Throughout history, events lead to societal changes, behaviors are accepted; perhaps even legalized, yet the attitude of the time -- the context in which laws are enacted -- evolves with progress. Sometimes attitudes remain the same in spite of progress. Consider the right to bear arms.

A sad and interesting chapter of the abortion chronology is upon us. Abortion, after a protracted battle, became legal, safe, and relatively accessible in response to the horrible consequences of an illegal and much-practiced procedure. Yet the Me Generation took a right turn and the power of the church turned a moral tide on the exercise of choice. "Safe sex" became an oxymoron; no need to even talk about sex. Abstinence became the solution which would obviate the need for choice. Nothing leads to nothing, nothing ever will.

The children of nothingness, of today's denial, grow up accordingly. All instincts have been extinguished. If you miss your period for nine months, if you have a couple of nauseous months, if your stomach grows strangely with unusual gaseous movements, you ignore it and it will go away. And you certainly can't ask your mother what is happening to your body. She can't talk to you about those matters.

So instead of the stories of teenage girls who die of infection later attributed to a back-alley abortion, we hear the tale of a newborn, disposed of by its teenage parents. We hear the tale of a high school girl giving birth in the middle of her high school prom and suffocating the effluent. Could she even have comprehended the consequences of her actions -- the sex, the birth, and the death?

And so the tide will ebb and flow. While thought leaders debate partial-birth abortion and the murder of the "pre-born", more post-born human beings will die, giving their lives until the next generation accepts the reality of certain human behaviors. Perhaps these deaths will lead to a suspension of judgment and an understanding that there is much more at stake than a religious principle. Murder and abortion are, in fact, two entirely different matters.