The Rhetoric of Abortion from Jeffrey Ludwig - A Response

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In a recent a blog by Jefferey Ludwig titled, Dehumanization as a Function of Abortion Advocacy, (also see Page -2- of this discussion) he asserts that he is not "comparing" pro-choice advocates are "akin" to Nazi Germany, he says "No one should infer that I am asserting that pro-choice supporters are or even comparable to the Nazis." Yet even before his disclaimer he has already asserted that Plan Parenthood, using secondary sourcing Media Matters instead of going directly to the Plan Parenthood itself, that ---

According to Media Matters, Plan Parenthood performs 328,000 abortions a year. Over a period of ten(10) years, Planned Parenthood has terminated the lives of more unborn babies than all the Jews killed at K. L.Auschwitz by the Nazi during 1941-1945...

The evidence that " ... Plan Parenthood performs 328,0000 abortions a year ..." is conceded. Though this factoid is technically correct, it is a tad low from the actual number for the years 2009 and 2010 (the latest available report) that Plan Parenthood performed 331,796 and 329,445 abortions (Plan Parenthood 2009-2010 report) out of 11,238,414 and 11,003,366 health and family planning services. (A quick math calculation informs any analyzer of the report that Plan Parenthood abortion services make up less than three percent of its actual services and are not its primary focus). But I digress.

Mr. Ludwig further his assertion, by extrapolation, that "over a period of ten(10) years, Plan Parenthood has terminated the lives of more unborn babies than all the Jews killed at K. L. Auschwitz by the Nazis during 1941-1945" [my emphasis] is emotionally charged and done deliberately so to engage the reader. He wants the reader to compare pro-choice supporters to Nazis before his disclaimer. And, this is where his argument falls flat for me.

Anytime a pundit, a commentator, or a blogger from the Left or the Right extremes uses hyperbolic language to assert a perspective as a fact of rationalization I simply invoke Godwin's Law.  Under the Godwin's Law principle I exam if the argument being made is applicable. Mr. Ludwig's perspective fails miserably. He has created a fallacy of his own making -- and tries -- to disguise his obvious religious beliefs behind the argument of pro-choice supporters dehumanization of the "fetus" as his objection.

To be direct, Mr. Ludwig's point that the number of abortions in relation to Auschwitz is disturbing. As he indicated, between the years 1941 and 1945, according to Auschwitz-Birknau Museum website 1.35 million Jews were killed. but Mr. Ludwig claim that "over a ten(10) year period" that "Plan Parenthood has killed unborn babies" than Auschwitz is disingenuous. In fact,  he is using a four year comparison versus a ten-year comparison to gin up his numbers to make an emotional point. He doesn't do an apple to apple comparison, instead it is an apple to orange. To be a true analogy one has to compare like data. So to use the numbers for abortions over a four year period is slightly less at 1.32 million abortions. Therefore, Mr.Ludwig claim is false that Plan Parenthood abortion services has claimed more unborn babies than human lives.

Mr. Ludwig is propagating propaganda to facilitate his perspective for pro-life supporters.  If Mr. Ludwig's disclaimer had come earlier in the paragraph there might be some truth in his assertion that he was not comparing pro-choice supporters as Nazis, but that is exactly what he wants the reader to do. Throughout his blog posting he continually references Nazis while juxtaposing pro-choice supporters as facilitating the "dehumanization as part of the[ir] rationale and justification [for] given[ing] support of the mass termination of human life " [my emphasis].

Mr. Ludwig language is clear and is inflammatory. Instead of an authentic discussion on the merits of abortion and providing possible solutions to reducing and providing safe abortions and healthcare for women, he wants the reader to be irrational and not reasoned because of his use of the Nazi comparison. Another point of contention within Mr. Ludwig's assertion, he sees the "fetus" as a supreme and sentient over the rank of the adult woman. He states the following,

Pro-choice supporters contend that a human fetus while innocent and human is not a person with a right to life and whose life is not worthy of protection. Thus they believe that a human fetus is a human being and that it belongs to a class of human life below that of a person. At the heart of this contention is the willingness and need to dehumanize the unborn child [my emphasis]. 

Hard core Nazis like Hitler and Goering were virulently ant-Semitic (sic) and had an irrational hatred for Jews. But how could 85 million Germans come to tolerate the Nazis' anti-Jewish policies when then ordinary German was not such a rabid anti-Semite?

