Letter: Children being raised today don’t have respect for life

Tuesday, June 2, 1998 | 11:10 a.m.

The real cause isn't politically correct, so it's swept under the rug. We are a society of killers.

When a woman conceives a child at an inconvenient time, she goes to a clinic and has her baby aborted. If Grandma is failing, we euthanize her. If the medical profession stamps "terminal" on a patient's record, some "merciful" person gives that patient a lethal dose and the problem is solved.

We call it "pulling the plug" if life support is removed. We have capital punishment. All of these are terms for killing a person before natural death occurs.

You can cover your ears and close your eyes and say we have a right to all these heinous crimes, but look at what we have produced. Every one of these gun-toting juveniles could have been aborted by his mother without any legal ramifications.

And the problem isn't isolated. Babies being thrown in toilets, tossed in trash cans and buried alive. Then, as a society we gasp in horror, but only weeks or days earlier, these children could have been aborted without the raise of an eyebrow.

There are drive-by shootings. We have teens killing their families or attacking a teacher. Our vocabulary now includes phrases like "going postal," "quality of life" and "dying with dignity." We are screaming: If somebody is a burden, kill that person.

If you think I'm wrong, take an honest look around. Guns have been readily available since we, as a nation, began. We have always had child abuse and neglect. The big difference now is a complete lack of respect for life.

Rose Etta Turrietta