparently he should review the facts of the Holocaust

before making such comments. It's insulting to those that were murdered during the Holocaust and those that survived it.

[CCfromNY]

42. Someone should ask Huck

that if abortion is comparable to the Holocaust, why are Jews disproportionately pro-choice?

[bliss_eternal]

44. Welcome to DU, CCfromNY...!

:hi:...and good point.

[AndyA]

27. You're right, Huckabee.

We absolutely must stop abortions at all costs!

If the mother is raped, too bad - she must have that baby!

If the mother's life is at risk due to the pregnancy, too bad.

If the baby is born into a world where it is unwanted, unloved, and the mother is not prepared to raise it properly, too bad.

And, of course, with no health care, that precious baby just might face a life of pain and suffering.

You and the rest of the Republicans value an unborn fetus so much, but then you're ready to throw the new life in the trash by preventing it from getting health care.

Can you say hypocrite? If there's a God in heaven, he'll have a very special place for people like you. And he knows what's in your heart, there's no fooling him.

[kimmylavin]

28. Oh, SHUT UP!

A woman choosing whether or not to carry a pregnancy to full term is NOT the same thing as a holocaust.

And the constitutional amendment thing again?
Really?
Did you watch that shit go down in flames under Mr. Bush???

[Hieronymus]

29. Birth Control Foe to Head Family Planning ....

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/18/health/main3380290.shtml

[iverglas]

30. it's a weird and very twisted message

and the bizarre thing is that the message is really a very anti-Semitic one.

http://www.prochoiceactionnetwork-canada.org/prochoicepress/99spring.shtml

HLI <Human Life International> promotes the message of "justifiable violence" against abortion clinics and providers, incites terrorist acts, and preaches prejudice against lesbians, gays, Moslems, and Jews. It does this through its publications and the speeches and writings of HLI founder, Father Paul Marx. Marx says that Jews are responsible for the greatest holocaust in history---abortion, and that abortion is a Jewish conspiracy to kill Aryan babies. Marx realized this after he checked the Yellow Pages and found that many abortion doctors were Jewish.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1374/is_4_61/ai_76800140

Targets of Hatred discusses the thirteen-year-long RICO litigation which resulted in jurors agreeing that anti-abortion defendants conspired nationwide to close clinics. Veteran Canadian pro-abortion activist since 1967, Dr. Henry Morgentaler--a humanist imprisoned four years in Dachau and Auschwitz--bears such terrorism because, as he puts it, "Children who are born into families where they receive love and caring don't build concentration camps." Yet Pope John Paul II calls Morgentaler and other abortion providers "evil" and part of a "holocaust" (an ironic twist in view of the pope's recent apology to Jews for Catholic inaction during the Nazi Holocaust).

Unfortunately the article I took the following from seems to have disappeared from the net (the site seems to have failed to renew its registration):
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=217x1556

http://www.postfun.com/pfp/features/98/oct/bloodlibel.html

... Blood libel is alive and well today. Many groups on the Internet offer "proof" that Jews committed, and still do commit, the ritual murder of Christian children. ...

THE MODERN INTERPRETATION OF BLOOD LIBEL

The medical procedure of abortion has been woven into the accusation of blood libel, giving new life to this medieval lie. Pro-life advocates view abortion as women killing, or murdering, children. And it's not just women that murder children, but Jews and Asians as well.

The Catholic Human Life Institute (HLI) of Canada <It is actually Human Life International, and it is based in the US, not Canada> was founded in 1981 by Father Paul Marx. Marx is infamous for his anti-Semitic comments, "Until recently, the real political power in Austria was in the hands of a fanatically pro-abortion Prime Minister, Bruno Kreisky, an atheist of Jewish descent...Although they are supremely sensitive about their own Holocaust, Austria's Jews gave me and my colleagues no help in stopping this new holocaust; on the contrary, they spoke eloquently for killing preborn babies."

Malcolm Ross of The Canadian League of Rights, in his book THE REAL HOLOCAUST: THE ATTACK ON UNBORN CHILDREN AND LIFE ITSELF writes of Jewish Doctor Henry Morgentaler (also a subject of HLI publications),

By the definition of the anti-abortionists, he is the greatest mass murderer in Canadian history. Thousands of tiny little Canadians have been slaughtered by this man. In years gone by, he would have been publicly executed for murder...

(In the meantime, the Canadian Government extradited a former Nazi, now a Canadian Citizen, to Germany for allegedly ordering the execution of several thousand Jews forty years ago.)

These two men and their organizations place "pro-abortion" Jews at the head of family planning groups; as "prominent TV/radio/movie executives, authors, columnists"; and as the "chief exponents of euthanasia." Marx writes, "Jews who are pro-abortion must face up to their role in the greatest holocaust in all history, the abortion holocaust."

