Francis Jacobson
Our socio-economic system worships the belief that everything is a marketable commodity and can be measured in a “cost benefit” analysis. Consequently, the death of a poor or disabled person isn’t a loss. In fact, it may even be considered a gain. Non-market economies based on fiat do the same thing only the state can actually command who lives and how does not. The Khmer Rouge always said “To keep you is no benefit. To lose you is no loss.” The statement was generally followed by some act of unspeakable brutality which would have been downplayed by Noam Chomsky except that the pyramid of skulls got in the way.
Nevertheless, scientific advancements have allowed death to become distant. Gone are the days when a mother would be asked how many children she had to which she would reply “Eight. Four are still living.” Consequently, we’ve managed to create a world in which life loses any magical quality and is all about achieving maximum pleasure. The idea of any afterlife is superstition. Indeed, the whole idea of life being a gift is no longer common. That’s why pregnancy is considered a disease, at least by the Obama Administration which states that contraception is “health care” that must be covered. It perhaps it is also why abortion is considered “health care.” I have read that abortion clinics are “conveniently located” in minority neighborhoods, perhaps Margaret Sanger’s eugenics of goal of having inferior races bred out of existence by Planned Parenthood is alive and well.
So, I’ve trumpeted the “pro-life” cause of the conservatives. These are the same conservatives who echo the words of Clint Didier that we should not take care of the weak because they hold back the strong. In other words, the lives of certain races or classes of people are not valued in the Darwinist world of “survival of the fittest.” What matters is whether dispatch costs are “front loaded” via abortion or “back loaded” via death from malnutrition, preventable disease or violence. Gun violence is a public health issue, or at least I believe it is.
Now I read that only the top 10% of Americans will be able to afford retirement. So I predict that life expectancy rates will go down and that we will see fewer and fewer people will be living into their 80s and 90s. We will be back to the days of three score and ten with a retirement non existent.
The only point I would like to address regarding this piece is the consideration of contraception as health care. As a breeding female who has met many a variation of other breeding females, I can support the assertion that contraception is indeed health care for women. Women throughout time have practiced various forms of contraception to assist in promoting their own health, the health of their offspring, or the health of their family. So, yes. I firmly define contraception as health care that should be accessible to all women, regardless of socio-economic status or religio-political leanings within the communities that they reside.
I feel blessed to have been given the opportunity to parent my children and also to have the opportunity to support children in need within my community. I would not have been able to pursue the latter had I not had access to effective contraception.
I can add another issue… The Bible never defines conception. Historuans tell us that ideas about how life began at the time the Jewish was no Christian bibles wrestling written nothing similar to our modern ideas existed.
So, with no explicit texts attributable to a Deity, the baby in conception must be seen as created by humans.
This esp true fir Christianity since very large amounts of the religion originate in the givens of Rome.