A culture of death

On Tuesday, the FBI requested help from those citizens present at the Boston Marathon when two explosions rocked the street, killing three and wounding more than 100, asking for any relevant photographs or video that might provide a clue as to the person or persons responsible.

They'll have a lot to comb through. Initial footage showed lots of people with cameras aimed even as first responders and good Samaritans rushed to the aid of the wounded.

The usual suspects are unusually quiet, which at the very least, lends credence to the possibility that Boston is dealing with a "domestic terrorist." To be sure, whoever is responsible is known and justice will be done. Whether or not we see it in our lifetimes is the only uncertainty on that score.

While the world waits for justice to come to Boston, and for four full weeks before that attack happened, another heinous string of crimes has been paraded in front of a jury as Philadelphia seeks to convict Kermit Gosnell of the murder of seven viable fetuses and causing the death of a 41-year-old woman during an abortion procedure.

News accounts refer to him as Dr. Gosnell. I will not honor him with the title. Not because he is charged with snipping the necks of babies who survived the original procedure intended to kill them, but because he kills babies. Doctors are supposed to heal, not harm.

I remember when the story originally broke and wrote about it here: on April 6, 2011. Since then there has been little mention of the case, in fact, the only reason it's getting any publicity now, two years after the charges were originally filed, is because, until a few days ago no one, apart from local media, was covering the trial, now in its fifth week.

As the wire editor for the McCook Daily Gazette, I scrutinize the Associated Press, Google News and various other news outlets daily for stories that matter to our readers and that will fit into the usually scant space available in our paper for national/world news. If there was anything there, I missed it. The abominable attack at the Boston Marathon has center stage now, until the next unspeakable act shoves it off page one.

In fact, the evening news was all abuzz about security at the Boston Marathon, as if you could predict such an atrocity and defend against it. I suppose, if we all had our own little bubbles to live and work in and no one else was ever allowed into that space, we could. Or if we put more guards in place, here there and everywhere, perhaps we could thwart a similar attack. But the fact remains that there are those who have determined that their cause, their pain, their desire, their ideology is worth the sacrifice of innocent lives.

The Gosnell case is yet another example of the same mindset. To the one whose womb is occupied, the thought comes, "If my life is to continue on the path I have plotted, this baby must die." And they die, by the thousands each day. Legalized abortion must be recognized for what it is. Well-regulated murder, usually committed in a clean, sterile environment. For that is central to the charges against Gosnell. He failed to kill in a clean, sterile environment. In fact, if the testimony against him is true, he kept a filthy house of horrors, with glass jars containing tiny baby parts on the shelves even as he charged princely sums to carry out the killings, snipping the back of the necks, severing the spinal cords of those who dared survive his initial assault.

Unless and until man realizes that life is what matters, that every life, from conception to natural death, matters, these atrocities, in the city streets and in back alleys disguised as medical clinics, will continue. Unless and until every man enjoys the same rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, young or old, weak or strong, just beginning or nearing the end of days, we will have those who see no value in the lives of others or even in their own lives. We have created this culture of death. We are the only ones who can stop it.

"'Come now, let us reason together,' says the Lord." Isaiah 1:18 (NIV)

I don't have all the answers, but I know and love the One who does. Let's walk in his love and discover him together.

Dawn