It isn't a coincidence that the vicious folks in the anti-choice brigade choose to call legal abortion a "holocaust"; it's a carefully orchestrated appeal to hate.

This is all code speech, clearly understood by those in the know.


(edited to add some emphasis)

[GottaLaff]

31. I posted some thoughts

I was livid after I saw this. You can see how livid here:

http://cliffschecter.bravenewfilms.org/blog/16519-abortion-holocaust-mike-huckabee

This guy shouldn't be allowed to run for anything.

[karynnj]

32. The biggest problem in his statement is that it is not clear how many extra

abortions there are because it is legal. It may be that the difference is small - so all Roe vs Wade did was to make abortions that were happening safe and legal. If the movement simultaneously made birth control better known or more available, the difference may not even be positive.

That, rather than the explosive use of the word holocaust - which if you believe that abortion is murder makes sense - is the problem.

[TwilightGardener]

34. No, using the term "holocaust" to describe a legal medical procedure that in no

conceivable way could ever equal the deliberate mass extermination of an entire race IS a problem. Maybe not for fire-and-brimstone Sunday preachers and pro-life activists, but for Presidential candidates? It's offensive. That kind of discourse is wildly inappropriate--it's like he forgot he wasn't in the pulpit. Scary. Other problems--blaming immigration on abortion (huh???) and holding up the "word of God" as somehow co-equal to the Constitution in terms of law. The dude's off his rocker.

[karynnj]

37. I agree with you on the other issues,

What I was saying was that IF you accept that abortion is murder , the issue becomes black and white and the comparison to the holocaust follows. The fact that abortion at some times for some reasons is legal and the fact that it is a medical procedure then become irrelevant for those people. My point is that for some people who are pro-life this is equivalent and many people believing that are not off their rocker.

Abortion is not just a "legal medical procedure" - and you will never get any viable candidate to say that. It does end potential life. It has to be seen as an issue where there are conflicting rights and for most people huge areas of gray. Few, it any, would accept killing a baby as it is being born or when it is viable outside the womb - nor is that legal. On the other end, a very pro-life friend of mine admits that she accepts birth control, the morning after pill and any other very early interventions - but her values, which are every bit as real as any I hold, do not let her go further. There is a huge amount of space between these extremes.

The other issue is that in assessing the impact of legalizing abortion, you need to consider there were many illegal abortions when it was not legal- though those numbers are not available, because it was illegal. Yet, all of us of a certain age, know people personally who had abortions. In fact, in that time period, it was knowing people, knowing their reasons and why they made their decisions that led many of us to be pro-choice. It was their lives and their bodies - and it had to be their choice. It seems likely that a very high percent of people who have abortions now would have them if it were illegal. They did then - and now it would likely be easier - as travel, information and different methods exist. Like then, the main thing you give up is the health and safety of the mothers - which is unacceptable.

[iverglas]

38. please read my post # 30

The use of the Holocaust analogy by the anti-choice brigade is not a casual, vague reference to some awful event that killed a lot of people.

It is a calculated bit of anti-Semitic *and* misogynist rhetoric. It's quite amazing how it does manage to hit the two birds with the one stone, in the ears of different audiences. (And yeah, he managed to up the ante by mixing racism into the recipe, too.)

To the bleeding hearts, "the Holocaust" invokes an image of innocent human beings being tortured by evil doers. In this case: women.

But the anti-choice brigade doesn't like doctors who perform abortions either, and is usually at pains to focus attention on them, one suspects in part so that the obvious consequence of their proposals, that millions of women in the US are unpunished murderers and should be subject to the penalty for murder, is less obvious. But do they hate those doctors because they perform abortions ... or because many of them are Jews?

The Christian church has a very long history of inciting hatred against Jews by propagating tales of the horrific things that Jews allegedly do to little Christian babies. Google "blood libel".

Huckabee is an adherent of right-wing / fundamentalist Christianity. If he is not an anti-Semite at heart (I'm a foreigner and not sufficiently familiar with the personalities here), he is at least hugely insensitive to Jewish concerns:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/11/politics/main3357807.shtml

When radio personality Don Imus interviewed Huckabee last year about his 110-pound weight loss after a diabetes diagnosis, the governor joked that he had spent time in a concentration camp. Huckabee dismissed a Jewish group's criticism, saying he hadn't made a reference to Jews or the Holocaust.

But hmm. He DOES make explicit reference to the Holocaust when talking about abortion.

I hold no brief for exceptionalism -- that the Holocaust and Nazi persecution stand forever apart from all other atrocities committed in human history past and future. Rejection of exceptionalism does not mean not acknowledging the obvious fact that the rhetorical use of the Holocaust by right-wing Christian politicians is calculated to convey a particular meaning to those who know what is being said.

And there really is just no way that Huckabee does not know the code he is speaking in.


