"The holocaust against the unborn is the greatest sin they could ever do or even ever participate in"
About this Quote
Calling abortion a "holocaust against the unborn" is not an argument so much as a moral ambush. Norma McCorvey weaponizes the most emotionally radioactive word in modern history to collapse a complex policy fight into a single, absolutist frame: innocent victims, industrialized killing, clear perpetrators. The phrase is designed to make neutrality feel complicit. If the premise lands, then incrementalism, exceptions, and even good-faith disagreement become ethically obscene.
The intent is also autobiographical performance. McCorvey was the "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade, later becoming an anti-abortion celebrity. That pivot matters. Her public identity turned into a symbolic battleground, and language like this functions as a conversion testimony in one sentence: not just "I changed my mind", but "I have seen the evil up close". The superlative - "the greatest sin they could ever do" - pulls her audience toward a totalizing worldview where abortion is not one grave wrong among others; it is the defining stain of an era.
Subtext lurks in the pronouns. "They" creates a shadowy collective: doctors, feminists, judges, liberal elites, anyone who signed on. It invites a politics of accusation over persuasion. The religious register ("sin") shifts the debate from law and rights to purity and damnation, where compromise becomes betrayal.
Contextually, this rhetoric sits inside the late-20th-century culture-war strategy of adopting Holocaust imagery to heighten moral urgency and media attention. It works because it shocks, but it also courts backlash by flattening historical specificity and turning trauma into a metaphorical cudgel.
The intent is also autobiographical performance. McCorvey was the "Jane Roe" of Roe v. Wade, later becoming an anti-abortion celebrity. That pivot matters. Her public identity turned into a symbolic battleground, and language like this functions as a conversion testimony in one sentence: not just "I changed my mind", but "I have seen the evil up close". The superlative - "the greatest sin they could ever do" - pulls her audience toward a totalizing worldview where abortion is not one grave wrong among others; it is the defining stain of an era.
Subtext lurks in the pronouns. "They" creates a shadowy collective: doctors, feminists, judges, liberal elites, anyone who signed on. It invites a politics of accusation over persuasion. The religious register ("sin") shifts the debate from law and rights to purity and damnation, where compromise becomes betrayal.
Contextually, this rhetoric sits inside the late-20th-century culture-war strategy of adopting Holocaust imagery to heighten moral urgency and media attention. It works because it shocks, but it also courts backlash by flattening historical specificity and turning trauma into a metaphorical cudgel.
Quote Details
| Topic | Ethics & Morality |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by Norma
Add to List
