Rabbis ask Kansas senator not to compare Holocaust, abortion

TOPEKA, Kan. – A group of rabbis wants a Kansas state senator and congressional candidate to stop comparing abortion to the Holocaust.

The Rabbinical Association of Kansas City recently sent a letter asking Leavenworth Republican Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, who is seeking the GOP nomination in Kansas’ 2nd congressional district, to stop using the Holocaust for “political purposes.”

During a debate last month in the Kansas Senate about medical research on tissues from aborted fetuses, Fitzgerald compared the research to the work of Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi doctor who conducted cruel experiments at concentration camps. And last year, he compared Planned Parenthood to the Dachau concentration camp.

“Senator, your words abuse the memory of the murdered victims of the Nazi regime by using their deaths as a political weapon in our national debate,” the letter said.

Fitzgerald told The Kansas City Star Thursday that he appreciated the rabbis sharing their opinion and would take the letter “into consideration and under advisement” but he did not promise to stop referencing Nazis and the Holocaust during abortion debates.

“I don’t think anybody should accept arbitrary limits placed upon the exercise of their freedoms,” he said.

The rabbis said in their letter that abortion and the Holocaust are different issues.

“We demand that you cease immediately making these offensive and divisive comparisons to the Holocaust for political purposes, and to find different language to discuss abortion, out of respect for the millions of victims of the Nazi Holocaust,” the letter said.

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com