The High Cost of Energy
[guest post by Dana]
Last month, in a bit of horrific news, it was revealed that aborted and miscarried babies were being incinerated as clinical waste to heat hospitals in the United Kingdom. The public outcry prompted officials to review their code of ethics and make sure hospital personnel were properly trained in presenting disposal options to parents.
This week, Oregon found itself in a similar position.
The British Columbia Health Ministry confirmed that biomedical waste is shipped to the U.S. for destruction. Such waste includes “human tissue, such as surgically removed cancerous tissue, amputated limbs, and fetal tissue.”
The biomedical waste is believed to be incinerated at Oregon’s Covanta Marion waste-to-energy facility where 800 tons of medical waste is burned yearly to produce energy. This is the only facility that uses waste to power the grid.
Today, county commissioners approved a move to halt the waste company from receiving fetal tissue to burn. County commissioners claim they were unaware of the practice.
According to commissioner Sam Brentano, the county ordinance that sets the parameters for what can be accepted at the waste-to-energy plant allows for all human tissue.
“No rule or law has been broken, but there’s an ethical standard that’s been broken.
Brentano added,
The county plans to rewrite its ordinance to spell out that no tissue from fetuses can enter the incinerator, and the providers will have to develop a workable system.
Of course, if this medical waste was once just a lentil-sized, brainless embryo or a mindless pre-person, presumably without a soul, what difference does incinerating them make? After all, they would have only grown up to be time-sucking monsters with their constant neediness anyway.
The idea that miscarried and aborted babies could be incinerated to produce energy is mind-boggling. But for those who believe that these were nothing but soulless blobs of tissue and blood, this is not a problem. And some of those people not only have no qualms about this, they might even see it as a unique way to produce energy. Do the math: with the number of abortions performed in the United States alone and approximately 800 tons of “medical waste” burned in a year at just one plant, it might be a lucrative enterprise.
At the end of the day, the hard-edged coldness of this life is wearying. And unfortunately, in this multi-layered sadness we see the most defenseless among us not only prevented from taking their very first breaths, but to our collective shame, they are met with just as much callous disregard in the aftermath. They are no different than an amputated toe. It represents who we are and what we have become. Who we will be remains to be seen.
*Preemptive strike: A baby resulting from rape is not discussed in the post or in the articles.
**Preemptive strike: I believe parents who lose through miscarriage should be given options for disposal of remains and their wishes followed. I think that aborted remains should be treated with the respect they were not accorded in life and be turned over to churches and groups who will bury them in the ground, loving them on the last part of their very limited journey on this earth.
–Dana