Personhood

Scattered around the state governments of our nation, we find laws and constitutional amendments declaring the personhood of fetuses.  To judge from the behavior of some of the sponsors of these bills, life begins at conception and ends at birth.  These personhood bills are presented against the background of an era in which so many are loath to give any assistance to people, very much alive, who are suffering lives in poverty.

I have stated before, in my blog about the second amendment, that society often sees fit to find exceptions to all of our laws and freedoms.  To the commandment "Thou shalt not kill," we make the exception of war, to which we sacrifice so many of our own children.

In our era, we celebrate as inspirational stories of athletes performing miraculous feats on miraculously fashioned artificial limbs.  Such celebration is a way for us to shift our vision away from the fact that a generation of our young has been blown apart and maimed, not by terrorism, but by the stupid response of our leaders to terrorism.

To the people who find that society must make exceptions to its own cherished beliefs, the power of individuals to make their own choices in regard to their own unborn children is to be denied.

Yes, the same people who would send our beloved, fully alive, children into the meat grinder of war, are ostentatiously, sanctimoniously concerned with the suffering of a being who, though barely conscious of being alive, is subjected to the instantaneous action of a morning after pill, or to an abortion.

When these people start recognizing the sanctity of life outside the womb, I will be more ready to discuss the sanctity of life before birth.

I once heard a professor explain the concept of "standing."  He said that, in time of war, the society chooses, for possible sacrifice, those with the lowest standing, that is, young men without wives or families.  Is there anyone in society with less standing than an unwanted embryo?