Judging

During a documentary I watched about the Buchenwald concentration camp, a survivor told a harrowing story. It seems a group included a pregnant captive about to give birth to a baby. Truth was, if the Germans found out, they would kill both the baby and the mother. Without the baby, the mother might live, at least for a few more days. She might even survive the captivity to tell her story.

What a horrifying decision did this person face. Perhaps those single-issue voters who would elect a perfect reprobate to public office over the issue of a woman’s control over her body might contemplate this tragedy. They might also contemplate the dangers of shoehorning such a complex issue into a reality show soundbite. They might even contemplate a human tragedy of a scale we can’t imagine.

It is impossible, from a warm room on a full stomach to contemplate this person’s personal predicament.

I don’t know what decision I would have made. I only know that I would never have to make it.

I also know that the Galilean is reported to have said, “Judge not lest you be also judged.”