Sociocultural mores and codes of conduct

"Thou shalt not kill." --Exodus 20:13

Levitican law, for the most part, is directly related to hygiene and health; however, there are some odd laws that, when compared with others, don't seem to make as much sense. For instance, it dictates to the Jews that they are not to boil the flesh of a lamb in the milk of its mother.

Yes, it seems a bit out of place amongst laws such as the one forbidding individuals from touching corpses without elaborate cleansing rituals that, upon modern analysis, are nothing more than elaborate isolation and decontamination. If one only looks at the practical.

In fact, the God of the Hebrews was setting up something entirely new: a culture that valued life. This culture of life is what shaped all Judeo-Christian cultures in general, and Western cultures in specific.

I can think of one major illustration of the effects of the Judeo-Christian/Western culture of life: modern health care. The health care system in the United States, in specific, is a major illustration of the difference between the culture of life, and what I will term the culture of death: basically, a culture that doesn't value life--the opposite of what the odder laws in Leviticus were trying to set up.

Modern American health care systems are dedicated to preserving life, and the quality of life. It's here that research is done that permits new cancer-fighting treatments to be developed, that permits new life-extending therapeutic drugs (such as cholesterol medications, high blood pressure medications, anti-senility medications, etc.) to be developed, that permits treatments for terminal illnesses (such as HIV/AIDS) to be developed. Our doctors and hospitals, though expensive, are some of the best in the world. Our Intensive Care Units have an extremely high survival rate. Our Neo-natal Intensive Care Units have developed resources to save the lives of infants that certainly would have died as few as ten years ago--infants born with heart defects, lung problems, or simply too early to have survived. In fact, our NICUs can offer babies born as early as 23 weeks--that's a little less than six months' gestation--a 50% chance of survival.

It's here, in the United States, and in modern health care and hospitals, that we can see the sharpest differentiation between the culture of life and the culture of death.

Some states have passed assisted suicide laws: laws permitting doctors to euthanize terminally ill patients that request it. Many doctors refuse to perform such a "service," but are required to refer their patients to a doctor that will in the name of "quality of life." In other words, since the terminally ill patient has no chance at survival (at least, in their opinion, and with current medical technology), and they're in pain, their life is no longer worth living. They prefer to "die with dignity."

Those states illustrate one aspect of the culture of death. In fact, they lag behind some countries in Europe, where the terminally ill patient and their families are not consulted before the doctor euthanizes the patient. Typically, these nations have "single-payer health care" systems, where the more expensive to treat patients seldom get the treatment they need because of the expense.

In 1973, a law was passed that permitted a woman to have an abortion at her discretion--basically, infanticide before the baby is even outside of the womb. Of course, most of the time, the baby is perfectly healthy. The "quality of life" that matters in this case is that of the woman who chose to have sex, and doesn't want to live with the consequences.

Sometimes, the baby survives the procedure. In those cases, depending on the state, the hospital or clinic, the doctors, and (sometimes) the woman, the living baby is left to die, even though it's entirely possible that the baby could survive with prompt, or even not-so-prompt, NICU medical assistance. Sometimes, the baby is left exposed on cold tile floors until he or she simply freezes to death. Sometimes they're deliberately murdered by the doctor performing the abortion.

Some states have passed laws that ensure that if a baby does survive, and could survive with treatment, that treatment must not be withheld. The federal government has passed similar laws, despite the opposition of those that don't want to burden the woman who carried the baby with a child. Some of the opposition believe that, since the woman paid for a dead baby, she should get the dead baby she paid for.

The states that permit the unwanted babies to be left to die still lag behind many countries in Europe which refuse treatment to premature infants born earlier than 27-30 weeks, wanted or unwanted, because they're too expensive to treat.

The differences between the culture of life and the culture of death are nowhere so starkly illustrated as between the United States and Europe, and between the Western cultures and the rest of the world. The sharpest, most poignant illustration is in how we care for our sick, and our helpless. The most rewarding illustration is heroic efforts of the NICU staffs to ensure survival of as many babies as they can, and to improve the survival rate in the United States for infants born so very early.

I'm thankful to live in the United States, and in a Christian conservative area in the Midwest. Though I've been thankful for that all of my life, my gratitude increased with the premature birth of my son, and his subsequent excellent care in our local hospital's NICU. If he'd been born in certain parts of the world, he wouldn't have survived the nearly three weeks he's been alive outside the womb, much less thrived as much as he has. I have the Judeo-Christian culture of life to thank for that, and God to thank for setting it up nearly four thousand years ago.