The word “genocide” is being thrown about quite a bit these days, with few people, if any, genuinely understanding or defining the meaning of the term. To be clear, the term signifies the mass killing of a particular group of people, most often based on their ethnicity or nationality. However, the term is also used when a specific group of people is singled out for extermination by another group that engages in active killing.
The term is taken from “geno” (Greek) or “gens” (Latin), which can mean race, kind, tribe, or clan (as in the word genetics), and “cide” (Latin), which means to kill or cut down (as in pesticide and homicide). Examples of genocide that illustrate the meaning are the Holocaust during World War II, when the Third Reich singled out Jews and other “undesirables” for extermination, and the Rwandan Genocide in 1994, when Hutu tribe members engaged in the mass killing of Tutsi tribe members and Hutus who were sympathetic to the Tutsi.
Using the broader definition of genocide to mean the singling out of a particular group of persons for extermination, you will find it hard to identify a more glaring example of genocide than abortion. In the United States, over 63 million preborn babies have had their lives terminated since Roe v. Wade in 1973 (and the Dobbs decision only stemmed the tide in select states).
The Guttmacher Institute, a pro-abortion organization that compiles data regarding abortion, further claims that 73 million babies are killed by abortion worldwide every year.
There is currently an ongoing genocide of preborn children, children deemed by many people in “modern” (read: regressive) societies as not worthy of living for the almost sole reason that their lives are “unwanted” by another group of persons.
Every abortion is a tragedy, but the level of mass abortion that happens in the United States is a genocide. Only a tiny percentage of abortions are obtained because of health risks to the mothers. The vast majority of abortions are obtained because the mothers or fathers of the babies simply do not want them. Having a baby is “inconvenient,” troublesome, or embarrassing to the mothers, or the father does not want to be burdened with the responsibility of raising (or paying for raising) a child, so he threatens or pressures the mother into getting an abortion. Yes, it is true: as much as women talk about abortion as if it is a question of women’s rights or women’s choices, it is both men and women who are advancing this genocide, and in many cases, men are forcing women to abort.
Ironically, those who seem obsessed with calling others murderers or perpetrators of genocide today for political purposes ignore the genocide occurring in their neighborhoods. Why should some lives be valuable but others not? If everyone can agree that genocide is wrong, then we have to believe it is wrong in an absolute sense, not just in selective cases.
Pro-life groups have been protesting the genocide of the preborn for over 50 years. While these protests are not based on the color, creed, or economic status of the victims, those factors are not irrelevant when it comes to discussing abortion. Because, if anything, it is abundantly clear that the babies most victimized by abortion belong to ethnic minorities and people with low incomes. It is ethnic cleansing at its most depraved, a “right” that is explicitly advanced to victimize those who are the most vulnerable and unable to help themselves with respect to both the babies and their parents. It consigns these groups to a culture of self-destruction. Where are all the people asking for “equity” when it comes to abortion?
At ProLife Doc, we believe all people are entitled to life from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death. We – none of us – possess the right to determine who ought to live or who ought to die.
As an obstetrician and gynecologist, I pledged an oath in Latin; “Primum Non Nocere”, First Do No Harm, to promote and preserve life to any person in my care, born or pre-born. When a pregnant woman enters my clinic to obtain obstetrical care, would it be okay for me to prescribe the mother a drug without considering its effect on her baby? Of course not. If I prescribed a medication to her that I knew would kill her baby, I would be sued and possibly be arrested, and rightly so. I would lose my license to practice medicine if I did not bother to investigate the drug’s effect on her baby. Both she and her baby are my patients, and my duty is to both of them.
But if she asks for that drug, is it suddenly okay for me to do it? The only difference is that the mother wants her baby in one case, and in the other, she doesn’t.
In homicide cases, the perpetrator’s state of mind is the difference between manslaughter, second-degree murder, and first-degree murder. As you can guess, killing someone unintentionally or by accident (manslaughter) is a lesser crime than killing someone intentionally and planning it (first-degree). Yet the exact opposite is true when it comes to abortion. With abortion, wanting to kill a baby in the womb is what makes it legal. It is a complete distortion and reversal of every moral principle on which our laws and beliefs are based when it comes to the idea of “genocide.”
All lives are valuable, all life is good. Every life is a gift from God. If you would like to learn more about my ministry or donate to it, or if you would like to subscribe to my newsletter and stay up-to-date on my latest speeches or projects, contact ProLife Doc.
