Editor, Gazette-Journal:

While abortion is not a hot topic right now, a bumper sticker I read today compelled me to write this letter. The sticker, which stated "Blacks Didn’t Choose Slavery, Jews Didn’t Choose Genocide, Babies Don’t Choose Abortion," is truly a perfect example of another ridiculous argument from the pro-life movement. While I certainly understand that unborn babies have no input in the decisions affecting their future, that is where the so-called facts on this bumper sticker end.

First, let’s examine the notion that "blacks didn’t choose slavery." Yes, blacks did not own or captain the ships which brought African slaves to the United States. At the same time, the late John Hope Franklin, the noted African-American historian, wrote that, in New Orleans, for example, more than 3,000 free blacks owned slaves, or 28 percent of the free black population in that city. And while the majority of slaveholders (white or black) owned an average of only 1-5 slaves, records show that some free blacks owned more than 100 slaves.

As far as the statement "Jews didn’t choose genocide" is concerned, history proves otherwise. Arthur Pisk commanded the Jewish Ghetto Police, whose cruelty was reported to be, at times, worse than the Germans. Fritz Scherwitz, a Nazi SS commander, was the head of the Lenta-Kaiserwald concentration camp. Aside from those two examples, historians estimate that tens of thousands of Jews were high ranking officers in the Third Reich.

Now I am obviously not supporting the Holocaust or practice of slavery. Quite the opposite. And no, blacks were not plantation owners and Jews were not the architects of Nazi Germany. However, to compare the issues of slavery and the Hol-
ocaust with abortion shows the complete absurdity in the foundation of the pro-life movement.

Mark Hall

Port Haywood, Va.