By Dylan O'Sullivan-
A high-profile Democratic Unionist and former Stormont health minister has compared the abortion regime in Great Britain to the Holocaust.
Jim Wells comparison of the numbers murdered by the Nazis in concentration camps to the number of terminations since abortion laws were relaxed in England, Scotland and Wales will offend many women who will find Well’s comments ridiculous. The Democratic Unionist’s views will resonate with anti-abortion campaigners who feel the sanctity of life deserves all the legal protection it can get. Mothers in favour of abortion want the freedom to decide what happens to their bodies, and whether legislation should have the right to intervene in what they consider a personal matter. Last month, the Irish Republic voted marginally to liberalise the state’s laws.
The British Government has resisted calls to intervene in legislation, given the ongoing power sharing impasse in Northern Ireland, insisting that any decision on abortion in the region has to be taken by locally elected politicians at Stormon.
Outspoken and anti-abortion campaigner, Jim Wells made his far reaching comments amid growing calls for reform of the law in Northern Ireland, where terminations are banned in all but extreme circumstances. Mr Wells comments came during a radio debate on BBC Radio Ulster’s Nolan Show, after radio Host, Stephen Nolan a commentator asked whether the DUP former health minister was comparing abortion to the horrific historical killings of the Nazis. The comparison is awful and demonstrates bad taste and terrible judgement by the former health minister.
Host Stephen Nolan asked Mr Wells if it was fair comparison to draw with the Nazis.
“I think the numbers are a fair comparison because these human beings have been killed,” the South Down MLA said.
“I said yes in the sense that the number of human beings who have been killed in the rest of the UK far exceed the ghastly concentration camps of Germany.”
“These are human beings, they are people who have been killed in the womb. I don’t support the killing of any human being and abortion has got completely out of control in the United Kingdom.
“200,000 human beings are killed each year. I believe the child in the womb is a person, a person who’s got rights and a person who is given no choice when the decision is made to terminate their lives.”
“98.8% of these people are healthy normal babies.”
Later in the programme Jim Wells was at pains to stress that he didn’t believe women who had abortions were like Nazis but that the number of lives lost was comparable. He called it a “staggering loss of life”.
Mr Wells, a recent looser of the DUP whip after criticising the leadership, went on to say: “9.2 million people have had their lives terminated through abortion in Britain since 1967.
“That is actually more than the number of lives murdered in the gas and concentration camps of Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
“It is a ghastly situation – we are killing human beings. These are sentient human beings who have every right to life, who have every right to be protected.”
The politician later clarified that his comparison to the Nazis was only related to the “numbers” involved.
“I think the numbers are a fair comparison because these human beings have been killed,” he said.
Jim Wells is entitled to the view that abortion should be illegal, but his comparison of abortion to the Nazi’s is pathetic and quite frankly idiotic. The suggestion that women who have abortions are comparable with the regrettable massacre of six million jews is crazy. Hitler’s order for the killing of jews was based on his deluded view that Germans were the superior race. Women who have abortions do so either because they cannot afford to look after a child they did not plan for, either because they were drunk during sex, raped, or simply are not financially prepared to look after a child when they are not financially secure themselves. Many women who have abortions need counselling after the experience and wish they had never been pregnant in the first place. It is not a decision they take out of pleasure.