Life's value in Christian preaching underscores the sacred worth God places on every human being, affirming that life is a divine gift beyond monetary measure (Deuteronomy 30:19). Illustrations often contrast worldly valuations—such as government estimates or market worth—with the immeasurable spiritual significance of each soul (Psalm 139:13-16). This theme calls believers to cherish and defend life in all its stages and conditions.
Different government departments put a different value on a human life. Dept. of Transportation - $1 million. OSHA - $2-5 million. EPA - $0.47 - 8.3 million. Figures are used in "cost-benefit analysis." The main point of the valuation is not emotional or spiritual but financial.
[for update on figures, see "Value of Life" in https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_life]
In late 2016 in North Carolina, Jonathan Hayes was driving his pickup truck on heroin. He overdosed behind the wheel, lost control, and hit another vehicle. Two-year-old Mason Richardson was inside, and he died on impact. Mason’s pregnant mother was driving, and had her sibling in the passenger seat. Both were injured. However, no injury was as severe as the broken heart of Mason’s mom.
When the fire department and EMS arrived, they found Jonathan passed out from his heroin overdose. They administered Naloxone, better known as Narcan, a drug that counteracts opioid overdoses like those from heroin or OxyContin. It saved his life. This was the fourth time Narcan had saved Jonathan Hayes in the last six months. Also, since 2009, he has had fourteen criminal cases filed against him. This time around, it’s the second degree murder of a toddler.
“We are going to do everything we can to treat this like the violent crime that it is,” said District Attorney Ben David. However, there seems to be a debate forming around this incident and others like it. The debate is as to whether there should be a limit on the amount of times someone can receive Narcan and be saved from an opioid overdose.
Here is a comment from the Wilmington Star News article on Hayes and his murderous accident: “It’s a shame that he was given a second chance to live today, the little boy didn’t get one at all.”
It’s easy to see how people feel about drug addicts. However, drug addiction is a disease, and as hard as this may be to believe for some, those caught in an addiction sometimes make several mistakes before straightening out. Mike Page is a resident of Wilmington, North Carolina, where Jonathan Hayes killed the young boy in a heroin-induced car crash. Page is a former heroin addict, and is currently a peer support activist and champion of addiction recovery for his community. Page has been revived with Narcan three times in his life.
Daniel Meloy is the Public Safety Director of Colerain, Ohio, a place hit just as hard as anywhere by opioid abuse. Meloy has been a law enforcement official for 28 years. Most of that time, he felt nothing for drug addicts who committed violent crimes due to intoxication.
Meloy says, “It’s hard to feel empathy for an intoxicated person who caused a crash when you are looking at innocent people he has killed because he got behind a wheel when he shouldn’t have.” Meloy was referencing Jonathan Hayes. However, as of more recently, he has changed his mind about drug addicts. All it took was a little education on drug addiction and the difficulties people face in overcoming addiction. Meloy is now is a founding member of Quick Response Teams (QRT), an Ohio-based group formed in 2015 that takes a rather active approach to combating opioid addiction.
Following every single drug overdose in Colerain, a group from QRT, consisting of first responders and addiction recovery workers, visit the person who overdosed. They offer both access to recovery and case management. Amazingly, QRT has had an 80% success rate so far, entering four out of five addicts visited into treatment. Regarding people with such life-threatening addictions, Meloy says, “We need to get them the resources they need.”
Believing that the first responders on the scene of Jonathan Hayes’ horrible accident should have let him die is playing God. Choosing who gets to live or die is essentially murder.
________
Original title: "Limits on Narcan? A Recent Death Begs the Question"
Back in the 1930s someone estimated the mineral worth of a 150 pound man at about 98 cents. More recently, a biochemist recalculated man's worth based on the "marketable" chemical elements in the average body and arrived at a figure of about $6 million. Still more recently, an expert in nuclear power figured the atoms in the human body, if they could be harnessed, would be sufficient to produce 11.4 million kilowatts of energy worth more than $85 billion!
Calculating a monetary value for people is a fallacy because people cannot be measured in terms of money.
