Right to Life

Nobody bit on my thought experiment, so I guess it's up to me. What would it mean to base public policy on the principle that every person has a sacred and inviolable right to life, not just embryos and people without functioning cerebral cortexes, as the moral values people would have it?

Logically, it means we would have to allocate society's resources to bring about the maximum possible life span for everybody. If a death can be prevented, we have an obligation to do whatever it takes, that's our principle. If it applies to Terri Schiavo, it applies to everybody. Of course, resources are not infinite, which means if we take one action some other possible actions must be foregone, so it gets complicated fast, but there are some obvious places we can begin.

A crude measure, but one that proves we aren't doing what we are morally obligated to do as a Christian nation, is called premature death. That's just the loss of years of productive life due to death before age 75. Now, some people are going to die before age 75 because of congenital conditions that we have no technical means of preventing, but even deaths from so-called Acts of God -- hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. -- can be reduced by investing in stronger buildings, warning systems, etc. Most of those premature deaths are readily preventable, anyway -- eliminate smoking, obesity, bad diets, preventable infectious diseases; screen everybody for high blood pressure, breast and colon cancer, etc.; and reduce social inequality, because people with less education and less rewarding work die sooner.

So let's take a look at the years of potential life lost per 100,000 population, adjusted by the age structure of the population, on a state-by-state basis. Which states rank the worst, according to CDC? They seem to have a red hue -- Mississippi is at the bottom, 10,713, followed by Louisiana, Alabama, South Carolina, Arkansas, Tennessee, West Virginia, Oklahoma, Georgia, Kentucky -- oh my, here comes a blue state at last, Delaware, but then there's North Carolina, Nevada, Missouri, Alaska, purple New Mexico, blue Maryland, then Florida, Indiana, Arizona, Wyoming. You get the idea. The top-ranked states are Minnesota (at 5,595, just about half Mississippi's rate) New Hampshire, Hawaii, Iowa, Vermont, Massachusetts, Utah (the Mormons walk the walk, they don't smoke or drink), Washington, Connecticut, Maine, California . . . . Ohio, for those who may be wondering about the purplest of the purple is ranked, yep, 25, right next to Pennsylvania and Illinois. Hmm.

So all those folks with the moral values ought to start worrying about their own sacred and inviolable right to life. Something is killing them, and their preachers and political representatives aren't doing anything about it. I feel a moral values crusade coming on . . .

You can check out your own state's ranking on this and all sorts of other indicators at United Health Foundation