I watch very little network television. I can't stand laugh tracks or dramas that dish out gore and vice as their regular fare. One program I do watch is Blue Bloods, a show about a family of cops starring Tom Selleck as New York's Police Inspector. It deals with crime, but focuses on family values above all.
In the episode airing January 19th, Selleck's character said (I think I have it right), "What diminishes most the quality of life is the taking of a life." He was referring to a murdered child, but also to his own son who had been killed in the line of duty. He might just as well have been referring to the massacre in Tucson or to the story in the next day's news about Dr. Kermit Gosnell.
Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortionist, was arrested, along with nine of his employees, and charged with the murder of one woman and seven babies. The reports said that he had been in the business for over 30 years and specialized in late-term abortions. Babies born alive were killed by snipping their spinal cords with scissors. Although most of his records had been destroyed, it is said Gosnell killed hundreds of living babies in this way.
You would not want to read the gruesome and barbaric details of this story on a full stomach.
I am not going to get into the pros and cons of the 2nd Amendment, Roe v. Wade, or capital punishment. I certainly don't have anything to add that will convince the advocates of either side to change their minds. It just seems to me, however, that at the center of all these arguments is the value of life itself.
Life is the greatest gift of all. We may feel justified in killing in self defense or in defending our country in a just war. But in either case, there is no denying that humanity itself takes the hit. There is something much worse, however, in choosing to take an innocent life. The madness of Loughner and the depravity of Gosnell diminish us all as members of the human race.
If there is such thing as the wrath of God, He has just been sent an in engraved invitation.
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