John Gardner wrote, "Man is a stubborn seeker after meaning." Meaning is lacking because we are alienated from God. Jesus is the remedy for lack of fulfillment.
======================
From a sermon by Rev. Mark Adams:
Several years ago I remember reading that some scientist had determined that the human body is worth very little because once you removed the water all you would have left is a few bucks worth of ordinary chemicals. You’ve probably heard that story yourself. This week I read about another scientist named David Sadoof -- a professor at the University of Washington -- who has significantly upped the worth of a single human. He said that the typical 150-pound human body has 10,200 units of the clotting agent prothrombin which would sell on the open market for $30,600. He also says that our bodies contain 40 grams of myoblobin, another blood component which would bring an excess of $100,000. So these two blood compounds alone would make each of us worth at least $130,600 -- a great improvement over a few measly bucks worth of chemicals!
Book review about Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. She was a Malthusian socialist who regarded poor people as "human weeds" to be sterilized whenever possible. She felt that "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it." She was closely connected with the "race purification" scientists of the Nazi party, being convinced that the "inferior races" were a "menace to civilization", thus, she wanted to create a "race of thoroughbreds."
Outline on self-image themes, mostly from Christianity Today magazine.
I. Somewhere along the line, we lose our positive self-image.
A. Many people are disappointed in themselves.
1) Some even hate themselves.
2) Most criminals have poor self-image.
a) Their hatred is expressed in violent acts.CT 11/8/85 p37
B. Especially true among young people.
1) Rash of suicides, drug use, alcoholism.
2) Communicates: "I'm not worth much."
C. Reasons for poor self-image:
1) I'm not as good-looking, smart, rich ... as everyone else.
a) Either compare selves to average or cream.
2) Not reaching personal goals.
3) Memory of guilt & shame from past failure.
II. Human potential movement.
A. Stresses the positive possibilities within each person.
1) What you want to be, you can be!
B. Positive-thinking preachers like Peale and Schuller appeal to
this approach to life. CT 8/10/84, p.15
1) Main problem of people is low self-image.
2) Stressing sin makes sinners feel even less worthy.
3) The good news of Jesus is that we are infinitely valuable
to him.
a) Jesus wants to save us from a low self-image, give us a
positive one.
III. The positives and negatives of self-image. CT, 4/22/88, p26
A. Benefits of positive self-image:
1) They are generally less depressed.
2) They are freer of certain ailments and drug abuse.
3) They are more independent of peer pressure.
4) They are more persistent when facing tough tasks.
a) The key is not positive self-talk ("I think I can, I
think I can") but actual mastery experience -
tackling realistic goals and achieving them.
B. Downside of positive view of self: CT 4/22/88, p26
1) If we aim too high and fail, we blame ourselves.
2) We live too much in the future rather than the present.
3) Excessive optimism leads to complacency about evil.
4) Biblical command to deny self. (?? here?)
IV. The world's view of self-acceptance. CT, 11/8/85, p28
A. Learn to accept yourself, but outside of moral, absolute norms.
1) This is emphasis in secular psychology and counseling.
2) Bible: we must accept our "acceptable" self.
a) We must repent over our unacceptable self.
B. You only answer to yourself, not other people or God.
V. God's Word and self-image.
A. Good self-image in garden of Eden.
B. Two-fold tarnish by Fall.
1) Inflated self-image. (become like God)
2) Poor self-image. (they felt shame at nakedness)
C. Positive -
1) We are created in God's own image.
2) We have worth in his eyes.
a) More valuable than sparrows, donkeys...
b) He makes us worthy for the Kingdom.
c) Our worth is a gift from him.
1> Valued for who we are.
D. Negative -
1) Don't think more highly of yourself than you should.
2) Accurate appraisal of shortcomings essential.
VI. How to build a better self-image.
A. Remind self of God's love for you.
1) He gave up highest value (Jesus) for your sake.
B. Follow God's instructions for reforming your life.
1) Repentance - get rid of factors that pull you down.
a) As we look at our sins we will feel low self-image,
but God's forgiveness will lift us up. 1 Pet 5:5
CT 11/8/85 p37
2) Love - by loving others, love returns to us.
a) Invest in other people.
b) Payback - makes us feel more worthwhile.
VII. Reversal of the Fall. CT 11/8/85 p37
A. God enables us to renounce sinful pride, the first perversion of
self-image.
1) He helps us cultivate true humility.
a) Honest awareness of our strengths, weaknesses. Rom 12:3
2) A readiness to consider others better than self. Phil 2:3
3) Recognition that all our gifts and talents come from God.
1 Cor 4:7
4) A willingness to use our gifts in the service of God and
others.
B. Renewal by the Holy Spirit corrects our low self-image.
1) God justifies us.
a) He forgives and forgets all our sins.
2) God sanctifies us.
a) Look on yourself as a "new man", not a "new and old man".
Col 3:9-10
1> The new self is "being renewed" so we aren't yet
perfect.
2> However, look on self as being "new".
b) Life in the Spirit.
1> We are in the Spirit, not slaves of the flesh.Rom 8:9
c) We are new creatures. 2 Cor 5:17
1> This is a present condition, as well as future.
2> "The Christian life involves not just believing
something about Christ, but also believing
something about ourselves... Our faith in Christ
must include believing that we are what the Bible
says we are."
VIII. Implications. CT 11/8/85 p37
A. Christians should have a self-image that is primarily positive.
1) Doesn't mean "feeling good about ourselves" on the basis of
our own achievements, good looks, or virtuous behavior.
(Pride)
2) Our self-image involves looking at ourselves in the light of
God's loving work of forgiveness and renewal.
B. We give God praise for all he has done (and is doing).
1) God can use us, despite our shortcomings.
2) Opposite of pride - we recognize our sin and fallenness.
C. A positive self-image is not an end in itself.
1) It is a means to the end of living for God and others.
2) We should not be preoccupied with ourselves.
D. Check your self-image against God's word.
1) (Airplane pilots have to check instruments.)
IX. Christian view of self-image. 4/22/88, p 28
A. "What we therefore need is neither negative nor positive
thinking, but realistic thinking - thinking characterized
by enough pessimism to trigger concern, enough optimism to
provide hope."
B. Genuine Christian humility:
1. Humility is not self-contempt. (This is false humility)
2. It is not straddling between egotistical vanity and
self-hatred.
3. It is not easily obtained.
C. It is possible to realize self-denial without self-rejection,
and self-affirmation without vain self-love.
According to Dennis Voskuil, a Reformed thinker who has written
thoughtfully about Robert Schuller's positive thinking, states
the phenomenon in Christian terms:
The refreshing gospel promise is "not that we have been freed by
Christ to love ourselves, but that we are free from self-obsession.
Not that the cross frees us for the ego trip but that the cross
frees us from the ego trip."
This leaves us free to esteem our special talents and, with equal
honesty, to esteem our neighbor's. Both are gifts.
X. Negative thinking.
A. Spiritual maturity requires that we learn how to live with
unfulfillment.
1) The cup is both half-full and half-empty.
2) The false ideal of the full cup assumes all can and should
be fullness and perfection.
3) This leads to despair and disappointment.
B. The human potential movement glorifies selfishness.
1) "We owe ourselves the very best."
2) "Where there's a will, there's a way."
C. Normal people probably never feel totally "fulfilled."
XI. Self-love or self-denial? CT 4/20/84, p26
A. Neither Moses nor Jesus commands us to love ourselves.
1) Self-love is a sin. 2 Tim 3:1-4
B. Christians must deny the self.
1) Carry cross daily. Crucify the self.
2) But self-denial is only one side of truth.
C. Christians must affirm the self.
1) Jesus taught the value of people.
2) Jesus honored people, especially the dishonorable.
3) Jesus served and died for people.
D. Resolving the paradox.
1) The "self" is complex, a mixture of good and evil.
a) Affirm what we are by creation.
b) Deny what we are by the Fall.
2) We must come to terms with our true self.
a) "My true self is what I am by creation, which Christ
came to redeem. My fallen self is what I am by the
Fall, which Christ came to destroy."
