Food For Thought

I was just listening to CNN and Dr. Sanjay Gupta describe, as he held a model of a human skull in his hand, the path and destruction of a bullet entering and exiting a human head. Yesterday's shooting of Congresswoman Giffords is shocking and appalling - but at this very moment as I write these words there are people being shot in my town and your town. We as a nation condone so many various forms of killing; the killing of criminals via the death penalty imposed as punishment by some states, the killing of humans by the military during  periods of war, the killing of perpetrators during a crime by the police. Somehow these acts are not considered the taking of a life in the same way that abortion is considered taking a life of an unborn child.

If you want to grab someone's attention you can do so by showing a picture of a fetus that makes a mention of abortion. But tonight Dr. Gupta got my attention when he held that human skull in his hand and explained in calm, unemotional terms what it was like for a bullet to penetrate the skull.

I've never seen anyone shot, nor held anyone in my arms as they died. I have had an abortion, a decision not made lightly nor forgotten about almost forty years later. But with the passage of time, wisdom is gained and with it the knowledge that perhaps, just perhaps we as a nation are traveling a very destructive and violent path. We have children that are hollow souls, immune from any feeling when they fire a gun and take a life. We as a nation clothed in battle fatigues have for centuries marched off with guns in hand to subdue an enemy.

We are not kinder - we are not gentler. And the scary thing is I'm not sure we really want to be. Bigger, better, faster. Not kinder, gentler or smarter. There are many futurist novels that depict society living lives behind walls with protective barriers while the streets are patrolled by governmental armed guards. 

Is that where we are headed? Is that where we want to go? Or can we even stop it? Have we at last become the Dr. Frankenstein monster that lacks only a brain?