How far is the “faith-based” culture willing to go to prove that life is not sacred? Terri Schiavo’s life was sacred. Bush and the Republican members of congress declared it so. Dr. Frist, a Republican senator, diagnosed her via TV. Dr. Frist also stated that if Americans did not know the source of the photographs taken at Abu Grahib they would assume they were taken in American prisons. The life of prisoners is not sacred in America or Iraq. That is the definition of a Culture of  Death. 

Some stem cells are sacred; others must be destroyed lest they be used to save lives. Some fetuses are sacred, others are trash. When Republicans seized Congress in 1994, they passed a welfare bill that denied additional benefits to women who already had children on welfare. “After years of heading down, abortion rates for poor women rose sharply between 1994 and 2000.” (NYTimes 1-20-03)

A pregnant Ohio woman tried to get help at a local clinic but she was uninsured. Both she and the baby died. (NYTimes 4-11-08) If the baby had been born, it’s chances of surviving infancy would have been better in Cuba, China, El Salvador and thirty other countries where newborn life is more sacred than in America. The mother’s chances of surviving birth would have been better in 28 other nations where a mother’s life is as sacred as that of a stem cell.

Chinese workers at sweatshops in the US territory of Saipan were required if pregnant to have an abortion. Speaker of the House Tom DeLay praised the outgoing governor as “a shining light for what is happening in the Republican Party, and you represent everything that is good about what we're trying to do in America, in leading the world in the free market system.” DeLay was one of more than 80 congressmen and congressional staff members given vacations in Saipan by Jack Abramoff to continue the “free market” in Saipan, including abortion on demand of the employer. (ABC News)

Unborn U.S. babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, according to a report by the Environmental Working Group based on tests of umbilical cord blood that reflects what the mother passes to the baby through the placenta. “Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests,” the report said. A Government Accountability Office report said the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) does not have the powers it needs to fully regulate toxic chemicals. (Reuters 7-14-05)

Bush's cap-and-trade system permits power plants to buy and sell the right to emit mercury. According to the Center for Disease Control and  Prevention in Atlanta one in 12 women of childbearing age has unusually elevated levels of mercury.

The Independent reported that industrial chemicals are damaging the intellectual potential of the next generation and may increase the incidence of conditions such as Parkinson's disease. Scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health say at least 202 chemicals are known to damage the brain and their effects at low levels of exposure are unknown. Fetuses and children are exposed when the chemicals seep into ground water, are carried in air or contaminate food.

A 2005 study by the Center for Health, Environment & Justice looking at just four states -- Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey and Michigan -- found 500,000 children attending schools within half a mile of known toxic dumps. The 99th Street Elementary was built on top of 20,000 tons of industrial waste. Elementary school students played with ooze such as Lindane and phosphorous rocks bubbling up on the playground. “When you threw (the phosphorous rocks) at a hard surface, they would explode like a firecracker.” Some of the children were badly burned. Only seven states have laws preventing building schools on or near toxic waste where land is cheaper. (CNN 8-22-08)

According to the Urban Institute, 27,000 Americans die each year for lack of health insurance. Every year that’s 9 times the number of people who died on 9/11 but “right to life” politicians are opposed to insurance for the poor, even for poor children. How many lives could churches save if they rejected the “faith-based” handouts from taxpayers? If they paid taxes on their property? If they paid taxes on their for-profit enterprises? 

The US ranks last among industrial nations in avoiding death by preventable disease. (Democracy Now 1-9-08) A twelve-year-old died of a toothache. An $80 tooth extraction might have saved him if his family had not lost its Medicaid. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care at a cost of more than $250,000 the boy died.

Is such neglect of public welfare benign or malignant? EPA has dropped or delayed more than 400 cases of suspected violations of the law such as illegal industrial discharges. (NYTimes 8-18-08) EPA has overstated the purity of the nation's drinking water for four years leaving millions of people at risk. (Washington Post 3-12-04) At least 46 million Americans are affected by trace amounts of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, up from 41 million people in six months. Chicago found a cholesterol medication and a nicotine derivative. Many cities found an anti-convulsant. Colorado Springs found five pharmaceuticals, including a tranquilizer and a hormone. Even in extremely diluted concentrations pharmaceutical residues harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species in the wild and impair the workings of human cells in the laboratory. The overwhelming majority of U.S. communities have yetto test drinking water. (AP 9-12-08)

April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court ruled that the EPA had to decide immediately if it was going to regulate carbon dioxide emissions. One year later, EPA still delayed implementation leading 17 states to file suit against the EPA for flouting the Supreme Court’s ruling. The lawsuit seeks to compel the EPA to act within 60 days. Other states intend to sue the EPA “if it does not act soon to reduce pollution from ships, aircraft and off-road vehicles.” (Think Progress 4-02-08)

The World Health Organization expects 300,000+ deaths linked to climate change by the year 2030. The American Lung Association attributes 24,000 premature deaths, 550,000 asthma attacks, 38,000 heart attacks, and 12,000 hospital admissions annually to coal-fired power plant pollution. John Young of the Waco Tribune pointed out that while there is some disagreement between scientists regarding human-caused global warming, “They do not disagree on how those emissions strain the lung’s bronchioles, with asthma deaths, lung cancer and more. You can’t dispute that.” 

