“The Fine Print”, by Michael Schrader

AMERICA: THE LAND OF THE LOST INNOCENTS

(Written 05 August 1998. Published in the Neighborhood Journal. Posted 08 July 2009.)

Recently, in St. Petersburg, Russia, an 80 year old wound in the Russian "being" was allowed to heal with the burial of the remains of the last Russian Czar, Nicholas II, his wife, children, and servants. It was 80 years ago that the royal family was brought into a basement of a house in a small town in central Russia and brutally shot at point-blank range by the Bolsheviks. To ensure that they really were dead, the bodies were doused in acid and thrown down a mine shaft. Reading an account of the murders, what is really frightening is how nonchalant the assassins were about the whole thing-- clinical would be the best description. These hired guns felt absolutely no remorse about killing children; it was, after all, a job, and if they wouldn't do it, someone else would. Hey, even killers have to eat.

Jump ahead twenty years. A thousand miles to the west, the Germans have established their dominance over most of Europe. Not wanting to plunge the world into war, the western nations sit idly by as a madman named Adolph Hitler systematically slaughters 6 million innocent men, women, and children for the crime of not having the right parentage. The Germans are as ruthlessly efficient, unemotional, and clinical as their enemies the Bolsheviks were twenty years before.

Fast forward another forty years. Pol Pot, the leader of Cambodia, embarks on a program to "re-educate" his own people. By the time Pol Pot is finished, one-fifth of the population of Cambodia, young and old, male and female, have been exterminated.

An ocean away, the people of the United States condemn these acts of genocide. Yet, at the same time, the American people turn a blind eye when millions of innocent Americans are killed each year. What makes this slaughter even more heinous is that the practitioners do not feel any grief for the lives they have taken. It is very clinical. After all, it is their job.

Why is it that we get outraged when some madman kills innocent children, but we do not when it is a doctor performing an abortion? No matter what anyone else tells you, abortion is murder. It is as cold-blooded and calculated as any shooting by any deranged gunman. But yet it is okay, because that life did not travel a couple of inches.

Think about it. In our country, a couple of inches makes the difference in whether you are deemed worthy of living. If you are in the womb, you can be killed, but seconds later, when you are out of the womb, you cannot be. Does some dramatic change happen when we are born?

Of course not. We merely change locales. We are human from the moment we are conceived, and we have the DNA to prove it. I don't know about you, but I believe that God creates life, for whatever purpose He has in mind, and only God should take it away. Who are we, as mere mortals, to second-guess God's intentions for bringing life into this world?

Congressman Snyder, however, believes that he should be able to. He has consistently voted against a ban on partial-birth abortions, a very heinous procedure that involves sucking out the brains of a baby. I cannot understand why a doctor, who is supposed to preserve life at all costs, supports the termination of life. To me, that seems just a tad bit contradictory, but then we each must go by our own code of ethics and morals. "Let your conscience be your guide", as a famous cricket once said.

We need to let the Congressman know what we think about our national shame. The best place to do this is at the ballot box in November. Let's not have our place in history be next to Nazi Germany, Pol Pot's Cambodia, or Bolshevik Russia. Our inaction may result in our demise, too.

Back to “The Fine Print” Index