Much Ado About the Wrong Thing

In today's world we make a big, big fuss over things that are not of much significance. We waste our time indulging in so many varieties of non-essential pursuits that do not benefit us either materially or spiritually. This wholesale madness is going on because we have based our civilization on a false conception of the self. We consider the blood, flesh, and bones, etc, which constitute the material body, to be the self. Nothing could be further from the truth. Do we consider our cars to be our selves? No, of course not. So why should we consider the car known as the material body to be the self and ignore the driver who is seated on the driver's seat of the heart? A driver who puts gasoline and oil in his car but neglects to feed his body will very soon die from starvation. This is the present situation of our spiritually starved so-called civilization.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari

Answers According to the Vedic Version:

Question: Pro-Life versus Pro-Choice

Response to the Ultimate Self Realization daily column criticizing pro-choice political leaders--

I understand that abortion is morally wrong since it is the killing of a human life. However, outlawing abortion also puts at risk the lives of girls and women. Before abortion was legalized, the number one cause of death for women of childbearing age was illegal abortions. Doctors, health workers, and law enforcement worked together so that abortions, for the women who do not agree with our viewpoint--be safe and legal.

In the United States, since leaders like George W. Bush have encouraged abstinence only education and have made it a policy to make abortion less legal (they weren't able to completely change the laws) the net effect has been more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.

Under President Clinton, abortions decreased as comprehensive sex education was a policy.

I feel strongly that human life at all stages is sacred, but the life of a two-week embryo is not more sacred then the life of say, a fifteen year old girl with no resources to bear her child. Abortion was legalized to save her life and others like her. I agree that abortion can be abused (gender selection, for example), but objective studies show that the most effective way to prevent abortions is comprehensive sex education and access to birth control, as they have in most other industrialized countries--where the unwanted pregnancy rate and the abortion rate is far lower than the United States.

I know that the intention of conservative leaders is good, but my frustration with them and people who may support them, is their willful ignorance of facts supporting policies to decrease the incidence of unwanted pregnancies and abortions.

With all respect for the sacredness of all life, and realistic social policies,

Cara Yoshizumi

Answer: Pro-Krishna

Thank you very much for sharing your feelings with me. I agree that the life of a two week old embryo is not more sacred than the life a 15 year old girl. But we cannot rightfully argue that it is any less sacred. The fact is that both lives are equally sacred. In other words if we have the right to kill the two week old embryo, we also have the right to kill the 15 year old girl.

So what is the solution for this quagmire?

None of these mundane political leaders, whether they are pro-choice or pro-life, are qualified to solve this problem. Because sex is the most enjoyable thing in this material world, the only way that abstinence can be successful is if people are experiencing something more exciting and exhilarating than sex pleasure. Therefore the wide scale introduction of the Krishna consciousness movement is the real solution for the abortion problem. In this way when people experience the higher taste of Krishna consciousness they will naturally lose their taste for non-procreative sexual indulgence. The only time pregnancies will occur will be when there was an intention to conceive and raise a child. In such a situation there would never arise a need for an abortion. We could turn all of the abortion clinics into temples.

Sankarshan Das Adhikari