Sanctity of Life Sunday

Today is the day the Christian community sets aside to contemplate the sanctity of human life and what we can do to defend the powerless whose human dignity is being violated. The conversation includes beginning-of-life issues such as abortion (including gendercide), embryonic stem cell research, and in vitro fertilization. It includes nuclear bombs, use of arms, active euthanasia, war, the disposability of girls in China, and widows who are expected to commit suicide upon the deaths of their husbands. 

Moving beyond sanctity of life itself, we also consider that"human dignity" is grounded in Genesis 1. That has ramificationsfor...

Sex trafficking

Refusal of hydrating tubes

Human slavery

Rape culture

POW standards

Immigration policy

Homelessness

Hunger

Poverty

Proverbs 31:8–9 (NET)

Open your mouth on behalf of those unable to speak,

for the legal rights of all the dying.

Open your mouth, judge in righteousness,

and plead the cause of the poor and needy. 

Abortion and Sex-Selection

This morning's New York Times ran a powerful piece on the ramifications of abortion worldwide in terms of sex selection. Women across the globe abort daughters because more honor comes to them when they birth sons. And their ability to do that came largely from the West's influence and aid.

We cannot call this a male-against-female crime committed due to patriarchy. Women are as complicit as men. This is a powerful-against-powerless issue. The end result (so far) is that 160 females' lives have been extinguished. New ramifications: More kidnapping of females, sex trafficking, and prostitution.

Gendercide

My friend Dorian sent me a copy of a chilling article from The Economist titled, "The Worldwide War on Baby Girls." Often we view gendercide as "an unintended consequence of China's one-child policy, or as a product of poverty or ignorance." Yet that can't be the whole story. Modernization and rising incomes make it easier and more desirable to select the sex of a child, which people do even in areas without the one-child policy. And that's bad news for girls. And to make matters worse, according to WHO, female suicide rates in China and South Korea are among the highest in the world. "The journalist Xiran Xue thinks they cannot live with the knowledge that they have aborted or killed their baby daughters."

Where have all the young girls gone?