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These are the same "economic burden" arguments often offered to justify abortion and the same notions of "uncleanness" imputed to babies conceived in rape and thereby rendered "unwanted." But will killing a baby conceived in rape somehow "unrape" its mother? Will the baby' s death miraculously heal her injury? Will killing this child cause her to forget the horror of her assault? Or will all the guilt and pain and injury of the rape simply be compounded by the guilt and pain and injury of the abortion? If it' s wrong for Jordanians to kill an innocent mother, how can it be right for Americans to kill her equally blameless baby; a baby whose life is being taken for all the same vacuous reasons? Shouldn' t we love them both? The prospective adoptive parents who are desperate to take this child into their family certainly would.

HOMOSEXUAL PERSECUTION AS GENOCIDE

The definition of genocide is also evolving to include new forms of persecution against gays and lesbians. Homosexuals were specially targeted by the Nazis and continue to be victimized by hate violence. But the homosexual advocacy group Act Up (www.actupny.org) now says inadequate appropriations for "AIDS prevention" is genocide. To dramatize the organization' s demands for increased funding of AIDS research, U.S. News and World Report, June, 15, 1998, says the group recently transported the emaciated body of its deceased leader to Washington, D.C. and paraded his open casket (not mere photos) around the White House.

ANIMAL RIGHTS ADVOCATES ARGUE FORM AND FUNCTION

Efforts are also well along to expand the definition of genocide to include even the extermination of animals. The Associated Press reported Sunday, June 27th, 1999, that Harvard University School of Law will join law schools at The University of California, San Francisco and Northwestern University in teaching "animal rights" law. The article contains an interview with Harvard law professor Stephen Wise:

But over the last 50 years, science has shown that some animals -- chimps in particular -- have extraordinary mental capacities beyond what the ancient Greeks, Romans and Hebrews ever imagined, said Wise, whose forthcoming book is called Rattling the Cage: Toward Legal Rights for Animals. If they have a human-like intelligence, Wise said, shouldn' t that entitle them to human-type rights? While the concept may sound far-fetched, it wasn' t too long ago that women and blacks were denied rights because they were considered, to some degree, less than human, he said.

Racists compare African Americans with apes to justify the denial of rights to blacks and animal rights activists compare apes with humans to justify the granting of rights to monkeys. These are classic form and function arguments advanced to redefine personhood, the former more exclusively and the latter more inclusively.

THE UNITED NATIONS GENOCIDE TREATY

Following the World War II war crimes trials at Nuremberg, the member states of the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, more commonly known as the 1948 Genocide Treaty or "The Genocide Treaty." Article 2, paragraph (d) outlaws "Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group." The prohibition arguably condemns as genocide, coerced abortion and is assumed primarily to protect the interests of mothers of wanted unborn children and only secondarily the interests of their unborn children, if at all. We urge that the treaty also be applied to protect unwanted unborn children from the genocide of abortions their mothers "choose." Abortion is no more "chosen" by the baby who is its victim than extermination was chosen by any Jew involved in the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem."