Ethical Extremes for the Anti-Life Crowd

Life News reports that the Virginia Senate Education and Health Committee voted against a bill that would make it a crime to for a woman to purposely kill her unborn child by a means other than legal abortion. The bill had passed overwhelmingly in the Virginia House.

The bill was a response to a case in Suffolk, where 23-year-old Tammy Skinner shot herself in the stomach to kill her own baby. Prosecutors twice tried to hold Skinner accountable for the death of the baby and twice judges prohibited them from sentencing her. "If the lady had delivered and left the baby in a dumpster, she would have been charged," said Delegate Chris Jones, R-Suffolk, who sponsored the bill.

Separately, the Swiss Supreme Court ruled that people with mental illnesses can receive assistance in committing suicide. This includes people who are bipolar or suffering depression.

The enemies of life are taking some extreme positions. Care for people with mental illnesses has always included protecting them from destructive behavior. Now Switzerland not only removes that protection--it offers to help people destroy themselves.

I will run the risk of being labeled paranoid, but, as they say, it isn't paranoia if they really are out to get you. With so many easy ways for a person to kill himself, what is the point of making it legal in the first place? Do we really want to encourage suicide? Or could it be that we are devaluing the lives of the handicapped in preparation to forcing some to "commit suicide"? Will we start assuming that people should die because we wouldn't want to live that way or a relative wants them dead? Does the name Terry Schiavo sound familiar? I'm glad I don't live in Switzerland, and doubly glad that my grandparents don't.

In many states a murderer can be prosecuted for two murders when he kills a mother and her unborn child. But in Virginia it is practically legal to shoot yourself in the stomach to kill your baby. And this is the logical culmination of Roe vs. Wade which would supposedly end "dangerous, back-alley" abortions.

In both cases we have a radical recognition of an absolute right to kill either yourself or the child in your womb. It all comes back to the question: Are there any limits to what I can do to myself (and the child in my womb)? Which brings us to the great moral divide: Can God tell me what to do? Now is the time to make sure our friends, neighbors, and communities answer "Yes."