From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Fetal tissue research, Nathanson, etc.
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 1992 23:47:03 GMT

In article <BrIpKH.1AE@news.cso.uiuc.edu> slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer) writes:
>chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>
>>slkg9733@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Steven L. Kellmeyer) writes:
>>> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>
>
>>Read 'em and bleep, Kellmeyer.
>
>>The following are excerpts from the book, "Mothers in the Fatherland" by Claudia
>>Koonz, Ph.D. and professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, 
>>Worchester, Mass.  Ms. Koonz shows that the Third Reich was very much anti-
>>abortion regarding BlondeBlueEyedChermanFrauen.
>
>>	In the 1930's many Europeans shared a panic about declining birthrates,
>>	the decaying family, and economic crisis.  The French awarded medals to
>>	prolific mothers.  British legislators debated family subsidies and
>>	provided income tax relief for families with many children.  Mussolini
>>	declared a "battle of the birthrate."  Stalin sharply curtailed the
>>	rights granted to women during the 1920's.  Everywhere politicians
>>	decreed harsher sanctions against birth control and abortion, and in
>>	many nations eugenics enjoyed considerable popularity.  The Nazi
>>	revival of motherhood, like other aspects of Nazi social policy,
>>	carried to grotesque extremes plans that other nations advanced only
>>	timidly.  The thoroughness of Nazi policy followed from Nazi leaders'
>>	frankly misogynistic view of women.
>>	
>
>Accurate, in re the birth rate worries, but hardly relevant.
>
>>	...
>
>> 	Although the combatants [Catholics and Nazis] were unevenly matched
>>	in the sterilization controversy, they agreed on one issue:  The
>>	individual ought not be entrusted with the right to make decisions
>>	related to his or her reproductive potential.  Catholic women
>>	disclaimed women's rights to limit pregnancy except by abstinence;
>>	Nazi women extolled motherhood as their highest goal in life, while
>>	denying to thousands of "undesirable" women the chance of ever
>>	marrying and bearing children.  Neither group of women believed they
>>	had the right to control their bodies.  According to Catholic dogma,
>>	no individual could interrupt a pregnancy for any reason without
>>	disobeying God's will because every human life was equal in the
>>	divine order.  Nazi doctrine, founded on the distinction between
>>	"worthy" and "unworthy" life, enforced selective breeding by
>>	increasing penalties for abortions and prohibiting birth control.
>>	Both doctrines took decision making away from the individual.
>
>Dr. Koonz is incorrect.  Penalties for abortion were not "increased".
>Note that she fails to provide examples of what the law was before the Nazis
>came to power, and how it changed afterwards.  It takes very little research
>to discover that Imperial Germany had outlawed abortion in 1870, mandating
>a year's prison term for the woman, and a similar stretch for the 
>abortionist.  That law was relaxed via the "eugenic courts" instituted in
>1934.  She omits this fact.

"Eugenics". Think about that word, Kellmeyer. Maybe it's important to your
research. Could it possibly be that the Nazis were ANTI-abortion for 
"desirable" races and PRO-abortion for "undesirable" ones? Could it be that
they weren't "pro-choice" at all, since they, i.e. as a totalitarian regime,
wanted to control the reproduction of their citizens, instead of entrusting
those decisions to the citizens themselves?

Does your research address this compellingly OBVIOUS interpretation of 
history? Or do you, as I suspect, suffer from a intellectual blind spot in 
this regard?

								- Kevin