Missionaries To The Post-Living

     I realize that in these topsy-turvy times that the current fashion is pretty much overthrowing everything traditional. I myself have seen it happen, from the definition of art to even what have been the most objective of standards of life. Not wanting to be left out of the new revolutionary spirit, I will now try to make a name for myself and get myself on the local TV station for a concept that is long overdue. One of the favorite ploys of pro-lifers in the abortion question is sliding the beginning of life back from the obvious answer "at birth" to the more hazy "at conception."

I see their point. After all, if it the fetus is proven to be alive, it is murder to have an abortion. Never mind the fact that a fetus doesn't fulfill many of the traditional pre-requisites for "life," such as respiration, independent motion, the ability to obtain its own food, reproduction, et cetera. That's not what is important. What is important is establishing the rights of the pre-born. And I have no problem with that, if we can grant that a fetus is a living thing. Which brings us to my new radical concept, that is, the need for the rights of the post-living.

     It is horrible, the atrocities committed every day on the post-living. The very essence of their bodies are sucked out and replaced with new and improved chemical equivalents of saw-dust. Then they are incarcerated against their will underground or, heaven forbid, incinerated against their will. Certainly we cannot allow these atrocities to continue--it should be against our Christian or whatever consciences.

     My opponents will say that a post-living person is not a person, it's a CORPSE. A cadaver. A stiff. Those terms are horribly loaded as words; they assume that the post-living are not really living at all. Anyone who uses terms like these, no matter how scientific they may sound, is trying to throw up a smokescreen of the real issue, that these post-living, no matter what they are called, have no rights.

     Another objection is that, well, that a post-living person is dead. At the best, this merely would limit charges against coroners and morticians to assault. To make this objection stick, though, my opponents will have to explain what they mean by "dead". Not living, perhaps? But what is really living? It is not respiration, independent motion, the ability to obtain its own food, reproduction, et cetera. It's something out in the ether, and for the sake of argument, particularly mine here, it can be anything once we have stripped the arbitrary standards away.

     To back up my idea here, and to put me one up on the pre-born pro-lifers, there are actual documented cases of people ruled "dead" coming back to life, that is to say the post-living were judged wrongly. Even if the judgment is made wrongly only once in a while, to strip the post-living of their vital organs so that the post-born can have them is violating their privacy, particularly if they decide not to be post-living any more. Let us not forget that the very religion of Christianity is based on the story of a post-living person whose rights weren't violated to the extent that they are today.

     The nature of the rights of those who can't speak for themselves or even think for themselves and all the problems that arise from those difficulties is not for me to figure out. That's what we pay judges and lawyers for and why we support the clogged court system. What is important to is that we stand up for those who can no longer stand up for themselves. We have to start groups like the Missionaries to the Post-Living and make signs that say things like "Interment Buries People" and "Cremation Flambes Humans." We are holding a protest at the city morgue Sunday, and everyone is invited to attend. If life doesn't begin at birth, it doesn't end at death, right?