Case of Schizophrenia

We've always been a schizophrenic society, caught between priveleges and responsibilities, passion and restraint. Jefferson wrote of the self evident truth that "all men are created equal" but had no problem keeping, trading, whipping and hanging slaves.

We welcomed immigrants to our shores in great waves, yet quarantined Asians American families in concentration camps while there sons went off to war. These camps were very similar to Nazi detention camps during WWII. No new concentration camps have materialized (we do have detention camps in the U.S), but G.W Bush is currently developing new ways for mass deportations and detentions, particularly of Arab and Muslim immigrants in America, which has forced a comparison of the two experiences, revealing striking similarities.

More recently, we've developed a complicated approach to sex. On the one hand, we allow our daughters to emulate unwholesome caricatures of womenhood like Britney, The Simpson Sisters Jessica and Ashley, Lindsay Lohan and so on ... we then lament the fact that they become sexually active at an early age. But instead of telling them not to have sex, we fight for the 12 year old's right to use condoms.

More than schizophrenia, it's hypocrisy.

Take abortion. Basic instincts tell us that the creature in the womb is incipient human life, BUT we call it a fetus and attempt to strip it of its innate humanity with the cold lexicon of the clinician, but we can't hide from the reality. Pregnancy involves two lives, with competing rights. It's a matter of science, not religion or conjecture.

In the case of Laci Peterson, the killer was charged with two counts of homicide making the ambiguity more compelling. In this instance the fetus is given status, a voice and posthumous dignity. But it is when a mother chooses to terminate a pregnancy, that the fetus looses its status under the criminal code.