The Sanctity Of (Some) Human Life.

I have heard time and time again about the great canard of “the sanctity of human life”, and I began to ponder some things. Where did it come from? How did we discover it? Who had it and who didn’t have it? The answers to those questions unfortunately led me to a very disturbing place that I feel compelled to share with you.

You see, the mantra is that human life is sacred. But not all human life, some. For the “pro-lifer” the sanctity of human life seems to only matter on very specific occasions. In fact, it is almost exclusively limited to fetuses.

Their dedication to those fetuses is quite startling. Some “pro-life” extremists take their beliefs so seriously, that they come to the other side and become US born and bred terrorists. Case in point: Eric Rudolph. Rudolph certainly had no compunction about the sanctity of human life when he set off pipe bombs at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. The rational conclusion seems to be that fetuses are sacred, but random passersby at the Olympic Games are…well….not.

I began to ponder this rather strange omission of the sanctity of human life. What made Rudolph’s victims so much less sacred than human fetuses? I couldn’t find an answer to that question before I discovered this little thing that’s been going on, that some are calling THE IRAQ WAR.

You see, the United States is currently at war with this little fart of a country called Iraq that’s out there somewhere in this place called “The Middle East”. (seriously, who comes up with this stuff?) The problem seems to have started when the United States put a madman by the name of Saddam Hussein into power. The US was so happy with him that a special envoy was sent to Iraq, Donald Rumsfeld, to present Saddam with a pair a golden cowboy boots, a gift of affection from President Ronald Reagan. Reagan loved Saddam so much that he violated Congress by giving him plenty of weapons like anthrax and botulism toxins, and even helped him to build nuclear refineries.

Donald Rumsfeld, back in 1983,
when he was more chariable than he is today.

A short time later (you guessed it) the US invaded that country for having anthrax and botulism, and maybe a nuclear weapon made from those refineries.

So I began to wonder if the sanctity of human life applied to the Iraqi people as well. You never would have guessed what I found. Drum roll, please….the answer is nope. Since Saddam came into power the US has helped him to slaughter his own people. The most disturbing example was when Saddam gassed the Kurds in 1988. The suppliers of that gas? Dow Chemical. After the US decided that Saddam wore a black hat instead of a white one, we launched 2 wars against him, and put a 12 year long embargo on him. After two wars and 12 years of embargo, Saddam is still alive and well. The Iraqi People? Not so much. You see, two wars and a 12 year embargo will kill a lot of people. Figures vary, but the best estimates are that the latest war has killed at least 100,000 Iraqis. Just the embargo alone killed 2 million Iraqi adults, and 600,000 children.

The Iraqi People: Bitch-slapped by the Sanctity.

So that got me to wondering. Obviously the sanctity of life just didn’t apply to Iraqis at all. When whoever was handing out sanctity, the Iraqis must have forgot to check their e-mail. So maybe the sanctity of life only applies to Americans? Then a friend told me that we have this thing called THE DEATH PENALTY. Yikes. Talk about diversity. How could a country that values “the sanctity of human life” also have THE DEATH PENALTY? Something didn’t seem right here. Did those people somehow lose their sanctity? You would have to do something awfully bad to lose it, wouldn’t you?

As it turns out, it really helps if you did do something really bad, but you don’t HAVE to in order to receive the death penalty. In fact, in the state of Texas, all you need to get the death penalty is to have a defense lawyer who sleeps through your trial. Sounds like a crappy deal, huh? You get to sleep, I get to die. Not much of a trade off. You could at least throw in a ham and cheese sandwich.

So at this point, I was at a loss. When does the sanctity of life really apply? How do you know you have it? Who gives it to you? Can you buy some of it? I came back to the fetuses. What in the hell made them so special to have this sanctity thing, that it seems no one else has? Then it dawned on me. Maybe it was their age!

