Leadership and Crisis

by Bobby Jindal

  In my view there is an easy, universal barometer we can use to evaluate all cultures: how do they treat their most vulnerable members? How do they handle those whom Jesus so aptly referred to as “the least of these”? Do they defend the defenseless? Do they consider all human life to be both sacred and precious? I would go so far as to say that a society that does not do these things is really not a civilized society, at least not in my book. And this is after all ... my book.

  America’s Judeo-Christian heritage commands us to help the helpless and demands that we protect innocent human life. Yes, this is a demand, not an option. America is a place that fosters a culture of life, a place that actively strives to protect its most vulnerable members. Undoubtedly, we as a country have made wrong turns over the years—we tolerated slavery after all. But I am an optimist when it comes to the American people. I believe that the great majority of Americans want to affirm life.

  And regardless of the mindless political debate we so often hear on the issue of abortion—you know the debate, the one that talks about “choice” and “rights” and “freedom” and “legal precedent” and “settled law” and everything under the sun except for abortion itself—regardless of that, I do believe the desire to defend and protect human life extends across party and religious boundaries in America. I believe in America’s desire and ability to do the right thing.

  In this policy arena we face three fundamental questions: What value do we place on human life at its earliest and most vulnerable point? What value do we place on our young and what lengths will we go to protect them from an ever-coarsening world? And what value do we place on human life when it comes to end of life decisions?

  A central component of this is how you view where we came from, who we are, and where we are headed. Put another way: Why? Why all the fuss? Why place such a high value on human life? There are hundreds of practical and utilitarian reasons to place a high value on human life. I agree with all of them. But it all boils down to one basic thing—the Bible teaches that God made mankind in His own image. There is your answer. That’s why we place a supreme value on human life.

  Again, there are many other reasons to value life. There’s always the Golden Rule—do unto others as you would have them do unto you. There’s also common decency, kindness and compassion, and a longing to make the world a better place. These are all wonderful sentiments indeed. But people are fickle. They have good days and bad days, and some folks seem to have a lot more bad days, and sometimes those people wind up being in charge. We can never find ourselves at their mercy. No, the reason we value human life is because God tells us to.

  The Bible asks the rhetorical question, “Can man defy God?” or alternately, “Does the clay say to the potter, what are you making?” To refuse to honor and cherish human life is to defy God’s laws and His designs for mankind. Incidentally, while discussing this very topic recently, a friend asked me why I was quoting the Bible. I thought that an odd question, so I simply replied, “Why not? You quote Mark Twain’s novels and Shakespeare, why can’t I quote the Bible?” I went on to tell him, and this really ticked him off, that unlike him, I’m educated. I’ve read Twain and Shakespeare, but I’ve also read the Bible. Whether you are a Christian, a believer in some other faith, or even an agnostic, you can’t claim to be well read if you haven’t read the Bible at least once. So get to it, please.

  Back to the question at hand: why value all human life? Let me paint a different scenario, a logical one. If you believe humans are foundationally no different from all other forms of life, or rather, that the only real difference is progress in the evolutionary process, that can lead you to a much different view on life issues than the one we find in the Bible, or at least to several different outcomes. Admittedly, some wonderful people take this view. Many of them are very nurturing of human life simply because they are decent, generous, and kindhearted people who instinctively want to do the right and kind thing. Some who take this view are equally protective of all life, human or animal.

  But we have to face the fact that some who take this view—that the only thing separating humans and animals is evolutionary progress—inevitably reach some strange but seemingly logical conclusions. If we have too many deer, it makes sense to thin the herd. Otherwise they eat your flowers and cause car accidents. We do something like that in Louisiana with these things called Nutria. I won’t waste your time explaining them to you, but suffice to say they look like overgrown swamp rats on steroids, and they eat everything they see, including vital vegetation that protects and preserves our waterways. They are a menace and have few supporters; their poll ratings are even lower than lobbyists’. In fact, Louisiana has offered a bounty to entice hunters to help exterminate these pests.

  It’s not far, then, to take a few more logical steps down this pathway of reasoning. Remember, we’ve already stipulated that humankind and animals are merely separated by positioning on the evolutionary chain, nothing else.

  Think about all the poverty in this world and all the problems some regions have with overpopulation. Maybe it’s not a good idea to go through with a pregnancy if the child will be born into poverty, or born into a society with a tyrannical government? What if the child has defects? Maybe it would be best to abort? Would that be the compassionate thing to do? Maybe the Chinese have it right—one child per family (preferably a son).

  And what of elderly folks who are barely functional and no longer enjoy life? Not to be crass, but let’s be honest, they are costing the rest of us a boatload of cash. You want to really solve the healthcare cost problems in this country? Now we’re talking big savings. I bet those old timers would rather not be a burden after all. Calling Dr. Kevorkian ...

