I’ve been thinking about the “culture of life” this week. No, I’m not heeding Pope Benedict’s enticing (Ha!) call to convert to Catholicism. But the Fort Hood tragedy hilights a difference in how many of us view life, a difference as distinct as the chalk outline around the felled victims.
First reports of the incident claimed 12 dead, a number that eventually rose to 13. Amid the growing facts arising from the initial clamor we learned that 21 year old Iraq veteran Francheska Valez was three months pregnant. All of the victims’ names have not been released, but I expect there will only be 12 more besides Francheska. This continues a long held media policy of not enumerating fetuses with the formerly breathing and walking. To be politically correct, you could say embryos are “birth-challenged”. With the current culture’s view of life and when life begins, many persons in waiting will die that way.