Looking Away From Abortion
New York Times ^ | July 25, 2015 | By Ross Douthat / / FR Posted by Brad from Tennessee
In an essay in his 1976 collection, “Mortal Lessons,” the physician, Richard Selzer, describes a strange suburban scene. People go outside in the morning in his neighborhood, after the garbage trucks have passed, and find “a foreignness upon the pavement,” a softness underfoot.
Looking down, Dr Selzer first thinks he sees oversize baby birds, then rubber baby dolls, until the realization comes that the street is littered with the tiny, naked, all-too-human bodies of aborted fetuses.
Later, the local hospital director speaks to Dr Selzer, trying to impose order on the grisly scene. It was an accident, of course: The tiny corpses were accidentally “mixed up with the other debris” instead of being incinerated or interred. “It is not an everyday occurrence. Once in a lifetime, he says.”
And Dr Selzer tries to nod along: “Now you see. It is orderly. It is sensible. The world is not mad. This is still a civilized society."
“But just this once, you know it isn’t. You saw, and you know.” (Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ....