Culture of Life

A bullshit phrase to top all other bullshit phrases.

This particular bullshit phrase dates back to 1993, a year rife with bullshit, when it was coined by the not-unfamiliar-with-the-concept-of-bullshit Pope John Paul II. He used it to denounce abortion (the ending of human life prior to its becoming viable) and euthanasia (the ending of human life after its becoming unviable). Seized upon by millions of people who are concerned with the sanctity of life -- though see below -- the phrase has become the stock-in-trade of Protestants, Catholics, Jews and...well, mostly just Protestants, Catholics and Jews. However, they all tend to mean different things by the phrase.

Understandably, given that their Big Papa coined it, Catholics have the most consistent (if not the most rational) definition of the phrase. In their view, all life is sacred, from the moment of conception (an odd definition of life; why not at the moment of ovulation?) to the moment of "natural death", which means less the more you think about it. At the very least, however, the Catholics are consistent in their application of the doctrine, opposing unjust war and the death penalty as well as abortion, euthanasia, suicide and contraception.

When evangelical Protestants of the religious Right enter the picture, that's when the bullshit inherent in the phrase "culture of life" really starts to smell. President George W Bush got the big ball of bullshit rolling downhill early, claiming in a debate against Al Gore that he opposed 'morning-after' contraceptive pills because they would lead to more abortions, which would be contrary to a "culture of life". By now, everyone was having to scrape the bullshit out from under their fingernails as they contemplated the fact that Protestants and Catholics alike expressed an awful lot of concern over the creation and prolongation of life, but very little over the quality of life. Conservative Catholics and evangelical Protestants alike tend to vote Republican, which means that their chosen elected officials almost uniformly vote against social programs, welfare, aid to dependent families, government health care, education funding, pro-labor legislation, minimum wage increases, and environmental regulation -- the very things that make a life, once created, worth living. The argument could be made that if one really did want to make abortion rare and create a "culture of life", one should support sex education and contraception (thus obviating the need for abortions) and support aid programs for the poor (thus making the prospect of raising a child less terrifying for low-income families), but strangely, almost no one who uses the phrase "sanctity of life" is making such an argument. The failure of culture-of-life-likers to support initiatives that would make life, once begun, tolerable is one of the bullshittiest things about all this bullshit.

But it's not most bullshitful! No, that smelly, gloppy crown goes to evangelical Protestants of the religious Right who, while crowing about how abortion, stem cell research, cloning, right-to-die and contraception are all affronts to the precious dignity and sacredness of life, are gung-ho for killing as many people as technologically possible via war and (especially) capital punishment. Anyone (like, for example, the President of the United States) who vociferously supports the death penalty and the unjust, unjustified, and unneccessary invasion of Iraq while continuing to talk about the "culture of life" has bullshit flowing from both ends, threatening to choke us all on a vast methane emission. The bullshit reached something of a pinnacle this year when California's oldest death row inmate, who had been very ill, was executed. A prison official, discussing the inmate's request to be allowed to die if he suffered a heart attack prior to his execution, said, "At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life. We would resuscitate him, then execute him."

Now that's bullshit.

Note: Although there is no compelling reason not to do so, no Judeo-Christian religion extends the culture of life to include animals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture_of_life

http://www.culture-of-life.org/?Control=PageMaster&pgid=25

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-execute18.html