The Cottonwoods of Dachau: The Memory of America's Diabolical Abortion Years to Live on In Infamy
DACHAU, Germany Bits of cottonwood fluffs just like in Oklahoma float eerily like
ashes suspended in the air of the Dachau concentration camp, as if nature itself were
doing its part in the chorus of 'never forget' that permeates the stillness of Dachau.
Yet my gorge rises when I see the words 'never forget,' because it's too late. We've
already forgotten. The same diabolical blindness and denial has fallen over the United
States and much of the West. Those committing and endorsing the modern crimes seem to
wring their hands and say 'never forget' the loudest.
Those who don't believe me haven't looked into the hardened eyes and faces of the feminist
Clinton-Gore delegation at United Nations conferences, fighting to have abortion declared
a universal human right, and for 'sexual and reproductive rights' for 10-year-olds, free
from parental involvement.
Analogies between the Nazi holocaust and the American abortion problem are imperfect and
usually ineffective. The circumstances were different. But what they both have in common
is the dehumanization of a certain class of people rendering them disposable, resulting in
genocide. A fertilized human egg is a human being. What was done in the tyranny of
nationalism then is now done in the name of 'compassion' and ideological rhetoric. The
devil has simply refined his methods.
American slavery also denied the humanity of a group of people and was regarded as
acceptable in American society. I predict in the year 2050 people will look back at
abortion in our time with horror and ask, 'How could they do it? What were they thinking?'
just as we do about the Nazi holocaust and American slavery.
It is one more step in the march of infamy through history. The problem is not with the
individual woman in trouble, but with the propaganda machine churning out the rhetoric of
'choice' while countenancing few other choices than abortion and viewing them as a threat.
Twelve years ago the 'hard cases' of abortion rape, incest, life of the mother
accounted for 3 percent of all abortions. Now, medical science has rendered
life-of-the-mother cases practically nonexistent, and then falling under the ethical
principle of double effect where saving both mother and child is the goal.
I met a young man named Oskar, 18, who opened up to me at the end of a town beer fest. He
said, 'I'm proud to be a Bavarian but ashamed of being German.' I asked why. He said,
'Because of things my country did, the things people in my family did.' I sensed he was
near tears. I told him he wasn't responsible for that, and that we in the United States
couldn't criticize now with 40 million unborn dead in the last 30 years, but if he felt so
strongly he could dedicate his young life to making 'never again' a reality, with God's
help, by joining the worldwide pro-life movement.
But the question for us is, do we want our descendants those who survive to feel
about us like Oskar does about his forebears?
John Mallon is contributing editor for Inside
the Vatican magazine and a member of The Daily Oklahoman's Opinion Board of
Contributors. He was in Europe at the invitation of the International Institute for Culture. This article
originally appeared in the Daily Oklahoman on
08/04/2000 and is reprinted with permission. Send an e-mail to John Mallon
