Ethicist Fuddles The Differences Between Genocide & Infanticide

During a lecture titled “Ethics In The Age Of Terror & Genocide”, an astute member of the audience observed during the question and answer portion of the presentation how many Americans recoil in outrage at the concept of genocide but are morally comfortable with abortion.

It was interesting to hear the lecturer wiggle herself out of the conundrum by invoking the technicality that genocide is the killing of people because they are members of a particular group while abortion does not necessarily target the victim for extermination for that particular reason.

That is, of course, unless you are a confirmed Sangerian.

According to the logic elaborated in the response, it is only wrong to eliminate groups and not necessarily individuals.

The propagandist proceeded to elaborate a number of criteria separating abortion from genocide.

Among these were the rights of the woman and how the unborn child is not a human life that can exist on its own.

But how are these appreciably different than the justifications invoked by the Nazis such as living space for the German people and that the inhabitants of these targeted areas weren't really humans capable of surviving on their own either by the standards of that particular regime?

By Frederick Meekins