The above statement by Mr. Ludwig is a very coded message to followers of pro-life and the readers that life begins at conception and even non-viable cells have supremacy over the fully grown and sentient adult woman. Furthermore, Mr. Ludwig seems to imply that the pro-choice supporter need an emotional lever to separate themselves and that this somehow the same as Nazi Germany anti-Semitic perspective, which he connects in the very next paragraph, when he says "Hard core Nazis like Hitler and Goering." Notice the juxtaposition of the reference to Nazis in relation to pro-choice supporters.

Mr. Ludwig wants the reader to realize by the set up of the question and the answer in which he states simply, how Adolf Hitler "wasn't a stupid man," and how Hitler's Germany "transformed into a first rate industrial power and the greatest military power in seven (7) years was because Dr. Goebbels propaganda machine dehumanize Jews as subhuman," "vermin," and "unkempt."

Mr. Ludwig paints the imagery of the time of how Jews were associated with features that were exaggerated with "hook noses," "scurrying rats," "unshaven," "and toothless." The Goebbels' films, he explains, through implication were used to dehumanize Jewish populace to German the population and therefore by extension pro-choice supporters arguments do the same to dehumanize unborn fetuses. But, what Mr. Ludwig fails to mention was that Adolf Hitler was elected into power and then through the propaganda of Nazi Germany machinery first vilified his political enemies before transforming Germany into totalitarian government that exterminated  somewhere between 11 to 17 million people (which includes Gypsies, Poles, Jehovah's Witnesses, Romani, non-ethnic Germans, and political and religious opponents et. cetera).

Mr. Ludwig's appeal is emotionally ridden and by his using the Nazis as a template for the model of dehumanization distorts the facts and his analogy. He propagates his argument based on supposition and transference to relate the case of pro-choice advocacy dehumanization. For example, as pointed out earlier, Mr. Ludwig demonstrates how Nazism accomplished dehumanization of the Jewish population, he says --

In order that ordinary people would look the other way while synagogues were burned and Jews were forced from their homes and relocated to concentration camps, the Nazis portrayed the Jews as subhuman. Dehumanizing Jews was the cornerstone in persuading the German people to the Nazis very public anti-Jewish policies...

But, it what Mr Ludwig does next is to completes his association with Nazism, propaganda, and the correlation of pro-choice advocacy by asserting what pro-choice advocates' voice in the very next paragraph, he says

Another argument asserted in favor of legal abortion is that a woman should have control over her body and reproductive health. Dehumanizing the human fetus is essential to this argument. A child growing in the mother's womb as the result of consensual intercourse is not an illness. Yet the rhetoric is that a woman should have the right to an abortion in order to preserve her right to an abortion in order to preserve and achieve good health. The claim that a right to abortion (sic) is necessary for women's health. Such language leads to the implication that being pregnant is a diseased condition and the growing fetus is akin to a spreading a virus endangering the mother's health. In order to preserve the mother's health, the unwanted child must be surgically or medically removed [my emphasis].. 

In the above, Mr. Ludwig projects his disdain for women's ability to choose for their reproductive healthcare and adjoins the pro-choice  advocacy discourse as it  relates to the dehumanization of the human fetus. Thus, showing the inhumanity of the pro-choice advocates. Moreover,  Mr. Ludwig's agenda is further revealed in his omission of the word choice and his choice to associate  the word "necessary" as it relates to women's healthcare  and claim that the "language" promotes dehumanization of pregnancy as a disease. 

Mr. Ludwig's own rhetoric distorts the facts of pro-choice advocacy for abortion and reproductive healthcare services agencies.  Organizations, such as Plan Parenthood, are supportive of the women's ability to choose when they and their spouse want to start a family and even the United States Supreme Court in 1965 in Griswold v Connecticut (contextual brief 1, link2) agrees with this as a liberty (a right). Consensual sex activity ought not be simply relegated to male domain and again the US Supreme Court in 1972 in Eisenstadt v Baird (contextual brief 3) saw that single individuals have a right to the access of contraceptives . Abortion is not viewed by most pro-choice advocates as a disease and this where overstatement conflates his dehumanization claim.

 In terms of "necessary," the woman's right to choose is paramount to her liberty two-fold. First a women has an inherit right to her body and Second a woman has an inherit right to decide how her happiness is defined. What is more, I know of no woman who sees pregnancy as a disease or that pregnancy is "akin to spreading a virus" on either side of the aisle. Admittedly, there may be some extremist out there who do, but the same can be said of the social conservative who wishes to  ban all abortion with no exceptions and ban all forms of contraceptives (see personhoodUSA as an example). 

Additionally, Mr. Ludwig has major assumptions throughout his rant on the dehumanization of the fetus. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian regime, the United States of America is not. Abortion is an individual and personal choice no one is forcing anyone to have an abortion. If a woman does not want an abortion she does not have to get one. There are no mandated population control measures in the United States. The only dictates on how a women has to have access to her own abortion is coming from the social conservative pro-life movement.

