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George Bush's Limited Definition of "Life" |
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by Dawn Baldwin
(No verified email address) |
01 Apr 2005
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The President appears to believe that Terri Schiavo, a brain-dead woman with a liquefied cerebral cortex should not be allowed to die. Yet men, women, and children are "allowed to die" in this country every day, on his watch, as a result of poverty, crime, and lack of proper health care. |
President George W. Bush insists that he'd rather err on the side of "life."
And to prove it, he champions the unborn and the brain-dead.
For the majority of the living, however, he plays very different odds.
When his policies expose hundreds of thousands of children to toxic levels of mercury, risking neurological disorders, disease, and death appears to be an "error" he's more than willing to make.
When his policies cut the Medicare benefits for millions who have to go without the preventive care, early detection, and medical treatment that would prolong and enhance their lives-"life" wouldn't appear to be his first concern.
When his policies withhold the information and resources necessary to prevent sexually transmitted diseases and unintended pregnancies, he's chosen to risk the deaths of teenagers, adults, orphaned children, and fetuses worldwide rather than acknowledge sexual activity as a natural, one might even say life-affirming human activity.
When he conspires with his Attorney General to flaunt international law where the treatment of prisoners of war is concerned so that US soldiers who torture and kill them might have defense in court-protecting "life", at least for those civilians declared our enemies, wouldn't seem to be his worry.
When it comes to killing criminals for whom there is inconclusive evidence of guilt, erring on the side of death is something he's proven himself quite comfortable with and capable of.
When his policies gut the 30-year-old Clean Water Act, so that it no longer applies to 60% of our rivers, lakes, and streams, and open millions of acres of our national parks and wilderness to logging, mining, and oil drilling, he's clearly choosing to err on the side of extractive industry profits, regardless what death might follow in their wake.
When his tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans result in the drastic under-funding of programs for the nation's neediest women and children, including child care, early childhood education, after school activities, supplemental nutrition, Pell grants, and housing-he's willing to risk the risk the ignorance, malnutrition, unemployment, incarceration and death of the nation's unfortunates so those who are already privileged may pocket some more cash.
These are the actions of a man more than willing to err, and err profligately and unapologetically, on the side of big money, big industry, big corporations and big American displays of power. Again and again, he has proven himself willing to err on the side of those who would just as soon destroy the government at the expense of those who rely on it for their survival.
So what are we to make of his self-proclaimed devotion to "life?"
Unfertilized eggs in a woman's ovaries have his fealty.
In every zygote he believes God is present.
But if every zygote is sacred, then why isn't every human life outside the womb, or even the womb itself, at least as sacred as that initial assemblage of cells?
The President appears to believe that Terri Schiavo, a brain-dead woman with a liquefied cerebral cortex should not be allowed to die. Yet men, women, and children are "allowed to die" in this country every day, on his watch, as a result of poverty, crime, and lack of proper health care.
Special sessions of Congress are not called. Emergency legislation is not written. Judges are not prevailed upon to intervene.
The Pentagon does not keep records of the number of Iraqis civilians we have killed.
One can only conclude that the President must find them somehow lacking in "life" since he was, and is, willing to rain unprovoked violence upon them. Surely if God was as present in Iraqi schoolchildren and shopkeepers as he is in Terri Schiavo and embryos, then two years ago the President would have demanded patience, not called for war.
He would have stood before the world, as the leader of the culture of "life" he claims to be, and insisted that the people of the world unite in finding alternatives to the death and destruction of war. But he didn't.
He would have stood before the world, as the moral man he claims to be, and insisted that in a world of finite resources, America cannot continue to use so much more than our share. But he didn't.
Adamant in his willingness to err on the side of "life", he would have proclaimed that the world cannot sustain stealing bread and water from those who hunger and thirst in the service of war. He would have given his solemn vow to work toward humane resolution of conflict, where wholesale violence is the absolute last option. But he didn't.
So its not unreasonable to conclude that the "life" upon which the President is so confidently willing to err is simply not present in the Middle East-with the exception that proves the rule being Israel.
Nor is this "life" embodied by those Americans who as a result of their race, sex, birth, education, location, occupation, income, health, sexual orientation, age or bad luck, rely on the government for some sort of social, educational, physical, or monetary support. These are not lives he chooses to err on the side of either.
These lives are just speed-bumps, and their wreckage merely collateral damage, on the road to Bush's Brave New All-American World.
For George W., the "life" he can exploit for political capital-or legal tender-is the only "life" that matters.
Dawn Baldwin is a safety and environmental consultant and writer living in Memphis, TN and Bartow, WV. |
This work licensed under a
Creative Commons license |
