Life

Last week, Colorado was horrified when a lone, unstable-appearing man, who used marijuana and had other hints of less-than-prosocial behavior in his past, attacked a Planned Parenthood clinic.

Before I discuss this any further, I'm going to share a recent, raw tragedy. My younger sister, 19 weeks pregnant, went on vacation this week to another country. Yesterday, we found out that she was bleeding heavily. They had to give her several blood transfusions. The pregnancy ended. My sister is now physically recovering, but her emotional recovery will no doubt take a very long time.

I view the act of intentionally aborting unborn children for convenience to be heinous. I abhor Planned Parenthood's unique focus on providing that "service" to mothers who don't like the timing of when they got pregnant. (Please, get an IUD (females) or more permanent birth control (everyone) if you don't want children.)

All that said, I whole-heartedly condemn the shootings by Robert Dear in Colorado Springs. Pro-life means being against taking life in general. There are valid arguments for and against abortion, and those offering abortions (hopefully) typically don't consider themselves to be ending a life. (I think they're scientific illiterates for holding that belief, but I don't consider them intentional murderers.) Also, abortion is legal. Dear wasn't justified. At all. I reject any rhetoric that would claim he was.

Yesterday, we saw a jihadist couple leave their baby with grandma then go shoot up a holiday party, hoping to video-tape it for some repulsive purpose. They are part of a religion that claims to abhor taking innocent life, but apparently their working definition of "innocent" is much different than we in the USA are accustomed to viewing that word. I absolutely reject any rhetoric that defines as fair targets for violence those who are civilians on the ground that they reject Islamic supremacy. I applaud Muslims who also reject such rhetoric, and I wish there were more of them.