To compare abortion to the Holocaust or the Dred Scott decision was this year's pro-life essay topic. The following is a condensed version of Monica Gallagher's state-level entry.

Two-thirds of the European Jews were killed in the Holocaust, according to the 1990 World Book's "Holocaust" entry. One-third of all babies conceived in the U.S. are killed in the womb in the "Auschwitzes" all over America (Abortion Questions and Answers). About 1.6 million are killed annually by abortion; about 1.5 million Jews were killed per year in the Holocaust.

The many similarities between abortion and the Holocaust go much deeper than their chilling numbers. Like attitudes are the most threatening similarity.

Both the German Holocaust and the more modern phenomenon of widespread abortion began with a sly, subtle shift in attitude toward life. People began to believe that the lives of children, the insane, the ill, and the mentally handicapped were devoid of value long before the Jewish tragedy. Then the Germans began killing them, and later than that, the Nazis thought nothing of gassing tens of thousands of Jews per day. Long before the actual acceptance of abortion, propaganda helped convince the medical profession and the public that the handicapped and differently abled deserved to die. Both shifts in attitude set the stage for destruction.

The following is a quote from Anne Bannon, M.D. in the Human Life Review: "Whatever proportions these crimes assumed, it became evident to all who investigated them that they had started from small beginnings. The beginnings at first were merely a subtle shift in emphasis on the basic attitude of physicians. It started with the acceptance of the attitude . . . that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived."

The same shift in attitude that pre-empted the Holocaust is taking hold today. The deadly progression has already gone from killing unborn children to killing handicapped newborn babies, most frequently babies with Down Syndrome or spina bifida, by withholding nourishment or necessary medical treatment. Dr. C. Everett Koop, former Surgeon General, names the shift in attitude "the slide to Auschwitz."

Both frightening attitudes in the two times in history have gone from a fundamental belief that human lives must pass certain tests in order to be valuable. Questions asked when determining value of life include "What will this person's life contribute to society?" and "Will this person be able to function like we do?" Many people in their blind push for "rights" have conveniently forgotten that rights are always intertwined with grave responsibilities to be protective and compassionate. An alarming abuse of power over the defenseless is occurring today as it did in Europe in the early forties.

"Holocaust," incidentally, means "widespread destruction." From this definition, the abortion movement could without question be called a holocaust.

As they did in the German Holocaust, today's executors also manipulate language to hide their actions. One example is the 1990 World Book's entry about Planned parenthood, which refers to "reproductive rights." The list of intentionally obscure and misleading phrases goes on for both the Holocaust and in abortion. The Nazi bus company that carried the prisoners to their executioners was called "The Charitable Transport Company for the Sick." Pro-choicers call abortion "the product of conception," the fetus the "conceptus" and abortion "the termination of a pregnancy."

Each scalpel, each vacuum tube of the abortion clinics all over the world, is an instrument of the modern gas chambers in the current holocaust. Each of us who allows himself/herself to remain idle as the atrocity continues is figuratively one of Hitler's party's executioners.

By Monica Gallagher