For the past couple of months, I’ve tried to take Kevin Drum’s advice and not freak out every time a Republican uses Nazis as a historical reference. Jon Chait explained the trick of it:
[W]hen Nazis are invoked, it’s often not to make a moral comparison but to establish a logical principle. That’s the main mistake made by those who decry Nazi allusions. They ignore, or fail to grasp, the distinction between comparing someone to Hitler and using a historical analogy that draws on the Nazi era.
Fair enough. But when James Dobson compared stem-cell research to Nazi experimentation on human beings, it wasn’t just a historical analogy; he was arguing that the two are moral equivalents. He didn’t literally accuse advocates of the research of being Nazis; instead he suggested that we share the Nazis’ moral underpinnings.
“You know, the thing that means so much to me here on this this issue [embryonic stem cell research] is that people talk about the potential for good that can come from destroying these little embryos and how we might be able to solve the problem of juvenile diabetes. There’s no indication yet that they’re gonna do that, but people say that, or spinal cord injuries or such things. But I have to ask this question: In World War II, the Nazis experimented on human beings in horrible ways in the concentration camps, and I imagine, if you wanted to take the time to read about it, there would have been some discoveries there that benefited mankind.”
Oddly enough, it didn’t go over well.
Critics demanded an apology today from James Dobson after the founder of the Christian ministry Focus on the Family compared the ethics of embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experiments on Holocaust victims. […]
“There is no legitimate comparison between stem-cell research, which seeks to find a cure for disease and to counter human suffering, and the perversion of science and morality represented by the actions of Nazi doctors who deliberately tortured their victims in medical ‘experiments,'” [Anti-Defamation League] national director Abraham H. Foxman said. […]
“James Dobson’s remarks were extremely ignorant and insulting,” Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., said in a written statement. “While it’s sad that they warrant a response, his comments diminish the enormity of the Nazis’ atrocities and are an appalling distortion of the debate.”
Yesterday, Dobson started doing some damage control. It wasn’t very effective.
A statement to Focus on the Family members said:
Dobson countered that his statement was being “spun like a top by those who don’t care about unborn life.” […]
He said the original comment — “Experimentation on the blastocytes, which are fertilized eggs, has a Nazi-esque aura to it” — was being taken out of context by those who support embryonic stem-cell research.
Read the transcript; that’s not even close to what he said. Dobson told his national radio audience that Nazis experimented on people which could have produced “some discoveries…that benefited mankind.” In context, his argument was that proponents of stem-cell research have the exact same goal in mind, and in Dobson’s mind we’re equally deserving of condemnation.
“And you remove ethics and morality, and you get what happened in Nazi Germany. That’s why to Senator Frist and the others who are saying, ‘Look what may be accomplished.'”
A “Nazi-esque aura”? That’s a transparent lie. He said the two were one in the same.
I may just be some secular leftist, but it seems to me there’s some kind of Commandment against bearing false witness, right Dr. Dobson?