You can ignore it. But why would you ignore measures that would not only save lives, they would improve the quality of life and the futures of children? Because profit is sacred, at least more sacred than life.

Former EPA official Jason Burnett revealed how the White House censored and distorted climate change science to protect corporate interests. Office of Management and Budget officials tried to define carbon dioxide (CO2) from power plants as different from CO2 from cars and trucks in order to shield industrial power plants from regulations required by the Supreme Court. (Washington Post 7-29-08)

EPA has estimated a reduction in ozone to 70 parts per billion “could result annually in 2,300 fewer nonfatal heart attacks; 48,000 fewer respiratory problems, acute bronchitis and asthma attacks; 7,600 fewer respiratory related hospital visits, and 890,000 fewer days when people miss work or school.” Big industries are lobbying to block the new limits. “It could trigger layoffs nationwide,” said Sen. George V. Voinovich, (AP 3-6-08)

FAA supervisors blocked enforcement of safety rules at several major airlines. Inspectors and managers were intimidated or punished when they tried to put safety first. (USA Today 4-4-08)

Those who escaped death in Katrina faced new hazards posed by their government: high levels of formaldehide in trailers provided by FEMA. A study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory appear to confirm the role that “manufacturers’ practices and weak federal regulation played in the public health disaster.” (Washington Post 7-3-08)

The Senate approved trade sanctions against Burma but dropped efforts to eliminate a big tax break to Chevron because of its ties to the repressive military junta. Ecuador has sued Chevron for dumping toxic waste in Ecuadaor’s rain forest. “Activists have described the disaster as an Amazon Chernobyl.” A court-appointed expert recommended that Chevron pay $16 billion to clean up the mess. Chevron has asked Bush to punish Ecuador if they do not drop the lawsuit. (Newsweek 8-3-08)

After the collapse of the twin towers at the World Trade Center new provisions required tall office buildings to have more fireproofing and an extra emergency stairwell. The General Service Administration, the federal government’s property manager, opposes the tougher standards. (NYTimes 9-14-08)

Tobacco products cause 438,000 premature deaths every year and are harmful to fetuses. Alcohol is also harmful to fetuses. Teenagers can’t buy alcohol or tobacco products but pregnant women can. “Right to life” claimants who support birth on demand don’t demand that pregnant women avoid products containing nicotine or alcohol. The right to profit from advertising and selling deadly merchandise is sacred.

US defense corporations have long been “the top arms supplier to the world,” but the list of buyers has greatly expanded. Among recent additions are Iraq and Afghanistan that remain on the verge of civil war, Georgia and Azerbaijan that border Russia, and India and Pakistan that have fought recent wars, have nuclear weapons and remain bitter enemies. (NYTimes 9-14-08)

Polly Cleveland wrote, “CSX Railroad, under former Bush Treasury Secretary John Snow, deliberately cut back safety inspections and repairs, at the cost of hundreds of deaths and injuries a year in railway accidents.” Many miners are exposed to toxic chemical substances, and yet nothing has been done to revise exposure limits set 40 years ago. The Labor Department said federal mine regulators were negligent in protecting the safety of workers at the Crandall Canyon Mine when nine miners died in a mine accident. The executive responsible for mine safety was reappointed by Bush. The mining company was fined $1.3 million or less than 150,000 per miner. (Dollars and Sense 3-1-08)

Can you put a dollar sign on life? Yes, and business has for years. If a car explodes when it collides with another object is it more expensive to reengineer the car or to pay for the lives of those who are projected to die in such events? The government  also determines the “Value of a Statistical Life,” a figure that is used to decide “whether lifesaving policies are worth the cost to profits.” Recently, the EPA lowered its official estimate of life’s value making “the perceived benefits of cleaning up the air seem less,” said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch. This year the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission considered a proposal to make mattresses less flammable at a cost of $343 million but expected to save 270 lives. “The commission calculated that each life was worth $5 million, which meant a benefit of about $1.3 billion.” Because the benefit was greater thanloss of profit to the industry, the proposal made sense. (Washington Post 7-19-08)

