<p><strong>To the editor:</strong></p><p>The February 2019 issue of the National Geographic magazine has a startling article about the discovery of shallow graves of 269 children, plus baby lamas, in what is now Peru. The article is titled “An Unthinkable Sacrifice” and uses the word “horrific.” The author agonized over what event or disaster could have been so great as to cause a civilization to sacrifice so many young lives in the 15th Century. The theory is that the Chimu people were trying to appease the deities to stop an El Nino climate disaster.</p><p>The article also noted that the Bible acknowledges child sacrifice as well. The magazine is correct: in Genesis, Abraham was tested by God to sacrifice his son, who was heir to the covenant God had made with him. But God stopped Abraham from killing his son. The biblical story goes on to declare that there would be no child sacrifice, that the first born must be redeemed, not killed. Later, the Bible refers negatively to people who worship other deities sending their newborn children through a gruesome fire sacrifice. The site of these sacrifices outside ancient Jerusalem was known as Gehenna, the Israelite Hell, the smoldering picture of the worst one could ever imagine.</p><p>Related deities in that time and place celebrated sexual libertine behaviors, ostensibly as a show and tell demonstration to show their forgetful gods how to create fertility for their crops and animals, who periodically required infant children as payment for services (hopefully) rendered.</p><p>The media recently reported some women who proudly celebrated their abortions. New York State gleefully passed legislation which endorses abortions up to the day of birth. A past presidential candidate celebrated this advancement, saying that it ‘only’ affected about 12,000 abortions. Like their ancient forebears, the promoters of infanticide oppose the great monotheistic religions with the modern equivalents of Baal, Asherah and Molech. To appease the deities of unfettered sexual expression and its consequences, political correctness now demands that women—along with soldiers at war, citizens defending themselves against immediate harm, and the state after conviction of criminals and years of costly appeals—may kill.</p><p>The difference is that women — the fathers have no say in the matter — do not need to plead their case before a judge and jury, do not need to adhere to the Geneva Convention, do not need to demonstrate any harm or any reason whatsoever, and may repeatedly do so and demand that the general population pay for it. Through our taxes at least, we are all compelled to come bow before that bloody altar. What event or disaster are we experiencing that causes us to act this way? Should we like the Chimu blame it on climate change?</p><p>Women and girls, born and yet to be born, and men and boys, born and yet to be born, are all human beings who have value, regardless of the circumstances in which they were created. When we begin sorting out human beings as worthy or unworthy of life, we head down a perilous path. Who can see this as progress in our theology or culture? We are in trouble when 269 children killed five or six hundred years ago in South America is seen as an unthinkable horror while some of our political leaders dismiss 12,000 babies’ death in our time as okay.</p><p><p><strong>Peter Jessen</strong></p><p><p><strong>Franklin</strong></p>
