Quote of the Day

"Perhaps it is our nature to die, not our right. Maybe we have the ability, to kill, to make things dead, even ourselves, but we haven't the right. And when we exercise that ability, in the name of God (as we have done in war), or of Justice (as we have done with capital punishment), or of Choice (as we have done with abortion), we should have the good sense to recognize it for what it isn't: enlightenment, civilization, progress, mercy. Nor is it an inalienable right. It is, rather, a shame, a sadness, a peril from which no congress's legislation, no churchman's dispensation, no public opinion or conventional wisdom can ever deliver us. For if we live in a world where birth is suspect, where the value of life is relative, and death is welcomed and well-regarded, we live in a world vastly more shameful, abundantly sadder, and ever more perilous than all the primitive generations of our species before us who were sufficiently civilized to fill with wonder at the birth of new life, dance with the living, and weep for the dead."

~Thomas Lynch, "The Undertaking: Life Studies from the Dismal Trade"