Christianity Today articles on Self-Love and Self-Worth:
--------------------------------------------------------
p.54 Nov 6, 1981
p.31 Aug 6, 1982 (out)
p.46 Nov 12, 1982
p.60 July 16, 1982
p.14,16 Aug 10, 1984
p.26 Apr 20, 1984
p.23 Sep 6, 1985
p.30 Apr 5, 1985
p.26,36 Nov 8, 1985
p.26 Apr 22, 1988
Discipleship Journal (articles not used)
Vol 33, page 42.
Vol 35, page 18.
Vol 39, page 38.
Sermon for Sanctity Sunday, 1993.
===========
CHOOSE LIFE
===========
I. The certainty of life and death.
A. Life and death issues are at the cutting edge of our society.
B. From extraordinary measures, to ordinary, to none, to positive
action to destroy unwanted life.
II. How much is your life worth?
A. We all have some basic worth.
B. World says we are worthwhile due to what we produce or experience.
C. Bible says we are valuable because made makes us so. Luke 12:24
III. When does life start?
A. The frontiers of science.
B. Dilemma of abortion faces this question head on.
IV. When does our life end?
A. Most families will face this question intimately.
B. The definition of death. Hebrews 9:27
C. Promoting death, providing life, or prolonging death?
V. Choose life. Deut 30:15ff
A. Life must be given the preference.
B. How long have you lived? REALLY lived? John 10:10
#2417
*
Pamphlet giving Biblical data for opposing abortion. Interestingly, Exodus 21:22 is interpreted as miscarriage rather than premature (and alive) birth.
1. Known in the womb.
2. The dignity and sacredness of life.
3. God will defind the fatherless.
4. What shall we then do?
5. How to answer unbelievers. Their questions:
a. Abortion is a woman's right.
b. A fetus is only a blob of tissue.
c. A person has a right to be loved.
d. It's the best way to take care of a mistake.
e. Pregnancy is only a biological process.
f. God understands there may be no other way out.
g. If abortion is murder, why doesn't God stop it?
"THE BIBLE AND ABORTION"
I. The Old Testament and abortion.
A. Punishment for death of unborn child. Exodus 21:22-25
1) Option #1: Serious injury concerns child.
a) Lesser injury to premature child involves a fine.
b) Death involves capital punishment.
c) Therefore a punishment for (unintended) abortion.
2) Option #2: Serious injury involves mother only.
a) Only death of mother leads to capital punishment.
b) Death of child leads to a fine, therefore not on same
level as murder.
c) Other laws in Old Testament may hint at different values
for different lives, ie., men vs. women, slave vs. free.
B. Individual consciousness before birth.
1) Jeremiah was called to be a prophet before birth. (In fact,
before conception.) Jeremiah 1:5
C. Fetuses are ultimately creations of God, not humans.
1) He knits us in our mother's womb. Job 31:15;
2) To die in the mother's womb is a real death (not just a loss
of mother's tissue.) Jeremiah 20:17 (cf. Job 3:11-16)
II. New Testament and abortion.
A. John the Baptist had a consciousness in the womb that is
independent of his mother. Luke 1:41,45
B. Holy Spirit came on Mary at conception, not at birth. Matt 1:20
C. Why is New Testament silent on actual practice of abortion?
1) Abortion was widespread among Romans and Greeks.
a) Infanticide was even more common.
2) Some argue the New Testament is silent because the writers
considered it a matter of individual choice.
3) More likely, it is silent because Jews were united against
abortion and it had not become an issue in the church.
a) The N.T. tends to speak on issues that are "hot," and
does not cover every ethical issue.
b) When abortion did become an issue, the early Church was
firmly opposed to it.
1> Abortion is condemned in the Didache, Gospel of Peter,
and other early writings (second century A.D.).
2> Christians took in children who were abandoned.
III. The Humanistic basis of abortion.
A. The primary motive for the acceptance of abortion is our society's
preference of autonomy (freedom) over responsibility.
B. Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, was a
Malthusian socialist who regarded poor people as "human weeds"
to be sterilized whenever possible. She felt that "the most
merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant
members is to kill it." She was closely connected with the
"race purification" scientists of the Nazi party, being
convinced the "inferior races" were a "menace to civilization."
