Shootings
On November 27, three people were killed and nine others wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. On the same day, two were killed and two wounded at a restaurant in Sacramento, CA. On December 2, a married couple killed 14 and wounded 22 at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, CA. On the same day, one person was killed and three wounded in a shooting in Savannah, GA. Half of these were not even given attention in the news, which raises the question, Are we becoming numb to these shootings?
Unless a shooting brings the death of a significant number of people, the media no longer cares, and shockingly, neither do the civilians of the United States. The US cannot become a country that sees shootings on the news as regularly as does a country in the midst of a civil war. But when there have been more mass shootings than calendar days in the year thus far, it is hard not to believe that is the path we are headed down.
When the British Broadcasting Channel (BBC) covered the San Bernardino shooting, reporter James Cook opened the newscast with the line, “Just another day in the United States.” The rest of the world can see it, so why can’t we? The citizens of the United States cannot become used to seeing shootings on the news every night; instead, they need to begin campaigning for gun restrictions to bring an end to this violence.
El Salvador’s Abortion Policy
Prior to 1998, there were three reasons Salvadorian women could legally abort a fetus: her life was endangered, the pregnancy was a product of rape, or a severe congenital disorder was detected in the fetus. However, since the Penal Code was passed in 1998, no woman, under any circumstances, can legally have an abortion.
This has led to serious consequences. Many women are now forced to use dangerous methods including inserting metal rods to penetrate the uterus and using catheters to inject soapy water or battery acid, and often to perform these sketchy operations in their own homes.
These techniques are often fatal or otherwise permanently injure the woman. And in situations when girls as young as ten are raped, they are now left with the decision to either have their child—which, when the mother is so young, frequently leads to death of the mother and/or the child—or attempt aborting her fetus.
Another result of this law is that women who have miscarriages or stillbirths are being arrested for abortion when they did not abort their children. Punishing women for complications in their wanted births is adding salt to the wound, and is absolutely wrong.
Even if you are pro-life, these stringent anti-abortion laws are anything but that. They put the lives of hundreds of women at stake and arrest women for miscarrying their child.