Posts tagged ‘Justice’
Beyond the Pale: What UK Hospitals Are Doing With Aborted Babies
Moral standards are moving targets. Ask three people for their thoughts on a contentious moral or ethical issue and you’ll get four opinions. But there are some things so unequivocally horrifying – so undeniably mortifying – that they command universal and reflexive shock, outrage, and revulsion. Enter an exposé by London’s Telegraph newspaper on what’s heating some UK hospitals:
The bodies of thousands of aborted and miscarried babies were incinerated as clinical waste, with some even used to heat hospitals, an investigation has found.
Ten NHS trusts have admitted burning fetal remains alongside other rubbish while two others used the bodies in ‘waste-to-energy’ plants which generate power for heat.
Last night the Department of Health issued an instant ban on the practice which health minister Dr. Dan Poulter branded ‘totally unacceptable.’
At least 15,500 fetal remains were incinerated by 27 NHS trusts over the last two years alone …
One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’[1]
No matter how many times I read this article, it still makes me sick to my stomach. And I’m not the only one who finds this story nauseating, as the comments posted under the story indicate. One reader comments, “I think I am going to be sick.” Another writes, “The horror of it … what has our country become folks? This is just too much.” And still another existentially inquires, “Dear God, what have we become?”
Though much could be written about this story – and, I would add, I hope much is written about this because this is a story that needs to be thoroughly vetted – I want to offer two initial observations about this terrible, tragic report.
First, it must be admitted that here is an unabashed display of human depravity at it most dreadful depths. Just the thought of treating fetal remains so carelessly and callously should turn even the most hardened of stomachs. In Western society, we pride ourselves on making moral progress. We trumpet our advances on the frontier of human rights. A story like this one should give us a gut check. Moral progress is never far from moral regress. Indeed, even secular theorists are beginning to realize that humanity is not on an ever-improving, ever-increasing moral arc. Alan Dershowitz, one of the great secular thinkers of our time, admits as much in an interview with Albert Mohler when he says:
I think the 20th century is perhaps the most complicated, convoluted century in the history of the world perhaps because I lived in it, but it had the worst evil. Hitler’s evil and Stalin’s evil are unmatched in the magnitude in the world … On the other hand, it was the century in which we really ended discrimination based on race and based on gender. We made tremendous scientific progress … So I think the 20th century has really proved that progress doesn’t operate in a linear way … We don’t evolve morally, we don’t get better morally as time passes.[2]
Morally, we must be continually careful and endlessly vigilant. We will never become so good that we are no longer bad. To quote the caution of the apostle Paul: “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)!
The second observation I would offer on this story is that we are sadly deluded as a society if we decry the burning of fetuses on the one hand while supporting abortion on the other. There is a reason incinerating fetuses to heat hospitals has raised so many moral hackles. And it’s not because these fetuses are nothing more than “tissue.” Indeed, I find it quite telling that The Telegraph refers to these fetuses as “remains.” A quick perusal of a dictionary will find that the noun “remains” refers to “dead bodies,” or “corpses.” In other words, dead people. This is not just aborted tissue. These are aborted people. Aborted babies. But now these babies have passed. And to treat the dead in such an undignified manner as these UK hospitals have is unconscionable. The difference between the passing of these babies, however, and the passing of others who die in hospitals is that these babies have died intentionally at the hands of abortion doctors.
Yes, I am well aware of arguments for abortion that center on a woman’s right to do with her body as she pleases. But if she can do with her body as she wishes, I’m not sure why a hospital can’t do with its procedural remains as it wants. If it can throw away fluid drained from someone’s lungs in a biohazard bag, why can’t it burn a baby? Yes, I am aware that some may accuse me of making a fallacious “slippery slope” argument and they would counter-argue that you don’t need to ban abortion to decry the burning of fetal remains. But this counter-argument intimates that abortion is somehow a lesser evil than burning aborted corpses – an assumption I do not share. Indeed, I think abortion is a great and deep evil – but not just because I believe it deliberately ends the life of a child, but because I hate what abortions do to the women who suffer through them. Case in point: a recent study in The British Journal of Psychiatry shows that women who undergo abortions have an 81 percent higher risk of subsequent mental health problems.[3] Nevertheless, proponents of abortion could claim that one can support abortion without sliding all the way down the slope into the moral morass of these UK hospitals. But I would point out that we already have, in fact, slid all the way down this slope. The charred now non-remains of 15,500 babies testify to it. So perhaps it’s time to repent and, by the grace of God, start scaling the slope – and not just halfway up the slope, but all the way off the slope. Human depravity warns us that if we don’t, we’ll slide right back down again.
