SALZBURG, Dec 11, 2000 (LSN.ca) - The auxiliary bishop of Salzburg Andreas Laun was quoted in an Austrian news magazine speaking about the country’s law permitting abortion. “The abortion law has a common denominator with the spirit of the Nazis and of communism: We may kill,” said Bishop Laun in an interview with the Austrian magazine News. (http://www.news.at/magazin/) Speaking about the law which allows women to abort “severely disabled” babies up to the ninth month of pregnancy he said that “Hitler would have been pleased” with it.
Referring to Dr. Heinrich Gross, an ex-Nazi physician charged with murder this year for killing disabled babies and children in West Vienna during the Nazi era, Laun added, “Dr. Gross as a Nazi doctor killed disabled children—only four weeks later than we do. Must Dr. Gross go to prison just because he was too late? We do it too. That’s pure hypocrisy.” Laun also said that the Austrian law “belonged in the animal realm,” concluding, “If my dog has a serious accident, I will ask the vet to put him to sleep—but not with human beings.” (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 12/5 as quoted in Kaiser).