Virtually Dead

News Item: Legislation introduced in Tennessee would require death certificates for aborted fetuses, which likely would create public records identifying women who have abortions. There are all kinds of ways that I could begin to point out how wrong this particular idea is, but instead, I will digress into one of my oh-so-familiar tangents.
I have a very good friend who, even before she was the parent of a Nintendo-obsessed ten-year old, wanted there to be funerals for all the victims of video violence. Before continuing whatever bloody rampage constituted the theme of the game, the "hero" of our game would be compelled to sit through some heartfelt eulogies for the poor victims of the fallen. It might be nice if there was a mode in which the player could send a note of condolence and discuss his or her sorrow for the loss of the cyber-loved ones.
My closest brush with this notion was back in the mid-seventies, with a game called Death Race. The object was to run down "gremlins" who were fleeing the car that you drove (recklessly) across the screen. As the you hit them, they would scream or squeal and be replaced onscreen by tombstones. This increased the challenge of the game as the screen cluttered up and the player had to avoid the tombstones. Admittedly, the carnage to tombstone exchange was rather abrupt, but at least there was some outward sign of the passing of each "gremlin" (read: pedestrian). And the notion that it became more difficult to manuver as a result of the graves of the stricken produced an existential dilemma: The more you kill, the slower you have to go.
This brings me to the idea for which I expect to be richly rewarded: Sims Afterlife. Once you've grown tired of bossing your little Sim around this terrestrial plane, it takes a real clever player to navigate the Great Beyond. Purgatory, Levels of Hell, Nirvana, Reincarnation - you're God on this hard drive, you make the decisions - for eternity.
Okay, so this didn't bring us any closer to an actual discussion of the bizarro notion now being tossed around the legislature in Tennessee, but since the number of abortions is already reported to the state Office of Vital Records, the missing element is really a matter of finger pointing. But to be perfectly honest, I'm still getting over the guilt I've amassed from all those Centipedes I kept from reaching the bottom of the screen.