Christians talk about life being sacred, yet apply this with an inconsistency that is at once strange and immoral. For they concentrate their attention on areas where the lives they are protecting are of the least value, where the loss of life has the least impact and causes the least suffering: humans who are either on the verge of being born or on the threshold of death – unwanted foetuses, and geriatrics who want to end it all simply and painlessly. Those Christians who campaign against abortion and euthanasia do so because these are campaigns whose success will not radically change our society or our lives. By doing so they divert attention, energy and resources away from areas where the “sanctity of life” is daily and casually violated: the deaths of millions from poverty; the deaths of thousands in war; and the deaths of millions of animals to provide us with food and clothing. Just think of what a genuine campaign for the Sanctity of Life would require of the campaigner, and what its success would cost.