The seeds of violence. . .

The seeds of the violent shape of our culture begin in the womb -- not simply with the original sin into which every life is conceived but with our callous and shameful indifference toward the value of the life within the womb.  If we cannot afford to give the life in the womb protection, honor, respect, and value, how can we be expected to accord such esteem to life outside the womb.  While this is certainly true of life in general, it is particularly true of the lives of those least able to care for or defend themselves.  Here I am thinking of those whose lives are severely impaired by dementia, mental or emotional disability, and those with physical fragility.  The point is this.  Gun violence and the overall violent shape of life here and across the world was caused by something more than the availability of guns or the intolerance that breeds the kind of contempt that feeds such violence.  It starts with the esteem, value, protection, honor, and respect given to life at is first beginning -- the conception and fetal development within the womb.  It is not because we are violent that we abort babies or want to euthanize the disabled and frail, it is because we abort babies that we think violence can be the way we express ourselves and those who cost us money and time can be given a painless death to what most now consider a life not worth living anyway.  This legitimacy has and will lead to legal enshrinement of the right to kill those whose lives we do not value as a society.

The root of the problem of violence does not lie with the individuals (which does not at all minimize their responsibility) nor does it lie with the problem of guns (which is a conversation which we still need to have) but with the way we view life itself.  It starts in the womb.  If what is in the womb has no ultimate value, nothing else will have value.  If our society has attached no value to the child in the womb, it will not value the life outside the womb.  What is incredible is that as a society we attach more value to our pets than we do to any other life.  A nation got upset a few years ago when some idiot on the freeway threw a dog into traffic -- which I do not condone!  However, what is wrong with the picture of a people whose outrage and contempt lies with an abuse of a pet while they march for the right to end the life in the womb on a whim?  It is not that we need to devalue our pets.  We need to learn the value of life and hold life precious and sacred (whether you are religious or not).  This is the bedrock that upholds our society and our way of life and without it we are vulnerable and life takes on a relative value instead of an absolute one.

Everyone who is shocked by school shootings and other kinds of violence should also be shocked at the callous disregard our culture views the life in the womb or in the nursing home.  The prolife position is not about abortion but about the value we attach to life -- from its natural beginning to its natural end.  In the same way, we cannot acquiesce to whatever works with reproductive technology (IVF especially) if the success of one pregnancy comes at the cost of many embryos discarded or thrown into the freezer like a pound of hamburger for when you feel like it.  It all stems from the same problem.  We do not value life.  Until this is fixed, all the things we do to answer the violence all around us will be bandaids that cannot heal the wound.  Absent a common value to life, the culture of death everywhere increases.