🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3asvph$kda@spitfire.navo.navy.mil>, Martin H. Booda
<booda@lynx.navo.navy.mil> wrote: >That's their choice, and their fate.
But even if (assuming you're prescient), >in the agony of delerium which
they likely face, they _don't_ retract their >positions, integrity, faith,
loyalty to principle and US$20.00 will do little >more than insure a few
extra flowers on their graves. > The real crime here is not the
preventability of what may be happening >to them, but the fate of many
better lives which they deemed expendable for a >rather inexplicably
subjective principle. > I have this nightmare.  My father is lying in a
hospital bed, dying of >Parkinson's.  For some strange reason he is
physically shrinking, and very >rapidly.  Reagan and the Pope are dressed
in lab coats, looking through four >microscopes.  The slides under the
microscopes contain samples of brain tissue, >indistinguishable to the
layman.  RR & JPII look at the first sample.  "Post- >born tissue!
Donated by parents!  PASS!"  Reagan signs the sample, enacting it >into
law; the Pope sprinkles it with Holy Water.  They go on to the next
>'scope.  "Miscarriage!  Act of God!  PASS!"  They sign & sprinkle again.
On to >the next.  "Mugging!  Mother lived, fetus died!  Tissue
miraculously intact! >PASS!"  Sign & sprinkle.  Finally, the last
microscope.  "Abortion!  Against >Family Values!  Mortal Sin!  FAIL!"  By
this time my father has shrunk down so >small that he is almost invisible
to the naked eye.  Reagan says, "Hm.  It's >going to be difficult
examining the patient, My Holy colleague." > The Pope responds, "Yep.
Better get a microscope."
>

Funny, I had a similar dream:

My father is lying in a hospital bed, in desperate need of a heart
transplant.  There are three people ahead of him.  A nurse rushes in with
a heart from a man who died of natural causes. A life is saved.  Another
nurse rushes in with the heart of a man who just died in a traffic
accident. A second life is saved.  A third heart is rushed in from a woman
who was in a coma and whose brain finally ceased functioning.  A third
life is saved.  My father is close to death, so a nurse goes out in the
alley, finds a homeless bum, drugs him, cuts off his head, harvests the
heart, and brings it into my dad's room.  My dad says, "no thank you,"
and dies.  They give the heart to the next person in line, whose life is
saved.

The question of which of these dreams more closely approximates the
dilemna concerning abortion is not a simple one.

Michael Straight wishes people would stop pretending it was.
..............................................................................
Ethical Mirth Gas/"I'm chaste alright."/The Magical Shirt/Hath grace limits?"
"Halt this grimace!"/Chili Hamster Tag/The Gilt Charisma/"I gather this calm."