To Love Our Smallest Neighbor

And thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love they neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

"You know we have to be careful what we watch on the news." Jose drenched his words in his Spanish accent and sat in the barber chair. "They're trying to frighten us."

Mary draped a hair cutting cape around him and secured the snaps. "I know. After the Ebola scare and the hundreds of dollars I spent on a hazmat suit, I only read head lines now. Television is nothing more than a propaganda-brain-wash-box." If she could, she'd have gotten rid of the television set in her house a long time ago. But her husband was addicted to it along with his GMO-filled snacks.

"The Zica virus comes to mind. Its not as bad as they want us to think." Jose had family in Miami. He knew firsthand that it was the lower income people and the homeless who were being affected at minimal.

Mary picked up her water bottle, spritzed his gray wavy hair, and combed it through the ends. "I think they were using the virus to get an uptick in abortions."

"I don't think that. Besides a woman has the right to choose."

"To kill a baby?"

"It's her body."

"What about the baby's body?" Mary grabbed her scissors off her dresser.

Jose ignored her question. "No one has the right to tell someone what they can and cannot do with their body."

"That is true. But again, what about the baby's body?" Annoyance reflected on Mary's words. She tried to maintain a poker face. The Pro-choice philosophy of today never made sense to her. If a woman wanted to slice and dice and pierce her body, then fine. But why would a woman have the right to choose to murder another human being? Microscopic or full-term size. Private or in the open. What happened to 'thou shalt not murder?'

Jose smiled. "I don't understand why fundamentalists think they have a right to tell people what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Or why they hate gay people. Whatever happened to love thy neighbor? Hypocrites!"

Mary blinked her eyes twice and snipped at his hair. She couldn't believe his hypocrisy. "Isn't a baby at two weeks gestation our neighbor?"

"They're not human."

Mary's insides quivered. "What about the babies they kill at full-term?"

Jose's face beamed a blank look. "You know, I had a friend who once told me to do whatever makes you happy as long as it hurts no one else. It was one of the wisest things he ever said to me."

Mary shook her head and raked her comb through his hair. His words were preposterous.

"A woman who has an abortion isn't doing anything wrong. She deserves happiness."

"At the expense of an innocent baby."