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[1] Sarah Knapton, “Aborted babies incinerated to heat UK hospitals,” The Telegraph (3.24.2014).
[2] Albert Mohler, “Moral Reasoning in a Secular Age: A Conversation with Professor Alan Dershowitz,” albertmohler.com.
[3] Priscilla K. Coleman, “Abortion and mental health: quantitative synthesis and analysis of research published 1995–2009,” The British Journal of Psychology 199 (2011), 182.
Where Human Justice Cannot Tread: The Case of Trayvon Martin & George Zimmerman
Credit: The Associated Press
We will never know for sure what happened.
Well, we will never know for sure all that happened. There are a few things we do know. We do know that on the night of February 26, 2012 in Sanford, Florida, an altercation took place between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. We do know that this altercation left Trayvon Martin dead of a single gunshot wound, fired at intermediate range. We do know that George Zimmerman was the shooter. And we do know that on Saturday, July 13, Zimmerman was found “not guilty” of both the charges of second-degree murder and of manslaughter.
As the trial of George Zimmerman unfolded before a nation of breathless spectators, it became clear to many pundits and reporters – regardless of how these pundits and reporters hoped this case would turn out – that the prosecution was in trouble. Consider this from ABC News:
Prosecutors started strong with a powerful, concise opening statement from Assistant State Attorney John Guy, in contrast to the silly knock-knock joke and seemingly disorganized and meandering defense argument …
But then something happened that many would have thought improbable as this case received wall to wall coverage leading up to Zimmerman’s arrest.
What the state hoped would be proof that Zimmerman initiated the altercation and that he, not Martin, was on top as they grappled on the ground, did not appear to proceed as planned …
With each witness there were either facts that we now know are not true (like hearing three shots, when there was only one) or indications that their memories have somehow become clearer since the incident itself.[1]
The prosecution’s witnesses, in their testimonies of what happened that night, gave conflicting and confusing accounts. Coupled with the fact that the burden to prove that Zimmerman shot Martin in something other than self-defense rested on the prosecution, the prospects for a conviction were grim for the state. Again, ABC News summarized the prosecution’s problem well:
Prosecutors still have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zimmerman did not “reasonably believe” he was “in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm” during their altercation. That is a heavy burden to bear.
It turns out, as the verdict this past Saturday revealed, that it was a burden too heavy to bear.
Along with the wide range of human emotions that a trial such as this one elicits, this trial has also exposed the limits of human justice. The jury found George Zimmerman “not guilty.” This does not necessarily mean that Zimmerman committed no crime. It simply means that, in the opinions of the jurors, there was not enough evidence to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that he was guilty of a crime. The jurors’ verdict does not pretend or presume to rule on George Zimmerman’s guilt or innocence as a matter of fact. It simply says that Zimmerman will not be incarcerated as a matter of the law.
The justice of our God is much more comprehensive and, as strange as it sounds, just than the justice of our courts. For our God is concerned with infinite transcendent justice rather than with limited legal justice. Indeed, our God is passionate about justice. God shouts in Amos 5:24: “But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” Where human justice falls short, God’s justice does not.
Ultimately, regardless of the verdict, the justice rendered in that Florida courtroom can only be provisionary and incomplete. Even if George Zimmerman had been found guilty, his incarceration would not have undone the painful problem of death, which is finally what this case – and every murder case – is all about. But the painful problem of death cannot be solved in any courtroom; it can only be solved on a cross. Only Jesus can bring justice to death by conquering it with His life – a life that will finally and fully be revealed on the Last Day.
So while a Florida court has ruled, we are still waiting for Jesus to rule – or, to put it more clearly, to reign – when He returns on the Last Day. And, blessedly, the justice He will bring on that day will be far better than the justice we have in these days. For His justice does much more than merely rule on tragedies; His justice fixes them.
[1] Dan Abrams, “George Zimmerman’s Prosecution Woes: Analysis,” ABC News (7.1.2013).
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