  Let me stop right here and make something clear. I have many friends who disagree with me on the origins of man, and some who do not believe in a Creator at all. Most of them are in fact better people than I am. And a great many of them are pro-life, while others are pro-choice. Many of those folks are tremendously compassionate people. I am not in any way attempting to impugn them or anyone else. I am simply making a logical and impassioned plea for the cause of life and the centrality of respect for life in American culture.

  For all my pro-choice friends out there, we can agree to keep on disagreeing, and keep on arguing (until I win). Supriya has noted that I like to argue, but that’s a topic for another book, one that I hope she never writes.

  Now that I have apologized to all of you who disagree with me, let me continue, for those of you who have an open mind and are interested in logic, to press my case.

  Once you take God out of the equation, you run a great risk of seeking to solve problems by applying at least some form of “thinning the herd” argument to humankind. It’s not that anyone really wants to do it, it’s just that it needs to be done in order to preserve the quality of life for the rest of us. Of course, it’s all cloaked under the guise of compassion. The proponents of the Chinese one-child policy, on the other hand, are more honest. They are trying to keep the herd under control by any means necessary.

  Today, many people attempt to blur our understanding of what human life really is. Daniel Dennett of Tufts University, for example, argues, “At what ‘point’ does a human life begin or end? The Darwinian perspective lets us see with unmistakable clarity why there is no hope at all of discovering a telltale mark, a salutation in life’s process, that ‘counts.’” Dennett claims there are “gradations of value in the ending of human lives,” that some human lives have more value than others. “Which is worse,” he asks, “taking ‘heroic’ measures to keep alive a severely deformed infant, or taking an equally ‘heroic’ (if unsung) step of seeing to it that such an infant dies as quickly and painlessly as possible?” 1 This moral relativism is troubling to say the least.

  Steven Pinker of Harvard University adopts the same reasoning when he explains the process of having a child. He argues that “nurturing an offspring that carries our genes is the whole point of our ex
istence,” and that “a new mother will first coolly assess the infant and her current situation and only in the next few days begin to see it as a unique and wonderful individual.” According to Pinker, the mother’s love for a new child will grow with the “increasing biological value of a child (the chance that it will live to produce grandchildren.)” 2

  This is ridiculously offensive. Supriya never coolly assessed our kids to see if they met some biological need—nor would any other mother worth her salt. A child is a beautiful creation with an innate value that has little to do with any “biological value.” “Biological value” doesn’t even really mean anything. This guy should be sent to the Arctic Circle on an independent study program.

  Do you see what’s happening? When we fixate on the material and the biological, we matter only when we are useful. And I don’t know about you, but I’ve met a number of folks who did not seem all that useful to me. But fortunately, it’s not up to me or to you for that matter. “We believe these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights.” Whoever wrote that was really on to something.

  If human beings have no inherent value, their value comes solely from being useful, and their existence and right to existence come solely from their usefulness. Not useful? Then not much of a reason to live.

  I’m not suggesting everyone who disagrees with me on the issues of abortion and euthanasia takes these views. But I am suggesting that worldviews have consequences. There is no getting around the reality that if you believe human beings are essentially indistinguishable from animals, you run the risk of viewing life and death issues differently from those who believe there is something profound that separates us from the animal kingdom.

  Those who promote the concept that some human life is no more valuable than any other life, and therefore advocate abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, cheapen human life and lay the groundwork for all sorts of destructive behavior. What we need is a culture of life that values human beings as unique creatures who were made by our Creator.

  Medical ethics is a difficult subject, but this I can say for sure: where we begin the debate will ultimately determine where it ends. Some of this may strike folks as esoteric. But the origins of our thoughts do in fact matter, as they inevitably dictate our actions.

  The Hippocratic Oath is a crucial foundation for over two thousand years of modern medicine. It’s a life-affirming oath pledging doctors to sustain life. Among other things, they commit themselves to “neither give a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor make a suggestion to this effect.” The Oath helps establish a clear ethical line for doctors, which creates trust with patients. Again, how we treat the weakest and most vulnerable members of our society is a test of our moral character and whether or not we are a civilized society.

  Abortion is one of those issues you hesitate to bring up among family and friends, let alone perfect strangers. It’s not really a topic for polite conversation for two reasons. First, it’s a sad topic. Anyone who has ever had to answer a young kid’s question—“Daddy, what is abortion?”—knows exactly what I’m talking about. Secondly, it can turn a nice dinner party into a bitter food fight. “Why bother even bringing it up?” some might say. “I’m not going to face that issue in my life.” But how we view human life at its earliest and most vulnerable point can affect the manner in which we will treat life later on. I believe human life is unique in this world, that we have been set aside from all other life by a divine spark. If we say we have the right to end life out of convenience, we are cheapening all human life.

  Much as we run to rescue children who are buried under fallen buildings in Haiti or trapped on rooftops in New Orleans, our society’s ethics need to be tied to the idea that people have inherent value. Rejecting this view puts us on a perilous path.

