Where Do We Draw the Line?

The recent scandal over an abortion clinic in Philadelphia, a veritable "chamber of horrors," as it was dubbed by the press, raises a lot of interesting questions, not the least of which is, why is everyone so shocked? Dr. Kermit Gosnell has been charged with the deaths of several infants who were aborted alive and then killed outside of the womb by severing their spinal cords with a pair of scissors. The public was not only horrified, it demanded  legal action against those who allowed this clinic to operate unimpeded and uninspected. And yet, had he done the exact same procedure while the children were still IN the womb his actions would have gone unnoticed, just another routine day in the life of a provider of "women's health care" services. What is it about a few inches of birth canal that confers such profound humanity on the individual deserving of full legal protection when one's head passes through it and invites such utter contempt for the meaningless blob of protoplasm growing on the other side? Does the baby undergo some mystical transformation during the birthing process? I just don't get it. In my opinion, every abortion clinic is a chamber of horrors and we should all be horrified that we have allowed them to continue their unfettered reign of terror for almost four decades. No, not horrified,...ashamed!

Do the Math!

In this classic cartoon, Umbert points out that we are all nine months older than we give ourselves credit for, that is, if we truly believe that life begins at conception. Thus, when we celebrate our birthday we are actually celebrating the anniversary of our date of birth, not our actual age. But we even get that wrong. When a person celebrates his twenty-first birthday, for instance, he is really celebrating his twenty-second, ignoring the fact that the day he was born was actually his first birthday. Of course, he IS celebrating the 21st anniversary of his day of birth, but this has no bearing on his age because he is actually twenty-one years and nine months old. And so, truth be told, we ALL lie about our age, by at least nine months. Does any of this matter? Not really, we're going to continue to do the fuzzy math and forget that we existed in our mother's bellies for a good long stretch. It seems to be human nature to get it wrong when it comes to measuring time, like the turn of the millennium fiasco. People went nuts celebrating the twenty-first century as midnight approached on December 31, 1999, completely oblivious to the fact that the new millennium was still a whole year away and didn't begin until January 1, 2001. Are we all on the same page now? Great! Happy Birthday, Happy Conception Day and Happy Anniversary, whichever may apply.

God Save the Kingdom!

Americans love the British. After all, England was the country that gave birth to colonial America and its oppressive taxation gave birth to the United States. (Little did our founding fathers realize how oppressively we would eventually tax ourselves.) And when the British royals have a wedding, Americans tune in and hang on every word, every picture, every pip-pip (or pippa), and every cheerio. Let's face it, the Brits have class and we have class-envy.
So it's only natural that many Americans envy the British health care system and want to adopt it. They tout the U.K.'s government-run national health care as a model of efficiency, compassionate care, and affordability. Yeah, I guess you can't beat free, but remember the old adage, "you get what you pay for." The prescription for most ills in England seems to be "take a seat," as the Brits must suffer interminable waiting periods for hospitalization or to see a doctor. Nearly a million British citizens are typically waiting to get into a hospital. Is this really what we want to do to the greatest health care system in the world?
But, as Umbert's friend Nigel points out, we Americans are spoiled. Naturally, we like our diseases cured before they become terminal. We're funny that way. And we don't like rationing in this country. It reminds us too much of all the rationing we had to do when we were helping the Europeans out of a little mess called World War II. But that's exactly what's in store for us if Obamacare is allowed to be implemented.
I love our British cousins but if we really want to improve health care here in the states, we need to learn from their mistakes and avoid the disaster that has become the National Health Service.