GOP efforts to ban abortion, limit LGBTQ equality, mirror Nazi Germany

“The Republican Party must continue to uphold the principle that every human being, born and unborn, young and old, healthy and disabled, has a fundamental, individual right to life.” — Republican National Committee for Life

Republican leaders announced recently that among the primary and immediate items on their legislative agenda once Donald Trump takes office is cutting funding for Planned Parenthood. While these health care clinics do not currently receive direct federal funding, they do collect approximately $500 million in federal funds from payments and grants, which makes up about 40 percent of the organization’s yearly budget.

Though an estimated 2.5 million people throughout the country access Planned Parenthood each year for annual health checkups, screenings for diseases, and contraceptives, Republicans have attempted to defund Planned Parenthood in the past only to face a veto from President Obama.

With Trump soon to take over the Oval office, many Republicans look forward to additional ultra-conservative judges sitting on the Supreme Court to reverse still simmering contested topics such the legalization of abortion, equal pay for equal work, marriage equality, transgender people’s access to public facilities, LGBT military inclusion, so-called “religious freedom restoration” laws, and many others.

In my continuing quest to understand and make meaning of current political, economic, and social realities, I constantly glance back into historical eras looking for similarities and parallels from which I can draw conclusions and possibly learn from past mistakes we as humans have made. While each era unquestionably poses unique conditions and challenges in many respects, I believe history has enumerable lessons to teach if we are willing to learn.

Though I rarely offer comparisons between events transpiring before and during the ascension to power of the German Third Reich with resemblances to contemporary United States – since to do so could result in trivializing one of the most horrific episodes in human history – nonetheless, I am haunted by certain parallels that demand voicing.

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Source: GOP efforts to ban abortion, limit LGBTQ equality, mirror Nazi Germany