  I’ve occasionally heard liberals say, “You pro-lifers are big on defending the rights of a fetus inside the womb, but you don’t do much to protect or help kids after they are born.” Ouch. Well, shame on us if that were true.

  In my years of public service, I have focused intensely on protecting the lives of the innocent. It’s a passion for me, because I believe our country is failing to protect our children. In my view, one of the greatest tragedies of modern life is the rise of sexual predators in America. As the prophet says in Ecclesiastes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” Indeed there are many dark corners of this earth where sexual predators thrive and human trafficking still occurs. But this is America. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. We must not allow this to happen.

  America needs to drastically step up our efforts to combat and completely eliminate sexual predators. I’m not interested in any strategy of containment here. I have no patience for those who say it’s so hard to end this epidemic that we can only hope to stop it from spreading further. Nonsense. We need to squash it. We need to defend the defenseless, born and unborn, at each and every stage of life.

  Unlike Al Gore, I did not invent the Internet, but I’m a big fan of it. Still, we have to acknowledge that each technological advancement creates problems as well as opportunities. And it’s no secret that the Internet has become the hub of predators, particularly sexual predators who prey on women and on children.

  In Louisiana, we are doing everything we can to make these people miserable. Make no mistake, we are not just trying to stop those who would attack and abuse our young. No, that’s far too modest a goal. We mean to do them harm and end their despicable crimes. So we now have some of the toughest sex offender laws in the country. I can tell you this—you really don’t want to get caught harming women or children in Louisiana. We have taken steps to double and triple the sentences for anyone in our state who harms a child, but that’s merely the tip of the iceberg. We even have chemical castration for sex offenders. Some people think this is a draconian measure. I certainly hope so. I consider chemical castration to be a treatment—and a powerful deterrent at the same time.

  The American public is ready for a crushing crack-down on these criminals. During my campaign for governor I had an idea that was widely cheered by Democrats and Republicans, people of all races, men and women, young and old. Let me set it up for you. Every state has a tough prison that is famous in that state. In Louisiana, that prison is Angola. After outlining my plans for tougher laws against sexual predators and for dedicating more resources to combating them, I would declare, “It’s great that we can now go online and find out the addresses of all the sexual predators that live in our neighborhoods. But I’m not going to be happy until we can go online and find that they all live at the same address—in the penitentiary in Angola, far away from our children.”

  Data suggest far more children are being preyed upon and are vulnerable than we even know. The University of Michigan reports nearly two-thirds of parents with children online are concerned about sexual predators. As they should be: studies show 1 in 7 children between the ages of 10 and 17 have received sexual solicitation over the Internet and about 1 in 3 children have been exposed to sexually explicit material.3

  I remember when I first started working with computers as a young kid there was a popular phrase, “Garbage in, garbage out.” Put in bad data or bad code, and you are going to get bad results on the computer. In other words, the system works only as well as what you feed into it. It’s the same with our own souls. We have a society today that is saturated with excessive violence and sensuality. Once kept in the dark corners of our society, pornography is being mainstreamed. As people repeatedly expose themselves to this garbage, which is now often called “entertainment,” it results in predictably harmful consequences to society. Put garbage in, and you get garbage out.

  Plenty of research supports this obvious point. Studies show that rapists and child molesters are heavy consumers of pornography, and that they frequently consume this material while preparing to commit crimes. Studies also show kids who watch porn are mor
e likely to engage in aggressive behaviors. This is a positive development for child abusers, who want kids desensitized to sex and violence because it makes it easier to abuse them.4 People may not want to admit it, but the rise of sexual predators is not just a criminal problem, it’s a cultural one.

  Shortly after I became governor, I met a little boy whose parents brought him to spend a day at the Capitol because he really wanted to see the governor’s office. I don’t think I had ever seen a kid that young so dressed up. He was wearing a blue blazer, khaki pants, and a tie—clearly his Sunday best.

  It turns out his parents wanted me to tell him he had done nothing wrong. A monster at his school had sexually abused him, and he had the courage to speak up and tell his parents. Even though the boy had shown incredible bravery far beyond his years in stepping forward, he was still haunted by the abuse, and he frequently woke up in the middle of the night afraid he had done something wrong.

  When the boy and his mom left my office, his father stayed behind and took me aside. You could tell he was the kind of man that didn’t usually get emotional, but he was about to speak from the bottom of his heart. He told me that not only was his son haunted by what had happened, but that he and his wife were, too. They spent many sleepless nights wondering if they could have done something to protect their child. They assumed that when they sent him off to school he would be safe—but he had been badly hurt and they were left grasping for answers.

  I made a promise to that boy’s father from which I will never waiver. I told him that I would work to make Louisiana the toughest place in the country for sex offenders in order to help ensure that no other family has to go through the pain his family was enduring.