Catholic League connects ideology supporting Terri's death with Nazism

New York, Mar. 29, 2005 (CNA) - While Terri Schiavo struggles in her last days of life in a Florida hospice, some commentators in the press have already declared the 41-year-old woman dead. This is “obscene,” said Catholic League president William Donohue, likening the ideology that is supporting Schiavo’s death to Nazism.

Donohue pointed out that James Kutkowski, Jordan Ross and Jim Seeber of the University of Mississippi, Oklahoma State University and Northern State University, respectively have each stated that Schiavo is “already dead.”

In particular, the president of the New York-based Catholic League focused on Christopher Hitchens, “a man whose comments are so obscene as to forever discredit him as a human-rights advocate for any cause.”

Donohue recounted how, on the MSNBC-TV show “Hardball” last week, Hitchens told him: “Mrs. Schiavo is dead and has been for some time.” Hitchens also described Schiavo as “nonlife” and wrote of her this week in the press as the “late and long-dead Terri Schiavo.”

Likening Hitchens’ position to those expressed during racist regimes in history, Donohue stated in a press release: “History has taught that deadly consequences follow when one segment of the human population declares another segment of the human population to be less than human.

“At various times in history, American Indians, Jews, African Americans, Asians, the unborn and infants have been classified as subhuman,” he said.

These people were dehumanized with terms like ‘parasites,’ ‘lower animals,’ ‘primitive animals,’ ‘inferior race,’ ‘inferior class of beings,’ ‘untamable, carnivorous animals,’ ‘beasts of burden,’ ‘sicklers,’ ‘transit material,’ ‘raw material,’ ‘anthropological specimens,’ ‘article of property,’ ‘rubbish,’ ‘garbage,’ ‘refuse’ and ‘nonpersons.’

“To this, Hitchens adds ‘nonlife,’” said Donohue.

Donohue then made a particular link between Hitchens’ position and Nazism: “Albert Speer, one of Hitler’s henchmen, once explained how it was possible for him to kill so many Jews. He emphatically denied hating Jews, saying only that ‘I simply depersonalized them.’ Get it Hitchens?”