What does this say about our world?

June 6, 2008 | Original NSS

I’m sure by now you’ve heard about this video, but have you seen it? It is a stunningly sad example of the ever-diminishing sense of common decency and compassion in our society. A man is hit by a car, and no one stops to help him. Not the driver who hit him, or the cars that whiz past his mangled figure on the road, or the people standing on the sidewalk. Someone called 911, so I guess that’s something, but watching this video made me want to cry. Of course people can’t pick him up off the street and carry him to a hospital, but someone could have at least tried to stop traffic or maybe bent down to whisper a word of comfort to the 78-year-old man as he lay dying.

This is what happens when we begin to declare that certain people’s lives are disposable — the unborn, the disabled, the terminally or chronically ill, the elderly. It is the slippery slope that we have heard so much about for so many years. Once we declare one group, or even one person, disposable, we all become disposable. Little by little, our sense of belonging to one united human family is being diminished. We are losing our sense of the sacred, which is shockingly evident in this short video clip.

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