We are strolling down the street with representatives of the
Religious
Social Action Coalition. We have come from a faraway country to learn
strategies for dealing with poverty in our own country, having learned of the
formation of this remarkable Coalition.
They are about to take us on a tour of the streets of St.
John’s and show us the reality of child poverty, which they claim needs to be
urgently addressed—even abolished—because children are needlessly suffering
every day.
As we walk and they share with us their exciting vision of a
city and a province without poverty, a horrid sight suddenly overcomes us.
There on the sidewalk is the lifeless body of an extremely young child,
severely lacerated and with some body parts even missing. We are immediately
repulsed and horrified.
“What,” we exclaim, “has happened here to this child? Surely
a great and violent crime has been perpetrated against this child and neither
the criminal nor the neighbourhood has had the decency to ensure a proper
burial! Furthermore it is obvious that the police have not even been called to
inquire into this greatest of all injustices against an innocent child!”
Leaders of the Coalition assure us not to be alarmed. They
note that we are likely to see at least three of these children in such
condition in the city of St. John’s each day that we are on our tour, some of
them even much younger than this child and some of them entirely in small
pieces as if shredded.
We protest and demand how it is that this can be so. Leaders
try to calm us and assure us that this is not a problem to be concerned with.
They would like to hurry us along past the dead child and further along into
the tour. But we protest further, insisting that we must know more about these
heinous crimes that are taking place against innocent children in this great
city of St. John’s. We simply cannot move past this child and resume the tour
until the grave injustice has been explored and understood.
The Coalition emphasizes that this is not their mandate and
that they have chosen to look at other ways in which they can help children and
their families, poverty being what they consider to be the most pressing
matter. They boast that the urgency of addressing poverty was such an animating
force among the leaders of the Coalition that never before in the history of NL
is there a record of such a diverse group of religious leaders from all faiths
coming together with a united voice to address such a great injustice.
But immediately we ask the leaders, “But what of these
children lying in the streets, violently killed and disposed of in such an
inhuman, undignified manner? What of justice for them? And why did not such a
diverse and powerful Coalition first come together to put an end to the evil
practice of child killing in the city? Of what use is it to expend energy in
feeding and clothing children when clearly many children in the city are in
serious danger of being killed?”
The leaders seem somewhat shaken and at a loss to answer
these penetrating questions but assure us that others are looking after the
problem, and that, in fact, many residents of the city do not find the killing
of these children objectionable.
We are dumbfounded by this claim, asking Coalition members
what sort of callous hard hearted people live in this city. Furthermore we demand
to know why it is that those who have been assigned to solve these despicable
crimes have not been able to put a halt to such barbarism.
We surmise that such crimes might be the result of recent
actions by some particularly heinous serial killer(s). But upon inquiry we
learn that this activity has been going on for almost forty years in the city.
We are totally shocked and appalled by this disclosure and immediately cancel
our tour in order to return to our native country, realizing we will learn nothing
from Coalition leaders about addressing any of the needs of human beings, let
alone children, and admonishing the Coalition to immediately change the focus
of their efforts from “abolishing poverty” to abolishing child-killing.
**********
[This parable needs
only one distinction be made in order to clearly reflect the reality of our
decrepit condition: Mothers don’t dump their children on the streets of St.
John’s. It’s certainly too visible but also unnecessary. The government pays
abortionists to kill their children and dispose of them in a dumpster or sell
their body parts to various private enterprise firms.]
FLASHBACK: Originally posted
on the Vote Life Canada blog, Sept. 9, 2007
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