The “Newsbusters” headline sums it up:  Jewelry Company Offers Parents ‘Sacred Art’ Made of IVF Embryos.

That’s right, fertility fans who have leftover embryos after conspiring with modern medicine to play God, can make jewelry from the uncompleted, potential humans.

I would say this is as sick as it can get, but I’ve said that before and been proved wrong.  So…I’m sure something more horrendous will crop up sooner than you can imagine.

Humans have a long and sordid history of misusing parts of dead people.

There is evidence that some Mesoamericans used human heads in a game resembling soccer.

Some Native American tribes ate the organs of defeated enemies, apparently in the belief the practice gave them greater strength.

Some ancient cultures used the skin of defeated enemies to make wall coverings.  The Nazis updated this practice to the creation of human skin lamps.

Chopping off heads has been a practice from ancient times through the Middle Ages, the French Revolution and today’s beheading enthusiasts, ISIS.

Thus, the problem of what to do with a leftover body or part of a body has long challenged the crueler side of the human mind.  Severed heads can be hung from a pole or be impaled on a post.

Now, I’m sure someone will raise the issue of those creepy Catholics and their relics.  You know, pieces of saints’ bones, fingernails, hair and whatever.

No, it isn’t the same, for many reasons, of which I’ll state only the most obvious:

·       Catholics don’t abuse the body parts of enemies, they venerate the relics of really great people.

·       We keep them in respectful containers, not in hoop earrings or souvenir pendants.

There is a huge difference between honoring a saint’s relic and desecrating a body.  Desecrating a baby’s body is hard to comprehend.

We think our culture is so advanced.  We’ve put behind us all the barbaric practices of the past.  But somehow, they keep cropping up.

What would be grosser than making dead babies into cufflinks?  I don’t know, but I’m sure someone already is working on it.