Ripon College Days

In the College Days newspaper, March 29, a column appeared in the opinion section by Mr. Tim Nikolai. I disagree with him fully on his argument of abortion, and am of the complete opposite opinion as Mr. Nikolai, but I send my complaint not from my political views, but from my moral and cultural views.

I write on behalf of all Jewish students and other Jewish members on campus on Tim's grave error in his argument on comparing unborn aborted fetuses to Jewish Holocaust victims by Hitler and the Nazis. Nikolai wrote, "The rhetoric of choice leads to the second tragedy of abortion. Over 46 million abortions performed since Roe v. Wade, more then seven times the number of Jews killed by Hitler, is bad enough."

Most Jews on campus, like myself, had family members murdered by Hitler and the Nazis. We are angry and offended that our murdered family members and our fellow murdered Jewish brothers and sisters are compared to abortion. We also believe that comparing doctors and nurses who do abortions to Hitler and the Nazis is heavily inaccurate and a totally unjust comparison. Nothing can be compared to Hitler and the Nazis and what they did, even though Stalin is close, it is not equal. If Tim truly understood history and knew about what the Nazis did, in planning and killing methods, he would understand there is no comparison between the two.

[I am also concerned with] the next sentence in the second paragraph, which says, "Yet, what we often forget is that 46 million unborn babies means a similar number of women who were forced, yes forced, to choose abortion."

First of all, no one is forced to do something they don't want, and if anything the government is forcing women to not have abortions, which is just as bad. That sentence, to me, following the Hitler one, is saying that women are forced to kill their own babies, just as the Nazis forced Jews to gas chambers and pits. Just who is forcing the women? Their friends? Husbands? Parents? Media? Government? Who? Women have the right of choice, like most people have a choice (except homosexuals when it comes to their lives) on what they can do, unlike our fellow family members and Jewish brothers and sisters who weren't given a choice at all by the Nazis. It also should be noted that seven million other people were murdered in the Holocaust by the Nazis.

I hope that can clear things up and show why the College Days should be careful on what it prints in its columns, especially from an ultra-conservative Christian and a far right wing Republican. The Holocaust is a sensitive matter, even today, and it should not be put in every single argument, especially from closed-minded people on arguments of social issues like abortion.

The article as a whole was poorly defended and degrading towards women, but I can't say anything further on that issue since I'm not a woman, and I think a woman knows more about her body than a man. What I can say is that putting in context something that has nothing to do with the issue and that is highly sensitive is poor judgment. I hope that this mistake doesn't happen again, and I don't think it will. This is a nation of choice, not force, but I hope you make the right choice.

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