Republican Illinois governor candidate Darren Bailey was denounced for saying that the Holocaust “doesn’t even compare” to abortion.
The statement was made in a video the candidate posted to Facebook in 2017 in which he described abortion as “one of the greatest atrocities probably forever,” CBS News reported.
Bailey, who is an Illinois state senator, cited the Bible in the video to back up his beliefs. The video was posted when he was running for an Illinois House seat in 2017.
"I believe that abortion is one of the greatest atrocities of our day, and I believe it's one of the greatest atrocities probably forever. The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn't even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion since its legalization," Bailey said in the video.
Bailey’s comments were blasted by the Midwest chapter of the ADL.
“The Holocaust and abortion are not the same. These types of comments have no place in public discourse. They are deeply offensive and do an incredible disservice to the millions of Jews and other innocent victims killed by the Nazis,” ADL Midwest tweeted.
Bailey’s opponent in the November election, incumbent Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, who is Jewish, condemned the video as antisemitic.
"Conflating a woman's bodily autonomy to the systematic mass murder of Jewish people is antisemitic and disqualifying,” Eliza Glezer. a spokesperson for the Pritzker campaign, told the news outlet. “Darren Bailey's disgusting assertion that a woman determining her own reproductive future is worse than the Nazis' genocide of 6 million Jews is offensive to Illinoisans everywhere.”