Perhaps it is our cultural lack of attention span, but for once I'd like each issue to be discussed from multiple viewpoints by intelligent and erudite proponents, where the common ground is sought, with logic, reason, and our experience learned from history used to dissect each issue into its relevant parts. But no, we let the issues be manipulated by powerful media execs with financial ties to special interest groups like the Oil industry and other so-called consultant/ lobbyists who are pimping their agenda to give them the most revenue and thus, control of the dialogue. But I'd like to learn about each issue more clearly. Let me exemplify:
Issue 1: Abortion
Most folks agree that abortion is a form of killing, and the majority of us oppose abortion on principle (including true spiritual people who don't necessarily need the 10 Commandments to tell them "Thall Shall Not Kill." When a Christian opposes abortion, how can they then support war or capital punishment? After all, killing is killing, whether it's murder, suicide, manslaughter, or casualties. This is a pseudo-schizophrenic view that is clearly hypocritical. So the arguments for specific forms or conditions of killing are introduced in our language and the emotional buttons these words push.
Instead of debating when a fetus becomes life, let us recognize the ideal of non-violence to all life, from rats to cats, cattle and bats, to birds, deer, bears and us regular law-abiding folks. What about the wheat, carrots, and corn? Either all life is sacred, or it's not, but drawing a line somewhere is subjective, and few people have ‘objective subjectivity’ that is going to be fair to everyone. By being subjective, these choices are open to interpretation. Perhaps we should exclude the anti-killing law from serial killers, lawyers and politicians, but then start to qualify specific life and the value of it. There is the argument that we might abort the next Einstein, but history shows us that’s not the case. While the Wright Brothers get credit for the airplane, there was also Santos Dumon of Brazil who invented one at the same time. Then, there was Marconi and Tesla who co-invented the wireless radio, and Salk and Sabin created the Polio vaccine, so it is likely that these breakthroughs, “if not Einstein, then Goldberg” (or whomever). Ultimately, there may be no absolute truth about killing. Even in the Bible, it should be updated to say "Thou shall not kill, unless someone is trying to kill you first, in which case, you may defend yourself by killing your assailant". But let's get real.
In the world, human life is mostly treated cheaply - from the exploitation of the poor and uneducated, to soldiers forced to fight for “their country” because they accept the rationalization (or doublespeak) by their national political leadership’s agenda (Imperialism? Retribution? WMD’s? Al Qaeda? Which one is it again?) Then there is the perversion of religion by extremists who justify their actions using God as their excuse. The God I believe in may not look or sound like your God, whether it's Jesus, Allah, Elvis, Santa Claus, or Kal-El (Superman), but I can tell you, God has created life as a death sentence, and it's up to us to chose NOT to Kill one another and let God (or DNA) set your expiration date. If you believe the Bible, I thought Jesus died for our sins so we could live like him, forgiving everyone for their sins, whether it was Mary’s harlotry or Judas betrayal. All this culturo-religious violence should be over by now. Look what Gandhi accomplished through non-violence - the Brits left India (*hint* Iraqi’s - try this tactic)! Humans kill one another for power, lust, hate, greed, mental illness or psycho-spiritual dysfunction, so if you agree that abortion as killing, then accept humanity is damn good at it. And we allow murder in certain cases of self-defense, crimes of passion (which are treated as temporary insanity), or, if you are black, famous and wealthy and play the race card (remember OJ? ..Murderer..), murder is tolerated.
For an unborn fetus, several factors contribute to deciding whether to keep the child or not. It seems if a child is to be born into a poor crack house, his chances for survival are pretty low anyway, so perhaps by terminating a pregnancy, we are in fact saving the life of the mother. In cases of rape, I imagine the mother not wanting the child of some dubious and unwanted sperm donor. It boils down to the lesser of two evils. If our social system would pay for the pregnancy through term to adoption, then perhaps some of these cases could be avoided, but in our current social crisis, there may always be SOME reason in which abortion is justified, just as we justify occupying Iraq killing thousands of innocent persons in our vain attempt to stop ‘terror’.
In every situation where we make rules, there are ALWAYS exceptions which have to be handled in violation of the given rule, whatever it is. Complex issues are never black and white, and it's unfair to force our citizenry into this "code of divisiveness" that is so pervasive in our thinking today. God (or Moses) should have included that commandment "Thou Shalt be Fair." I will be making other examples of complex issues whcih should be considered from multiple perspectives, with the underlying theme of maintaining our American Freedom, which was earned through colonial insurgents killing many British and French people, not to mention the patricide against the indigenous Americans.
If we're not careful, we'll forsake our reason for our emotion, and our science for religion - in other words, we'll lose our objectivity to subjectivity, and when that happens, then there will be even more problems that we have today. We need look no further than Iraq to see what happens when humans give away their mind to religious nonsense instead of dedicating their life to God's common ground: Don't kill innocent life, unless their are extenuating circumstances, and those circumstances are.....
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