So it turns out my neighbor has been keeping a human being in her freezer.
Last night Boston police cars swarmed outside a home on the corner of N Street and East Broadway, just a few blocks from my apartment.
Rumors are swirling around Southie, and it’s not yet clear who dialed 911. But someone noticed something quite disturbing in her freezer. No, not a bag of frozen peas way past their expiration date or an ice tray someone put back without refilling.
It was the remains of a human baby.
If the thought turns your stomach in knots, good. Your conscience—the thing that tells you something is, at best, off-putting and, at worst, perverse—is functioning properly. Whatever was occurring in that house was satanic, evil, and it’s natural to realize that.
However, while sharing the story with a woman who identifies as staunchly pro-choice, I noticed something. At first, she had the same gut reaction as I did—appalled, horrified, saddened. She began, “Why on earth did she have a human be—” and caught herself. “Well,” she continued, “it’s not a human being, at least.”
Oh? Then why is it making headlines in both Boston newspapers, even the rabidly pro-abortion Globe? Why is there yellow crime-scene tape surrounding the building? Why are police seeking a warrant to investigate? If the freezer housed merely “fetal remains,” why was the homicide squad—you know, the cops who investigate murders—called to the scene?
Oh, and one more—why can’t outlets determine if the discovery is a “fetus” or an “infant?” Hint: because when you’re comparing two of the same thing, it’s really hard to tell!
If you’re here to tell me what was found in the woman’s freezer is no big deal, I must assume you’re fighting logic and nature with everything you’ve got.
And if that’s the case, what you’re saying is, this discovery is no different than if someone found a bag of old fingernails in her fridge. Human tissue, not something you’d want chilled, pretty nasty. But then you’d think to yourself, Gee, she’s getting up there in age, and maybe she isn’t quite all there anymore. Then you’d go on your way and forget about the story that made it maybe onto Patch.
Most can understand that there is something very troubling about this, so disturbing that it transcends the narrative for most normal people. While the story is gruesome, perhaps something positive can come from this heinous loss of life. First, answers to the investigation. Second, a wake-up call for the it’s-not-a-human-being camp.
Meanwhile, I’ll be staying away from all freezers in the neighborhood, except my own. You never know.
