> Eating Fetuses: The lurid Christian fantasy of godless Chinese eating
> "unborn children."
>
> "If [capital punishment] isn't enough to turn one's stomach, consider this:
> According to World... human fetuses have begun to appear on menus of Chinese
> restaurants as a delicacy and health tonic."
Many, many years ago I wrote a letter to the editor of local rag City Pages - it may even have been during the tenure of listmember Steve Perry as editor - which was printed in response to an article relating to the repressive antics of right-wing Christian anti-choicers at local clinics. I alleged that these "strictly by the book" reactionaries would be more than willing to stir-fry aborted fetuses for dinner if the Good Book suggested it was somehow apropos (stir-frying was all the rage at the time...).
For this I was subjected to a small flurry of recorded insults on my answering machine, and I'll admit the lack of nuance in the way I phrased my assertion probably meant I deserved at least a few of the responses I got. Though I still stand by the kernal of truth at the heart of my argument, I don't think I'd articulate it quite the same way today. And a few of my closest associates (note I didn't say friends, in an effort to be consistent with my argument earlier today that "friend" and "enemy" represent overly reductive rhetorical binaries...) are Christians of various stripes, who have in their various ways taught me a great deal about using a scalpel rather than a machete in endeavoring to fillet my targets.
But the point I wanted to make was that I had no idea I was either a) highlighting an already-existing tradition (and in notably ironic fashion) or b) hatching a conspiracy, since this was many years before the 1995 article quoted. In any case, as a vegetarian of long standing, I've never been able to see much difference between Jeffrey Dahmer and Chef Paul Prudhomme - it all seems like pretty much the same raw material, so to speak...
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/ dave /