To Justify Cruelty by Convenience - Issues in Abortion, Abuse, and Euthanasia

"Inarticulate in his effort to express mankind's essential illness. Inspiration came to him...there rose before his inward sight the picture of a human at once heroic and sick" (Golding). We, as a human race have made many seemingly heroic efforts to rid ourselves of sickness; sickness of society, disease, overpopulation, war, prejudice, you name it. However, these heroic efforts and sicknesses are often united as one. We use abortion to rid ourselves of overpopulation and inconvenience; mass slaughtering and cruelty to animals to rid ourselves of starvation; harsh treatment and testing of animals to rid ourselves of disease. These are only a few of the many heroic yet sick things we do to supposedly better our human race. How do we justify certain cruelties as being good, and why do we it? Is it possible that mankind's illness is the inability to see the cruelty in our methods of convenience and salvation?

Prior to Roe v. Wade, the U.S. Supreme court case that resulted in the legalization of abortion, was the 1972 meeting of "the 24 member Rockefeller Commission on Population Growth and the American Future. (Which was) headed by a veteran pro-abortionist John Rockefeller III" (Bigotry and Population Control), who recommended legalizing abortion out of concern for overpopulation. In this commission there were only a few voices against the legalization of abortion, one of which was "Graciela Olivarez...active in civil rights and anti-poverty work, (stated) "The poor cry out for justice and equality...and we respond with legalized abortion. I believe that in a society that permits the life of even one individual (born or unborn) to be dependant on whether that life is 'wanted' or not, all its citizens stand in danger...We do not have equal opportunities. Abortion is a cruel way out" (Murti).