Two pictures rotating on my laptop's screen-saver instantaneously rotate in my mind each time I hear a candidate or a preacher address the "value of human life."
One picture is of my cousin's family taken in Baghdad in 2004 in front of the same house my father lived in a generation before. The image is blurry, but you can recognize the faces of a mother, her son, his wife, and their two daughters. The two little girls have a case of the giggles common to 5- and 6-year-olds. They are buried in their father's belly and arms, smiling, and looking up at him as if for protection. He looks down on them with equal parts love, laughter, and a "why won't you look at the camera" question on his face.
Five bullets later sent those two precious girls and their mother to join millions of other Iraqis who are now widows, orphans, and refugees.
The other image is an ultrasound video of our first unborn child
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