Image Credit: The Telegraph UK

A disturbing report from the United Kingdom is causing an uproar all the way across the pond here in the United States. An investigation has led to the conclusion that thousands of unborn and miscarried babies were used as fuel in incinerators to heat hospitals. LifeNews.com reports:

“One of the country’s leading hospitals, Addenbrooke’s in Cambridge, incinerated 797 babies below 13 weeks gestation at their own ‘waste to energy’ plant. The mothers were told the remains had been ‘cremated.’ Another ‘waste to energy’ facility at Ipswich Hospital, operated by a private contractor, incinerated 1,101 foetal remains between 2011 and 2013. They were brought in from another hospital before being burned, generating energy for the hospital site.”

The shock and disgust has come mostly from pro-life camps as the pro-abortion crowd seems strangely silent. Then again, if you approve of ripping unborn babies apart limb from limb then what is the big deal about using their body parts to heat a hospital?

How did we get to the place as a society where we sit apathetically while human bodies are used to heat hospitals?

Rachael Wong, writing at LifeSiteNews.com commented:

“If medical professionals are permitted – no, expected – to dismember (amongst other things) the bodies of living babies when carrying out abortions, is it any wonder that they lack respect for those same babies’ dead bodies or for the bodies of miscarried babies at the same stage of development? When the terms ‘clump of cells’, ‘product of conception’ and ‘blob of tissue’ are routinely used to describe and dehumanize (sic) the unborn child, what kind of dignified send-off can we really expect?”

But wait a minute, we remember what Hitler did to the Jews. We remember the death camps and the furnaces where entire families were sent to face a gruesome death by fire. How could we possibly not be outraged and disgusted by the very thought of using another human being to heat a hospital?

Joe Carter, writing at The Gospel Coalition answers that question in an unusual way that bears consideration by every person. Carter writes:

“Unfortunately, Christians have helped contribute to this callous disregard by undermining the role of disgust in helping to recognize and restrain sinful behavior. While we should never be disgusted by people there a broad range of human behaviors that we should find inherently disgusting. Yet while disgust was once considered a guide (albeit a fallible one) to God’s natural law, we now chastise Christians for even implying that any sinful behavior can be disgusting.”

He goes on to share an article about the nature of disgust and its usefulness to a society by being connected to morals and morality.

The combination of legalized abortion and a lack of disgust in society could very well be contributing to the culture of death that would find it acceptable to burn human bodies as fuel. Just as Hitler saw no more value in the Jews than to kill as many as he could in any way he could, so too it is easy to see how aborted or miscarried babies would be seen by abortion supporters as a strange sort of bio-fuel.

The reality is that, as Wesley J. Smith commented, once a people has been deemed a “killable caste”, all bets are off as to the limits of degradation that are possible. Smith explained:

“To put it bluntly, legalizing abortion at will transformed fetuses in the minds of at least half the population into a killable caste—akin to a tumor or a vial of tainted blood—that can be destroyed at will (except in the latest stage of pregnancy, and in the USA, often even then). Once any category of humans is devolved into a killable caste, why treat their remains respectfully?… As we have seen historically—slavery, the Holocaust–once we create killable castes of people, making utilitarian use of them becomes an easy, and indeed, logical, next step. Those with eyes to see, let them see.”

Sadly more groups of people are being viewed as “killable castes” in the wake of legalized abortion. Such groups as the elderly, disabled, and even those wishing to die are viewed as less than human to the place that we will grant their desperate desires for our own selfish desires. Where does this trend end? At what point do we back away from this path of death and realize that if the most vulnerable – the unborn, elderly, and disabled – are not safe no one is safe?

Maybe we’ve forgotten our history and what was done so many years ago. It is said that those who do not learn from history will repeat it. It could very well be that those willing to use human bodies for heat in a hospital have turned a blind eye to what took place under Hitler and refuse to see it for the atrocity it was. That has led to a repeat of Hitler’s mistake.

We have an obligation as human beings to be outraged at this event. It should be a natural reaction to feel disgust and anger when hearing of this, but if that is not possible our obligation as humans should take over and produce the same reaction. If we ignore this incident like it never happened we can be sure that more groups of people will be deemed “killable” and that there will come a time when we will be in danger of being thrown in the fire. Maybe not for a physical deformity or for being old, maybe just for disagreeing with those throwing people in the fire.