For example, since the republican mid-term elections of 2010, state legislature houses around the country have created more restrictions on women healthcare and reproductive care since the United State Supreme Court ruling of Roe v Wade in 1973. How and when a woman gets her abortion are being determined by social conservatives state houses across the country. The Guttmacher Institute for instance has tracked 944 measures in the first quarter of 2012 that is restricting women access in one form or another through either the attempted defunding of Plan Parenthood or State Medicard to restrict women healthcare or reproductive care by adding a waiting period or requiring of mandatory ultra sound probes (link 1 here) (link 2 here).

Mr. Ludwig's initial disclaimer  that "No one should infer that I am asserting that pro-choice supporters are or even comparable to the Nazis"at the beginning of his blog is an outright fabrication. He uses examples and correlations throughout his posting to subjectively, implicitly, juxtaposes, or directly to make the connections of Nazism with pro-choice advocates and to adjoin them with dehumanization of the "fetus." He states clearly, he believes that "Human life begins at conception."  Thus, for  Mr. Ludwig's perspective is does not matter if the termination of a pregnancy medically necessary or not, or that it happen within the first seventy-two hours or within the eighteenth week life begins at fertilization. His rhetoric is plain as he pontificates on the dehumanization of the "human fetus." He believes that pro-choice advocates are similar to Nazis because,

--- pro-choice advocates are dehumanizing "unborn babies" because they believe in euthanasia for malformed children as a "preemptive" measure,

--- pro-choice advocates are dehumanizing "unborn babies" for the good health of the women

--- pro-choice advocates are dehumanizing "unborn babies" for the poor women, "it is preferable to not expose to a life deprivation and poverty," 

--- that pro-choice advocates are dehumanizing "unborn babies" for the purpose of aborting the handicap because "conditions result in greater burdens on the national and state governments because of the need for welfare assistance..."

Mr. Ludwig's conflated tirade throughout his blog demonizes pro-choice advocates. According to Christopher Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning war correspondent of the book, War is the  Force that Gives Us Meaning, the dehumanizing of one's political enemy is "necessary" in order to commit heinous crimes against other human beings. Stated plainly, demonizing one's opponents as the "other" makes it palatable to destroy political and religious opposition and use force if necessary. So, when Mr. Ludwig subverts pro-choice supporters' perspective by positioning Nazi Germany's dehumanization of Jews, he has  painted the imagery of an irrational and malevolent persons bent on destruction of human beings making their argumentation irrelevant and "perverted." Mr. Ludwig makes for the following assertions as he impels the reader to believe that Nazism and pro-choice advocates are the same purveyors of death.

Mr. Ludwig social conservatism is transparent, but he also uses the nationalist jingoism by invoking one of the founding document -- the Declaration of Independence. He points out that the founding fathers document advocates for the "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness"--and he further asserts that the founding document, by implication, a new social contract for liberty and "to a life." In essence, the right to be born. He says, "If the right to life, or to a life, is not the most basic fundamental human right, then the other rights are beside the point" [my emphasis]. But he fails to acknowledge the celebratory and ceremonial perspective of the document, in that, it is a formal separation from a tyrannical government.

The Declaration of Independence is more than advocacy for "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" it is a document that imparts the grievances of a people that is unsatisfied with its government and the tyranny of a King. Furthermore, the founding fathers saw themselves as individuals with inherit rights given by the Law of Nature and the entitlement of Nature's God to be separated from usurping government. Yet, Mr. Ludwig nationalist pride is overwrought and besmirches the Great Experiment in that he obfuscates the document. Furthermore, when the founding fathers discussed the "pursuit of happiness" they were not discussing what we perceive in a modern sense, but in the terms of John Locke's philosophical perspective in the "pursuit of property."

In sum, Mr. Ludwig's claim is simply false due to his inability to be genuine in his commentary. He does not offer solutions. He disguises his religiosity with coded terms while failing to mention the positive outcomes of pro-choice advocacy, such as the decline of teen-pregnancy rates due to better contraceptive rates among teens (here). He fails to mention the latest restriction on abortion by the social conservative movements and republicans (here). He fails mention how sex education combined with abstinence training has help reduce sexual activity among teens (here). And finally, Mr. Ludwig fails to acknowledge that the better use and understanding of how contraceptives work has helped with reduce the number of abortions overall (here).Therefore, Mr. Ludwig's discourse on Nazism and pro-choice advocacy dehumanization has done nothing more than stunted the conversation.

See Page -2- of the Discussion