• The Value of An Unclaimed Cat

The lead story of the evening news on the NBC television station here recently was about a three-month old cat that someone had doused with diesel fuel and set on fire. The unclaimed cat is surviving but will need lots of expensive surgery and skin grafting, according to the story and its follow-up.

Let me assure you that I have no defense for such a sadistic infliction upon a cat. But how much news coverage is given to the commonly practiced "slicing and dicing" of human embryos, alive and well and kicking in their mothers' wombs at three months, or even younger or older? You know the answer to that question. Such inhumane treatment does not make the fine print hidden in the back pages or late, late television.

That reveals a barbaric nature of our society that places the life of a cat far higher than that of a human being. Could the Nazi goal of ethnic purification lead people into a more heartless destruction of unwanted, helpless victims of our own kind? We have out-done the Nazis by millions of victims.

There is growing opposition to capital punishment even for brutal murderers while the capital slaughter of our innocent offspring increases with approval. Trees, rivers, and fish are protected in the Northwest with much favor of the media that have no good thing to say about protecting our own unborn. Monetary help is available for a hopeless unclaimed cat which should be put out of its misery while countless children need medical attention they cannot afford. While starving children die, many millions of dollars have been spent to save one whale, Keiko, while the Japanese continue to harvest whales by the ship-load. Where is our sense of values?

Heart-wrenching pictures of the poor burned kitty were shown on TV, but a station dares not to show pictures of an abortion process or the living aborted fetus. Several years ago where I was living, there was a silent "pro-life" demonstration downtown in which I took part. Surprised to see an Episcopal pastor there, I approached him for a friendly visit. He immediately began an explanation for his participation.

He had formerly defended the right of abortion like so many of his faith. However, a physician friend invited him to observe as he performed an abortion. Through induced labor the "fetus - embryo" (politically correct terms for an unborn baby) was born - premature, of course, but an infant very much alive. Before discarding this premature but active infant, the physician gripped the throat of the child with thumb and finger, thus choking it to death. That shocking demonstration convinced this man of conscience to become a defender of such defenseless human life against unmerciful destruction. All who perform abortion do not use that method but various painful and deadly techniques are employed continually to terminate lives conceived in selfish lust but unwanted by the selfish pair.

Those who give approval to such killing commonly fog the issue by saying the government has no right to legislate religious convictions. I agree! However, one of the primary purposes of government is to protect its citizens. The means of protecting the citizen is to legislate and prosecute against immorality, including manslaughter, murder, rape, slander, stealing, fraud, and many other violations of other human beings. Those are all moral issues, that is, violations of other persons. Atheistic, non-religious, and irreligious persons all agree that those are moral matters.

Who will deny that defense of the innocent and helpless is a moral issue? I do not have to quote Bible prooftexts to support this principle of civilized society. As to a woman's rights, she has no more right to kill the child within her than to kill the father of it who became one body with her. Without researching this, I will venture to say that states that inflict capital punishment make an exception against executing a pregnant woman thus, in reality, recognizing the legal right of the unborn.

For a voter to be a "one-issue man" has always seemed to be fanatical, I agree. There are issues of differing degrees of importance, however, and that which concerns life or death for an individual certainly ranks higher than fiscal policies, preference of political party, or personality of the candidate. For that reason, I could never vote for a candidate for state or national legislature, judge, or chief executive who has no conscience against licensing the taking of the life of the unborn. Neither would I want to place my life in the hands of a physician who has no more respect for life than that, for I want my life to be valued.

You who are my regular readers know that I have not harped on this issue as my dominant theme above other spiritual matters. The growing acceptance and defense of abortion for any who choose it demands attention. Its uncivilized disrespect for life is becoming, or has become, a greater curse on or society than slavery was. As with slavery, our whole society will reap its dreadful long-lasting consequences.

For the normal woman who has chosen to destroy the child whose movement she has felt in her womb, the emotional pain will be life-long. As she sees other children grow through the various stages of life, with sorrow she will always wonder what her child would have been like in those particular stages. Her empty arms will ache to hold her child. There will always be a painful, guilt-induced void.

I do not seek to bind a religious conviction on others, but for me morality is definitely a part of spirituality. The dedication to my religion is vain without mercy. Jesus warned, some religionists, "you have neglected the more important matters of the law---justice, mercy, and faithfulness" (Matt. 23:23). "..and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

Those most important matters are fulfilled neither by torturing a cat nor by terminating the life of an infant.

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