Exposure to lead paint threatens the health of 1.4 million kids every year. Safety regulations were supposed to be in place in 2005 but the EPA secretly delayed the requirement. EPA spokeswoman Eryn Witcher said the agency had not abandoned the possibility of issuing mandatory regulations but was exploring voluntary alternatives that might be more effective, as well as less costly. Complying with the regulations would cost industries between $1.7 billion and $3.1 billion a year. However, an agency estimate shows implementing lead-paint regulations would provide health benefits from $2.7 billion to $4.2 billion annually. (LA Times 5-10-05) But that wasn’t enough.

A bridge in Minneapolis that collapsed killing 13 people and injured 150 was known to be risky but repairing it would be a “budget buster.” A radar survey of the bridge deck was not completed “due to lack of funding.” (AP 5-21-08) In 2006 the EPA reauthorized four pesticides sprayed on fruit and vegetables. The agency found that the “four substances posed risks to human health but concluded their cost savings to growers outweighed the dangers.” San Francisco Chronicle (4-8-08)

When profit is more sacred than life, secrecy must also become sacred. “Important business and consumer information is increasingly being withheld from the public” reported US News and World Report. (12-12-03) The day Bush took his oath of office, Attorney General Ashcroft encouraged “agencies to deny Freedom of Information Act requests if a ‘sound legal basis’ exists.’” The commitment to secrecy extends to transportation, communications, energy, and “other systems that make modern society run.” According to new Transportation Security Administration rules information can be withheld from the public if it's “impractical” to release it. Homeland Security (HS)encourages companies to submit information about critical infrastructure to aid HS in protecting those facilities. “When a company does this, the information is exempted from public disclosure and cannot be used without thesubmitting party’s permission in any civil proceeding, even a government enforcement action. Critics see this as a get-out-of-jail-free card, allowing companies worried about potential litigation or regulatory actions to place troublesome information in a convenient ‘homeland security’ vault.” 

US News also reported that water assessments required by the Clean Water Act are still being done, but the release of information has been so restricted that there is too little information to act upon. “As a result, the program has been fundamentally reshaped from one that has made information widely available to one that now forces citizens to essentially operate on a need-to-know basis,” said Stephen Gasteyer, a Washington specialist on water-quality issues. 

For two years documents related to Ford-Firestone tire accidents that resulted in 88 deaths were suppressed by the court. “When companies are sued for selling unsafe consumer products or creating environmental hazards, the cases too often end with court orders that keep vital health and safety dangers secret. This practice works out well for the wrongdoers, but it is bad for ordinary Americans who need to know about these threats.” March, 2008, the Senate Judiciary Committee approved “a modest but potentially life-saving bill that would require federal judges to consider public health and safety before granting a protective order, sealing court records or approving a settlement agreement.” The measure was first proposed 15 years ago. (NYTimes 3-12-08)

In 2006, the Chemical Safety Board “formally urged OSHA to immediately establish mandatory combustible dust hazard regulations” after the board found 281 such fires were responsible for 119 deaths and numerous injuries. OSHA had issued a bulletin “Preventing and Mitigating the Effects of Fire and Explosions” but declared the bulletin was “informational” and failure to follow procedures “would not be a basis for any adverse action whatsoever.” (Elizabeth de la Vega, former federal prosecutor) 

For more than seven months, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention blocked the publication of an exhaustive federal study of environmental hazards in the eight Great Lakes states, because it found “low birth weights, elevated rates of infant mortality and premature births, and elevated death rates from breast cancer, colon cancer, and lung cancer.” (Center for Public Integrity 2-7-08)

“The annual federal report on air pollution trends has no section on global warming and according to an EPA official, “Some people at pretty high levels in my organization were saying, ‘Take it out.’” (NYTimes 9-15-02) 

The Washington Post reported that the Department of Labor violated it’s own rules by failing to publicly announce a rule change that would impose extra requirements before government officials can impose new limits on exposure to dangerous chemicals in the workplace. It also would water down the current standard of measuring accumulated toxin risk across a work career of 45 years. David Michaels, a professor at George Washington University’s School of Public Health, said, the secrecy was to prevent more worker safety before Bush leaves office “to cripple the next administration.” The Department of Labor has issued one major rule change protecting workers against a chemical toxin and that was forced on it by court order.

If someone does believe that life is sacred would they please clearly state which lives are sacred and which are cannon fodder to be sacrificed in the name of “national security” or fiscal fodder to be wasted in the cause of profit?

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