What’s so bad about incinerating 15,000 babies?

The news from Britain that aborted fetuses were incinerated to heat hospitals is both shocking and banal.

First, shocking: Over the course of just two years more than 15,000 humans living in a modern, Western democracy with protections for human rights were nonetheless disposed of and then utilized for their carbon.

This is the inversion of ancient paganism. We aren’t crafting wood in God’s image. We are turning God’s image into mere wood. It still amounts to idolatry, but the worship is of self-indulgence.

And that’s why it is simultaneously so banal. This is the inevitable outcome of our cult of self-indulgence. When satisfying ourselves becomes the highest good, it becomes difficult to impossible to venerate the icon of God in others. They instead become means to our ends. In this case, keeping the temp over 65 degrees Fahrenheit.