Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Swift's Modest Proposal in 2012 - Chinese Babies in Capsules

In 1729, the great satirist Jonathan Swift published a savagely ironic "Modest Proposal" - 
"A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to their Parents, or the Country, and for Making them Beneficial to the Publick." The tract is proposes to "find out a fair, cheap, and easy Method" for converting the starving children of Ireland into "sound and useful members of the Commonwealth."  Now a new method has been found for profiting from China's notorious one-child policy by grinding up the flesh of dead babies in fetal or infant stage into capsules for sale in South Korea.


The South Korean authorities are cracking down on this trade...because it is a health risk for South Koreans!  Turns out the dead Chinese babies in capsule form are not, after all, Beneficial to the Publick.


Baby Flesh - now available in capsule form!



Good evening all, the weather here in Nu Zeld has turned – it is raining and windy and generally miserable outside.  So it is a perfect backdrop to the horror and revulsion that I felt when I read this article from the BBC.  The facts as reported need no embellishment:

“South Korea says it will increase customs inspections targeting capsules containing powdered human flesh.
The Korea Customs Service said it had found almost 17,500 of the capsules being smuggled into the country from China since August 2011.
The powdered flesh, which officials said came from dead babies and foetuses, is reportedly thought by some to cure disease and boost stamina.”

So, some people are eating the flesh of dead babies and foetuses to boost their stamina? Isn’t this the very apotheosis of treating human beings as a product that are valuable as long as they can be useful and not something intrinsically worthwhile? Why is this story not leading news agencies everywhere as a vast and horrendous practise that should be rooted out and destroyed by a world that calls itself civilised? This is simply and literally diabolical. What instantly springs to mind is how many of these powdered dead babies were aborted under the one child policy and how many were aborted against their mother’s wishes?

One can imagine some officials making a tidy packet on the side in the trafficking of baby flesh. “You will burden China down, dear baby. Therefore we must abort you. But do not fear, because even your death can be useful. We will turn your flesh into powder and sell you to people who wish to be cured of disease.”

What is perhaps even more disturbing is the reason given by the Koreans why they are cracking down on these capsules:

“…officials said the capsules were full of bacteria and a health risk.

‘It was confirmed those capsules contain materials harmful to the human body, such as super bacteria. We need to take tougher measures to protect public health,’ a customs official was quoted as saying by the Korea Times.”

But if these capsules were shown to be safe, we’d be fine with it? Is that what the officials are saying? I hate to break it to these officials and anyone who agrees with them, but even if these were beneficial to your body, they would be decidedly harmful to your soul.

But perhaps I am being too quick to judge and to scold. After all, what is the difference between eating baby flesh to cure disease and relying on stem cell research to do the same thing? Aren’t we in both cases merely reducing the unborn to something that we value only if and when it suits us to use them?

PS: Make sure you check this great blogpost from Sheila Liaugminas at Sheila Reports about Chen Guangcheng and the Obama administration. (Sheila even mentions our favourite Chicken Little impersonator – Paul Erlich!)

Posted at MercatorNet.

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