Georgia politics, Hitler and Godwin’s Law

Over the last decade the internet has coined several new terms and concepts. Take the term “Blogosphere” which has come to mean the universe of public opinion and discourse on the Internet.”Blogging” is another term which has become a powerful tool to communicate a body of truth to the masses. The President’s Corner is a blog.

I ran across another term recently . . . Godwin’s Law. According to another internet icon, Wikipedia, “[Mike] Godwin observed that, given enough time, in any online discussion—regardless of topic or scope—someone inevitably criticizes some point made in the discussion by comparing it to beliefs held by Hitler and the Nazis.” I am going to give you a live example of Godwin’s Law.

Following Germany’s defeat in World War I and the ensuing financial crisis, a new public policy was implemented that led down a slippery slope to the event we call “the Holocaust.”.

The year was 1920. It would be 13 years BEFORE Hitler’s rise to power. Germany was a bastion of liberal culture and science informed by Darwinian thought. Public Health policy, informed by the new science of eugenics (good birth), proposed the euthanization (good death) of certain children born with anencephaly. Anencephaly is a serious birth defect in which a baby is born without parts of the brain and skull. German medical policy, in the interest of Public Health, established that children with this severe birth defect were to be considered “lives not worthy of life.” Potter’s Syndrome, a child born without fully developed kidneys, was soon added to the list, as was any congenital anomaly that was deemed “incompatible with life.” This included chromosomal anomalies such as Trisomy 21, otherwise known as Down Syndrome. Two leading bioethicists summarized the policy:

“IF ONE IMAGINES . . . A BATTLEFIELD COVERED WITH THOUSANDS OF DEAD YOUTHS . . . AND THEN OUR INSTITUTIONS FOR IDIOTS AND THEIR CARE . . ., ONE IS MOST APPALLED BY . . . . THE SACRIFICE OF THE BEST OF HUMANITY WHILE THE BEST CARE IS LAVISHED ON LIFE OF NEGATIVE WORTH.”

KARL BINDING AND ALFRED HOCHE

AUTHORIZATION OF THE DESTRUCTION OF LIFE UNWORTHY OF LIFE,  LEIPZIG, 1920

By 1933 the medical center at Hadamar, Germany was granting a “good death” to over 100 children a day. These children would be collected from their homes or birth hospitals by school buses who had their windows boarded up to “protect” the children with these deadly disabilities from public scrutiny. The parents of the children were told that the state would administer compassionate state-of-the-art “treatment” for these various disabilities while under the care of the state. The fact is that these children were never seen again. The black plume of smoke gave silent testimony that their small bodies were being disposed of as medical waste.

By 1941 the category of children being killed included those who were mentally challenged, those who were deaf, half-breed children and several other genetically inferior classes of children were herded up by the state and delivered for “treatment”. Within short order their parents received notification that their child had succumbed to their deadly condition. “Ashes from cremated victims were taken from a common pile and placed in urns without regard for accurate labeling. One urn was sent to each victim’s family, along with a death certificate listing a fictive cause and date of death. The sudden death of thousands of institutionalized people, whose death certificates listed strangely similar causes and places of death, raised suspicions. Eventually, the Euthanasia Program became an open secret.”

By 1945 the “treatment” included the elderly infirm, the mentally insane, criminals, political dissidents and of course the “non-human refuse” . . . the Jews.

What does all this have to do with Georgia, USA 2012?

In March of this year while at the Georgia Capitol an amendment to House Bill 954 was written by Legislative Counsel at the request of a group of sponsoring Senators that would permit doctors to “treat” children with the following conditions to an abortion. It read accordingly:

“As used in this chapter, the term ‘medically futile pregnancy’ [italics mine] means that stage when, in the judgment of the attending physician using the standard of care appropriate for making such a determination, he or she is of the medical opinion that no heartbeat of the unborn child can be documented OR [caps mine] that the fetus is anencephalic OR [caps mine] that a diagnosis of Potter’s Syndrome OR [caps mine] a congenital OR [caps mine] chromosomal anomaly is made that is incompatible with life [italics mine].”

This exact wording did not pass, but another amendment with similar wording DID!  (In this amendment, “Medically futile” means that, in reasonable medical judgment, the unborn child has a profound and irremediable congenital or chromosomal anomaly that is incompatible with sustaining life after birth.)

When is Godwin’s Law NOT applicable according to Wikipedia? “Godwin’s law itself can be abused as a distraction, diversion or even as censorship, fallaciously miscasting an opponent’s argument as hyperbole when the comparisons made by the argument are actually appropriate.

You be the judge . . . is it hyperbole to declare that our good Republican “pro-life” Senators were in full agreement with the public policy of pre-Nazi Germany in the 1920’s? OR that the eugenic amendment which passes into law next week upon the Governor’s signature will be the a first step toward’s our own Holocaust OR will it be just a historical footnote? After all 50 million have ALREADY died from our current public policy of abortion on demand. HB 954 is the first Georgia law with a eugenic standard. Should we be concerned?

You decide.

Editor’s Note:  This article was originally published at The President’s Corner, blog of Georgia Right to Life, on April 26, 2012.  It is reprinted with permission.