Two photos

When looking for a photo to illustrate a point, I found this gruesome picture of a dead body.

I was struck by the similarity to this very famous gruesome picture of a dead body.

Why can't both outcomes be tragedies that we try to prevent? Why is there an entire political movement devoted to making sure that there are more and more corpses like the first photo? Supposedly it's to prevent more corpses like the second photo. But there's no evidence that embracing creating the first kind of corpse reduces the production of the second kind of corpse.

There are all sorts of things that have been shown to prevent the production of the second kind of corpse. Basic sanitation. Antibiotics. Blood transfusions. And basic human decency -- an unwillingness to embrace a violent solution to personal problems. But we don't credit those effective steps with reducing the number of people who become the second kind of corpse. Instead, we sanction and enshrine the mass production of the first kind of corpse.

And what is it that the person in the first photo did that was so wrong, that justified turning that person into that corpse?