About
“The Nazis based their justification for direct medical killing on the simple concept of “life unworthy of life”. While the Nazis did not originate this concept, they carried it to its ultimate biological, racial, and “therapeutic” extreme.”
An ANTITHESIS
In the days and months leading up to WWII, the Nazis had a concept they adopted that helped them justify their belief that certain people were not worthy to be allowed to live; it was called, “life unworthy of life.” The idea of “life unworthy of life” comes from a nondescript little book with the chilling title; Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens, or “Allowing the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life: Its Measure and Form,” by professors Karl Binding and Alfred Hoche. The ideas Binding and Hoche presented, along with ideas taken from the eugenics movement in America, led to the sterilization of German citizens, the killing of impaired children and adults, and eventually the Jewish Holocaust. There is great truth to the phrase “ideas have consequences.” I chose the title Life Worthy of Life for this blog as the antithesis of the phrase used by the Nazis.
this blog’s purpose
I started this blog in 2021 with the purpose of educating the public about the history of abortion and how its ideas are historically linked to Nazi Germany and to the eugenics movement in America. Now, in 2024, I would like to broaden the amount of topics that I write about to include celebrating “life worthy of life” in general while still exposing the evils when life is devalued.
(Since deciding to expand my topics, I thought of changing the background picture from the haunting picture of an empty Auschwitz to something not so dark, but I’ve decided to leave it for now. It’s a good, but muted reminder that ideas have consequences.)
So welcome to Life Worthy of Life! I hope you read something good.