My latest article for CRUX exposes the root problem beneath the Planned Parenthood fetal tissues scandal.
It’s the fact that we not only sell aborted babies’ hearts, lungs and livers, but we do so because human beings are now treated as commercial commodities to be used, abused and thrown away.
Our culture would not be in this situation without a philosophy that endorsed it. The simple truth behind the “re-imbursement” for the livers, hearts, and lungs of dismembered unborn children is that we consider unborn children as less than human. They are commodities to be bought and sold. Nor is our buying and selling of children limited to “re-imbursement” for fetal organs.
Girls from Eastern Europe who are kidnapped and forced into sex slavery are bought and sold. Boys who work in Asian sweatshops producing cheap consumer goods are being bought and sold. Rich childless couples who can afford in vitro fertilization are buying babies, and women who rent out their wombs as surrogates are selling them. Biotechnicians who assist them are the pimps in the trade. Boys and girls working in the pornography industry are being bought and sold, and child prostitution across the world buys and sells children as commercial commodities.
What is happening in America is a wholesale degradation of the human family, and it goes hand in hand with our abuse of the environment and so connects completely with Pope Francis’ encyclical Laudato Si. The pope has spoken often about the “throwaway culture” and we should not be distracted by his critique of unfettered capitalism. That critique is part of a right and proper criticism of the much deeper malaise in our society.
“The culture of relativism is the same disorder which drives one person to take advantage of another, to treat others as mere objects, imposing forced labour on them or enslaving them to pay their debts. The same kind of thinking leads to the sexual exploitation of children and abandonment of the elderly who no longer serve our interests. It is also the mindset of those who say: Let us allow the invisible forces of the market to regulate the economy, and consider their impact on society and nature as collateral damage. In the absence of objective truths or sound principles other than the satisfaction of our own desires and immediate needs, what limits can be placed on human trafficking, organized crime, the drug trade, commerce in blood diamonds and the fur of endangered species? Is it not the same relativistic logic which justifies buying the organs of the poor for resale or use in experimentation, or eliminating children because they are not what their parents wanted?”
Read the whole article here.
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