Determining value...

Every individual has intrinsic value. When we get in the business of assigning value to an individual based on an arbitrary standard we come perilously close to adopting the standards of regimes such as Hitler’s Nazis who viewed the sick, homosexuals, and non-Arians as undesired objects to be destroyed.

Next came those who opposed his philosophies. They met their deaths simply because they didn’t agree. Millions gave their lives to bring that regime to its knees.

The idea of human value came up in our own constitution where a black man was only worth 3/5th that of a white man. That awful determination was legally corrected at the end of the Civil War with the 13th and 14th amendments. Though socially things have improved dramatically, there is still struggle in some hearts and minds.

The concept of superiority of one individual over the other, and thus of superior value, is not new. Margaret Sanger’s writings stated the purpose of her 1939 Negro Project that ultimately became the Planned Parenthood of today was that it be a vehicle of “discouraging ‘the defective and diseased elements of humanity’ from their ‘reckless and irresponsible swarming and spawning’.”

When we as a society devalue one segment where their destruction is preferable, it becomes a simple matter of extending that valuation to other “unwelcome” elements.

Healthcare, is it too expensive for everyone to receive healthcare in a government administered program? Triage those desiring help by a standard that determines their worth.

Under that system, those needing the most help, the elderly and chronically ill, will be at a severe disadvantage and the cheap “cure” is sodium pentobarbital. It’s called eugenics.

For those of lesser health issues, perhaps mitigating factors such as political philosophy or income level could be factored in. If you don’t agree with the current ideology in power, if you are of minimal productivity, you’re manic/depressive, you’re outta here.

I know those on the pro-abortion side will say that can never happen. Well, it did, Sanger proved it could happen. Hitler made it part of his party platform. Any time we begin to rationalize our actions we are on the cusp of serious personal moral decline.

And make no mistake; this is a personal issue even more than a social/political issue. It is a matter of what we as individual value. What we consider important. It is individual beliefs that eventually become policy, not the other way around.

Yes, I can justify abortion from a purely economic vantage point, but that places me in a position of arrogant superiority, not compassion. For if you can’t “afford” a child, the burden is placed on society and on me as a taxpayer.

Why would I want that burden? Because a child is more that a bit of tissue whose value hangs in the balance of emotional stress. That “tissue” has the power to become an important individual with all the possibilities afforded him/her in this nation. That “tissue” can achieve any goal desired if given the chance. His or her importance is determined not by what they become, but that they can become what they desire.

In April of 1822 there was a bit of “tissue” growing in a French woman’s womb that grew to study immunology and eventually Louis Pasture discovered vaccines for anthrax, cholera, smallpox and rabies.

In August of 1878 a 20 year old German Jew had a bit of “tissue” growing inside of her. She may have preferred to study the arts or piano, but her focus was on raising her family. Eventually that tissue grew and among other things invented a refrigerator that uses principals still used today in RV and mobile refrigeration.

Had he not moved to the US in 1932, Albert Einstein, who is celebrated as one of the greatest minds of the last century and developed his theory of relativity and unified field theory would probably have fallen to Hitler’s ovens.

In December 1960 another bit of “tissue” began to grow in the womb of a 19 year old single girl. She could have sought out an abortion; it certainly would have been more convenient. The baby’s father was a black man and such a liaison was unacceptable in society at the time. Few would have faulted her, abortion would be the lesser of two “evils.”

But she married the father, kept her child and later raised that child alone after being abandoned by her husband. On January 20, 2009 that child, that bit of “tissue,” Barack Obama, became the 44th President of the United States.

In February 1986 another bit of tissue began to grow. This time in the womb of a young girl from Illinois. She had lived across the mid-west United States, her father was an itinerate worker. She had graduated with honors from college and had a bright future ahead of her. Part of that future included marriage and she and her husband moved to Virginia where he was stationed in the Navy and she worked in a local bank.

Yeah, raising a family was hard work, and would get in the way of plans, but that bit of “tissue” was vastly more important than her original plans and desires. She kept it, raised her son when he was born, struggled through broken marriages where it would have been simpler to not have to deal with children.

Eventually that “tissue” grew into a magnificent young man with more potential and possibilities before him than even he could imagine. Yes he struggled through experiences that no young man should have to, but grew out of them to become talented with multiple abilities even as he struggled to find himself.

No one really knows what this bit of “tissue” will do with his life, he’s not really sure. But one thing is certain, he will have the opportunity to pursue whatever course he desires because his mom, that young girl with so many possibilities, put her life on hold to bring him into the world and give him the opportunity that 30 million other “bits of tissue” have been denied since he first appeared in his mom’s womb. She saw in that bit of “tissue” a value far above her own plans and circumstances.

He may become an engineer, a chef, a General, a titan in business, a politician, perhaps even a President. But one thing is certain, Billy Montgomery has the opportunity to do so because his mother didn’t simply consider him an inconvenience, an unwanted expense, a barrier to her future, a…a bit of tissue.

"We are all in the same boat on a stormy sea and
we owe each other a terrible loyalty." - G. K. Chesterson