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Do Not Murder


You shall not murder. (Exodus 20:13)

                If a boy or man kills people at a concert, he’s a monster and we should make guns illegal because somehow not having guns will eliminate his murderous desires. If someone shoves a child in a suitcase and lets her starve, that person is a monster. If a man kills a woman and her unborn child, it’s a double homicide. In fact, if a man hits a woman so that her unborn child dies, but she lives, he is charged with murder. Using animals for experimental purposes is considered barbaric. 
               Harming an eagle’s egg, or a sea turtle’s egg is illegal. Throwing newborn puppies off a bridge in a plastic bag is another sign of a monster, even if they aren’t people and it’s not legally considered murder. There is a move being made to make animal abuse a felony so that harsher penalties can be imposed. While I’d rather it not be made into something else overseen by the national government, I think the penalties for abusing an animal should be the same as those for abusing a person. After all, the behavior is the same.
                The feminist movement has complained bitterly about the idea of patriarchy, in which the male head of the household supposedly had all decision-making authority. He could treat women and children as brutally as he wanted, even having them killed and no one could say anything. There are some places in the world where this is still the case.  The female leaders of the Democratic party claims that it’s still the case in any household where a woman didn’t vote for Mrs. Clinton.
             But, there are places in this country where right up to the moment of birth, it is not only legal, but acceptable to tear a child in the womb limb from limb, crush its skull and drag it from the only home she has ever known. And if a chemical rather than a physical method is used, and the child comes out of the uterus alive? It is acceptable to leave her on a table somewhere, untended, until she dies. If she were an animal in a lab, people would cheer if a few brave souls broke in and rescued the poor creatures, but there is no pity for the little girl on the table. 
                If these acts were committed against animals, calls for the punishment of the accused would go viral on social media. If a man did them, again, there would be outrage. But because the person doing these things, or paying someone else to do them is a woman, no one is permitted to say a word. Some actions, same results, but instead of screaming for the woman to be punished, we’re told that we must weep for the woman. She’s the victim, poor thing. It’s her body, after all. 
               Well, no, it’s not. When one eats and swallows food, it passes through the body in a long tube that might be compared to the Panama Canal. What is inside the stomach and intestines may be absorbed into the body, but technically, it’s not in the body any more than the water in the canal is in Panama. It’s claimed by Panama, but it’s really part of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans that happens to flow through the country. In the same way, what is in the uterus may receive benefit from the woman’s body, but it’s really in a bay. 
               And the little girl whose heart may have been beating even before her mother knew she exists? Is taking her life any less murder than the taking of the life of an African slave’s? That was legal once, too, for any and every reason. 
                And God said, “Do not murder.” There was no excuse to this commandment given to women, or to those who found the other life inconvenient.

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