Respect for human life

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 3, Issue 32, 21 January 1986, Page 7

Respect for human life

There has been some very interesting reading in the newspaper the past week, including the tragically high number of accidents. One doctor at Wanganui Base Hospital described the number of accident victims treated at the hospital over the holiday season as horrific. Another account in the paper on another day told us of the number of drownings this year, the highest in three years. I opened the paper recently to the front page and there was the tragic statistic that 13,000 children

were killed or hospitalised each year due to accidents. Some of these accidents can't be helped — unforseen circumstances suddenly appear and the accident occurs before adjustments can be made. Many more accidents, however, can be avoided or prevented. They happen due to combining drinking and driving, for example. Others are caused by carelessness such as little children riding unprotected in the front seat of a car. Others are due to people taking risks beyonds their capabilities and there are countless other reasons and or excuses.

What it all adds up to is terrible tragedy. We need to face up to the high cost in human life, in long-term injury accidents, as well as to the fatalities. In the face of all these accidents to persons, not just statistics — one cannot help but wonder if life is becoming cheap, and losing its value for far too many of us, perhaps all of us. I find it helps to remember the biblical message that we are made in the image of God to conserve and build up God's creation, not maim and destroy his fellow creatures, to share life with, not take it away. Like young Felipe Garza Jr from San Fransisco who,

apparemtly had some premonitiion of his death, and 'literallly' shared his heart with Donna Ashlock and willing ; her new life by telling his motther he wanted to give it to Dtfonna when he died. Thatt good news story was also in 1 th^t same newspaper. It is lunlikely that you and I will be called upon to honouir and share life as dramattically as young Felipe. But in many littie ways, here and there, now and then, we can show we are made in God's image by having respect for the life he gave to other sons and daughters on this earth as well as our own.

Rev. Don .

Bater