Fetuses as it turns out are very new. They’re like brand new people, except they can’t walk, talk, or barely move or think yet. It’s like that brand new car you buy that’s so new it hasn’t even been filled up with gas yet. We all know there’s nothing like a brand new car. People will be happy with their brand new car for at least a year or two. So maybe the same applies to the fetuses, at least for the first year or two.

Then my friend told me about this thing called INFANT MORTALITY RATES. Sounds pretty hairy, huh? You see, eventually these fetuses are born. That’s when they become this thing called “infants”. (I know what you’re thinking, who the hell can keep up with all this stuff?) Some of those infants live, and some of them die. The ones who die seem to be the ones that nobody seems to care enough about to make sure that they live. Infant mortality rates are a very good indicator on how well any particular society values their infants. It would seem to me that a society that is so deeply concerned with the sanctity of human life…or well…the sanctity of human fetuses anyway, would have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the whole darn world. And guess what I found out? The answer…nope.

You see, the US has a pretty high infant mortality rate. So high that we’re 36th on the list. We’re not talking about just coming in to collect the bronze, we’re talking about coming in 36th place! So what economic and moral powerhouses could have possibly beat us? Here’s some of them: Singapore, Sweden, Hong Kong, Iceland, Finland, Norway, Malta, Andorra, Macau, Slovenia, Belgium, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Portugal, Monaco, San Marino, Aruba, and Taiwan. Who ever heard of these places? Are they like some kind of fairy tale utopias?

So I started listening to these people who keep talking about “the sanctity of human life”, and see if they also really don’t like certain countries. My theory was if they really hated these countries, their infant mortality rates would make ours look REALLY GOOD. After months of careful listening, I found two countries that most of the “sanctity of human life” types seemed to really hate. In fact, I would go so far as to say they absolutely despised these two bitty nations. They hated, deep down in their guts, these two countries more than any other on earth. Those countries are none other than Cuba and France.

Gee, how bad could their infant mortality rates be? Wouldn’t it have to be so high to make you puke in absolute disgust? The answer…well…not really. You see, France and Cuba has a lower infant mortality rate than well…the US. Who would have guessed?

All this was getting very confusing. How could fetuses have so much sanctity that Iraqis, Americans, and even infants don’t have? It didn’t make any sense at all. That’s when my friend told me that fetuses actually grow inside of people.

Now this was a major breakthrough. Fetuses have to grow inside of people. So, logically, everything that grows inside us is sacred. I was so relieved that I had finally found the answer. That’s when my friend told me that no one considers cancer to be very sacred, and so I was back at square one.

What could fetuses have, that nothing else has? What made them so damn special? The answer? Fetuses grow inside CERTAIN KINDS of people called…drum roll please…women.

This had to be the answer. Finally, I had found the holy grail. Growing inside women must be what makes fetuses so sacred. But my conclusion was fatally crushed when my friend told me that the vast majority of women wanted the right to be able to get rid of their fetuses when they wanted to.

I was in shock. How could women possibly want to get rid of their own fetuses? It’s the only thing in this entire world that is sacred! This didn’t make any sense at all. But then my friend explained to me that the vast majority of the people who didn’t want women to have the right were men.

You know that sinking feeling you get in the pit of your stomach you sometimes get when you know something horrible has just happened? That’s what came over me. You see, one thing my friend didn’t have to tell me, that I already knew was that people sometimes lie to get what they want. It’s not pretty, but it happens. It seems that the entire “sanctity of life” concept was nothing more than a fraud, made up for the sole purpose for men to control women. It had nothing to do with Iraqis or Americans. Children or babies. The innocent or the guilty. It had everything to do with POWER. These men wanted the right to tell women how to live their lives, and they were so dedicated to that concept, that they were literally willing to kill people who got in their way.

These “pro-lifers” wanted to right to control not only the majority of the American population, but they wanted the absolute right to decide who will get to live and who will get to die. The sad fact is that there is NOTHING that could possibly be sacred about that.