The imminent arrival of another ‘Sanctity of Life’ Sunday always challenges my capacity for astonishment in two directions. On the one hand, it’s hard to absorb the realization that we have killed at least 58,586,256 babies since 1973. That figure alone is mind-numbing enough, but it feels worse when we consider the real motivation behind it. At the root of this genocide is our national obsession to preserve and promote unbounded sexual license. Sexual activity in this culture has been reduced to the status of a recreational pastime, something requiring no commitment beyond the moment, no accountability to anyone beyond ourselves, and which tolerates no potential consequence that might threaten our preferred lifestyle. When our recreational fun causes babies to happen, it’s okay to consider them as no more than a temporary inconvenience to be eliminated. That may sound like a harsh assessment, but for the vast majority of abortion cases, it boils down to that.

Herald the Unsung Heroes ~
In another direction, I’m freshly astounded by the sacrifices made by the courageous men and women who devote so much on behalf of those little unborn lives. They give their time, energy, money, and hearts in an effort to save those who are doomed because they’re ‘inconvenient’. I applaud those who are committed to being a relentless and persistent voice for those helpless little victims who cannot speak. Every day these heroic warriors enter a hostile and often vicious arena and throw everything they have against the well-trained and well-equipped forces arrayed against them. Their work is mostly unacknowledged, making their perseverance even more inspiring. Their victories aren’t measured in terms of cold metal trophies and hollow, transient public accolades. Their trophies are wrapped in blankets and held in loving arms. Their victories are marked by little human beings who get to see the light of day, and to take their first breath of air because someone recognized who they really are and granted them the most basic of all human rights.

OK … My Astonishment Gizmo Needs a Break ~
Given the fact that his culture live-streams reasons to leave us dumbfounded as regularly as rap ‘artists’ demonstrate their inability to describe anything without the ‘f’ word, it’s amazing that I can be astonished at anything anymore. In spite of that, I noticed an article that illustrated the ever-expanding scope of spiritually blind human beings to take hypocrisy and irony to heights that literally make me dizzy. Consider the ‘upside down thinking’ exhibited in this piece of news:

Leonardo Never Imagined This

“A European Parliament committee has voted in favor of a draft report that proposes granting legal status to robots, categorizing them as ‘electronic persons’.”

What a step forward! Last week I read about a woman who declared that she wanted to marry her robot, and it now appears that the EU folks are going to help her look less like someone totally insane. She can now confidently declare that her heart-throb is actually an ‘electronic person’. Now she can not only marry it, but she could hold it legally accountable in case it got a power surge in the middle of a hug and broke her ribs. Oh wait, I guess if you marry the thing, technically, you’d have to divorce it before you could take any legal action against it. Bummer for her.

Be Careful—Robots Have Feelings, Too ~
Aren’t we glad that we have such highly acclaimed legal minds with impressive titles and advanced academic degrees to address issues like this for us? And aren’t we relieved that they are finally delving into this question of robot personhood that is so vital to our social welfare? I’m not without concerns, though. It occurs to me that extreme caution should be exercised in matters like this. Clearly, it might not be politically correct to just arbitrarily call these robots ‘electronic persons’. Suppose, for instance, that some of the more sensitive ones were to find the term offensive. It would doubtlessly go viral in the robot social media circles, and there’s a real possibility that it could so inflame the delicate little robot circuits in some of them, that they would decide to speed up their secret plot to take over the world and rid the planet of offensive and idiotic human life altogether. Then where would we be?

Irony Beyond the Possibility of Parody ~
But let me be tragically serious for a minute. We have managed in our twisted, fallen minds to extend human characteristics to virtually anything that creeps, crawls, or slithers in the animal kingdom, to ascribe ‘rights’ to chickens, and to enact laws to protect bugs someone declared to be ‘endangered’. We devote incredible resources to ‘rescue’ creatures of every description, and to protect anything we deem to be capable of ‘life’. The robot thing proves that we can elevate our delusions of divine authority to even more ridiculous extremes. Now things that are totally the product of the human manipulation of inanimate material can be, and should be, ascribed personhood. Absolutely in-credible! I can’t help but wonder what they’d do if we declared that unborn babies are really little robots?

The twisted logic that has no problem declaring robots to be ‘electronic persons’ with rights also declares that a certain class of genuine human beings, because of their unique location and their particular stage of development, should be stripped of personhood altogether and not considered human at all. Simply because babies have not yet managed to successfully exit the womb of their mother, they are stripped of every right and privilege ascribed to every other class of human being, regardless of their location or stage of development. Once again, blind devotion to a godless philosophy trumps all reasonable discernment.

We Are Their Only Hope ~
‘Sanctity of Life’ Sunday 2017 finds us surrounded by a hostile moral environment in which criminal prosecution for spraying a dose of Raid on an endangered bug is applauded, but those who make a career out of killing babies are protected, defended, and promoted. Jesus said that He came that we “might have life” (John 10:10).  Let’s commit together to fighting harder in 2017 to ensure that every unborn child has a shot at that promise.

© 2017 Gallagher’s Pen, Ronald L. Gallagher, Ed.S.  All rights reserved.

To follow this blog for more ‘Right Side Up Thinking ~ In an Upside Down World’, sign up just below the ‘Search box’ in the upper right sidebar for regular email notifications of new posts.