Alison Croggon wrote:

>What I have never been able to understand is why so many of these people who
>militantly embrace the sacredness of Life et al are so keen to bomb people
>who disagree with them. I just don't get these kinds of irrationalities,
>which go beyond normal human contradictions. I don't understand how people
>can say one thing with such conviction and commitment and then act in ways
>which make that commitment meaningless. My limitation, no doubt. It's not
>even the hypocrisy that gets me; it's the irrationality.
>
>
I have to break silence for a moment. I am one of those "sacredness of
life" people you seem to find both irrational and inconsistent. I was
brought to my present position over a long period beginning in 1998.
The breaking point was in reading of a Dutch law which, I believe,
allows severely damaged babies to be put to death. Oh, we can say
'starved' or something like that, but one human being is making the
choice to execute another who is defenseless. I would rather not extend
the concept of life to include the womb since I don't have one of those,
but there's the corner, here's the paint and brush, and I might as well
damn well stand there and start painting, right?

Now, odd though it may seem, if I regard the willed death of hours-old
infants in the Netherlands as legal execution, that is precisely how I
regard legal execution as well, and I really don't give too much of a
damn what the criminal did. I believe forgiveness and mercy are radical
and irrational acts, the acts of sick human minds fighting to heal
themselves and those of others, and I can't see the substantive
difference between juridical murder, infanticide, third trimester or
so-called "partial birth" abortions, and even the "regular" kind. No, I
am not Randall Terry, who wants to have the entire world procreate
according to some weird conception of God he harbors. That is, give
people access to contraception and show them how to use the stuff; but
teach them at the same time that every act has a consequence. I know a
woman who has counseled women who have had abortions, and she assured me
there are intense and long-term consequences attached. Consequences are
the real world.

>But what I've been reading is the hysterical manifestation of a death cult.
>It's not about Life, but a monstrous Death-in-Life, like in the Ancient
>Mariner. I feel incredibly sorry for the family involved, both sides; but
>you wouldn't keep a dog alive in those circumstances. Why be less merciful
>to a human being?
>
>
Well, let's see. Hot button? Maybe this went right by if I even
mentioned it, but last Thursday my brother-in-law (that doesn't stop
because the legalism of a divorce ends the marriage), a man I've known
since 1968, tried to kill himself. Details are unclear. He ingested
something or other. He had been unemployed for two years, was living
with my ex-wife and our older son (the kid's career problems are finally
beginning to clear), he was obese, diabetic, and had heart trouble
extending back to at least 1982. My other son's take is that Steve
entered a state of total despair, a feeling of uselessness and self-pity
during which he decided he was a burden instead of a brother and uncle.
So this selfish bastard--yes, for what is suicide but a "fuck you"
gesture to people who love and care for you?--tried to kill himself, in
total disregard of the effect even an attempt would have on a
geographical triangle whose center point is northern Jersey, whose
southern point is Baltimore, and whose furthermost point is Nevada.
"Whose life is it anyway?" His, but it was also shared by the people
who he touched, me included. If he dies he will be greatly mourned. If
he lives he will have shattered a bond we will need to work to repair.

Right now he has been mostly unconscious for a week. He does not
recognize people. He wakes up long enough to go back to sleep. There
is no measured brain damage, he may eventually wake up, or he may not.
Shall my ex-wife and her sister do for him what I did for my
cancer-ridden cat 3 years ago? She they let him go because it's
rational? We have all read too much of what strikes me tonight as utter
bilge compared to the enormity of a single human life. This is not a
fucking death cult, Alison, it is a struggle to preserve people, to
mourn when we lose them, to recognize that even the life of a messed-up
human being IS worth more than a dog's or a cat's even though both dogs
and cats seem at times to represent a higher form of moral life than
many humans.

Terri Schiavo? Plug her back in. She will die soon enough without
assistance. If this puts me in the same "bed" with some people I
despise, oh well.

Ken

--
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Kenneth Wolman www.kenwolman.com kenwolman.blogspot.com
                 If you want patience, go to medical school.