Another comment on his comments -- referring also to the concentration-camp incident:
http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2007/10/huckabees-holocaust.html


I'm going to quote something here without giving the link; it can be found by anyone who needs any more of this sort of thing (Dr. Henry Morgentaler, as I mentioned in the other post, is the Cdn physician and Holocaust survivor who put his freedom on the line in the fight for women's reproductive rights):

Re: Jewish Ritual Murder

Quote:
The next thing you know , these mean old anti-semites will be saying that Jewish doctors are predominant among the abortionists

C'mon Mr Farrell , give us a break , we all know these " celebrities" are working and experimenting for our well being

Dr Rosen
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4180592.stm

Dr Morgentaler ( Jewish "holocaust" survivor , another one! )
http://thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=A1ARTA0005437

Quote:
Once you start unravelling the web of deceit , you realize that you need to deconstruct the whole thing .

Virtually the whole edifice of our moral value system built up over the last century is a mistake , built on crumbling , Jewish foundations

[iverglas]

39. just a bit more on the anti-Semitism of the anti-choice movement

A 1998 article about Dr. Barnett Slepian, a doctor who performed abortions in Buffalo and who was murdered by James Kopp:

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,989460,00.html?promoid=googlep

Slepian, moreover, was a longtime target of the heated protest that for years marked the Buffalo antiabortion scene. As one of only a few western New York doctors who performed the procedure, he had been blocked from entering his office and had seen his name on WANTED posters. The Buffalo News reported one activist admonishing Slepian's children, "Don't grow up to be a murderer like your father."

Things came to a boil in 1988, when Christmas-caroling antiabortion protesters converged on his house as he was celebrating Hanukkah with his family. Slepian emerged with a baseball bat and attacked one man; later he agreed to pay $400 for the man's medical care and repairs to his van. When Dr. David Gunn was gunned down in Pensacola, Fla., in 1993, Slepian commented, "It could happen to me."

It did, and right-wing Christians sheltered the murderer for several years after the killing.


(oops, html fixed)

[TwilightGardener]

41. No right wingers, save the nutty few who bomb clinics, believe abortion

is truly "murder". They may believe abortion is wrong, a sin, and ends a life, but if they really believed it was murder, we'd have a VERY different (much more heated and violent) debate and very different laws in this country. There would be no question of even allowing abortion for rape/incest. Even pro-lifers realize that the abortion issue contains gray areas. But they need that "holocaust" hyperbole to drum up interest and stoke passions for their cause, because they're afraid of losing any ground--they deliberately use the inflammatory rhetoric. I understand that. Pro-choice is the same way--afraid to yield any ground even on something as sad and distasteful as partial-birth abortion. But when a candidate for President uses that same rhetoric, and believes it, he crosses the line from politician to nutcase. If he doesn't believe it, then he is being a pandering flamethrower, and one can seriously question his judgment.

[TheWraith]

33. Hucky's getting desperate.

The religious right doesn't like him as much as you'd think they would, because he's not hateful enough for them. So now he's trying to play up the hate.

[BootinUp]

36. Huckelberry lost a close straw poll

to Myth Romney taken at a conservative Christian convention, yeah he's a little desperate.

[Dewlso]

35. What does he consider soldiers deaths in Iraq?

I mean if an unborn child's abortion can be compared to the holocaust, then what about a child that is sent to war in Iraq?

That is the thing with repugnants. They only consider unborn life precious. What about children that are sent off to war? What about children that have no insurance?

[RebelSansCause]

40. this is simply offensive.....

holocaust is one of those trigger words, he is supposed to be a presidential candidate, not some fundi wing nut. oh, wait he is a fundie wing nut presidential candidate? holy shit, what has happened to my country? my poor, poor country, the land of the corporation and the enslaved. anyway, he should know better. besides, what does he think of sending soldiers to iraq? surely thats comparable, people who do not have a choice becasuse their country has screwed them and they need to die for some oil and an ego. what a hypocrite.

[Rhythm and Blue]

43. If you believe abortion may be illegalized, then you must believe a fetus is a person.

If a fetus is a person, then abortion is murder.
If you believe abortion is murder, the Holocaust is indeed an apt comparison.

This isn't nutty craziness. This is what you are logically compelled to believe if you believe abortion must be illegalized. And that's who we're up against.

[CCfromNY]

45. Maybe someone should also ask Huckabee

if he believes abortion is a Holocaust, how does he plan to take the oath of office for the presidency, which requires he swear to preserve, protect, and defend the US Constitution,

given that the Constitution guarantees the right to an abortion.

[BlueIris]

46. Insultingly poor speech. Ripping off Zell Miller?

That's when you know you've hit bottom.

[shimmergal]

47. The thing is,

there would still have been nearly the same number of abortions, just not good statistics on them, and more women dead as well.

People seldom point this out anymore; illegalizing abortion is NOT going to stop it happening.