C. "Right to choose" or "right to life"?
1) The "right to choose" only makes sense if fetuses are merely
the mother's tissue. If fetuses are in any sense human
then the right to life must take precedence over the
right to choose.
2) "Roe vs. Wade" takes an in-between stance, giving preference
to mother's choice during first 3 months, but preference
to the fetus in the last 3 months.
IV. Christians and Extra-Legal movements. (Operation Rescue)
A. The Bible teaches that human government is not the highest
authority -- God is.
1) The Hebrew midwives disobeyed Pharaoh's command and spared the
Jewish babies. Exodus 1:16-17
2) Government has God's authority, but only so long as it
encourages what is good and punishes evil. Romans 13
3) Government has a tendency toward usurping God's authority
and persecuting His people. Rev. 13
B. Extra-legal movements have a long tradition among American
Christians.
1) Abolition of slavery. 1860's
a) Abolitionists openly defied laws, saying freedom was a
higher law.
b) Abolitionists were also despised by general population.
2) Civil Rights movement. 1960's
a) Protests were non-violent but also non-legal, such as
sit-ins and illegal rallies.
b) Leaders such as Martin Luther King appealed to a higher
moral code or consciousness among white Americans.
C. Extra-legal methods raise disturbing questions.
1) Should Christians force their views on others?
2) If abortion is morally wrong, is bombing an abortion clinic
morally correct?
V. Christians and compassion.
A. Abortion is a singularly divisive issue.
B. Christians must stand up for the rights of the weak. Psalm 82:3,4
1) If we do not, God will hold us accountable. Proverbs 24:11-12
C. Even if morally wrong, Christians must love those who disagree
and offer forgiveness.
D. Opposition to abortion is only one aspect of the struggle;
believers must also provide alternatives that enhance life.
(Originally written January 19, 1993)
Some years ago Dr. Frederic Loomis, an obstetrician, faced one of the greatest challenges of his life. One of his patients, a fragile young woman, was carrying her first child. As best he could, he sought to help her as she struggled to keep her emotional and nervous reactions under control.
One month before the baby was due, a routine examination showed that the baby was in a breach position. That is, instead of coming into the world head first (which is the safest way for a baby to be born), the baby comes feet or seat first. The danger with these births is that the umbilical cord can get compressed between the baby’s head and the mother’s bony pelvis cutting off the tiny infant’s supply of oxygen – without which the baby will die in a few short minutes. Time is of the greatest essence in these births.
This particular case was a "complete" breach – the baby’s legs and feet being folded under it, tailor-fashion. As the baby was ready to be born, Dr. Loomis gently drew down on one little foot. Next he drew on the other foot, but it didn’t respond. As the baby’s body moved down, he noticed that it was a girl. And then, only he saw that the entire thigh from the hip to the knee was missing. Quickly he wrapped the warm towel – readied to keep the baby’s body warm while struggling to be born – around the baby’s one leg.
Then followed the greatest struggle Dr. Loomis ever faced. He envisioned a girl growing up different from her peers, sitting alone, being gawked at, unable to participate in any kind of athletic activities, never being invited out on dates – lonely, insecure and forlorn.
He could also "see" the agony of this young mother with such a burden to carry. "Don’t bring this suffering upon them," he reasoned to himself. "This baby has never taken a breath – don’t let her ever take one."
He glanced at the clock. Three of the allotted seven or eight minutes had passed. Nobody in the room knew of his struggle and intention. He would slow the birth. Nobody else would ever know. In a few short minutes it would all end. The mother would grieve but would be greatly relieved that she didn’t have the responsibility of bringing up such a handicapped child.
Right then the baby’s good foot popped out from beneath the towel and pressed against the doctor’s hand. Then her body heaved with a surge of energy – it was wanting to be born.
The doctor could not do what he planned. He delivered the baby with her pitiful little leg.
Dr. Loomis said, "Every foreboding came true. The mother was in a hospital for several months. I saw her once or twice and she looked like a wraith of her former self. I heard of them indirectly from time to time ... Finally I lost track of them altogether.
"As the years went on, I blamed myself bitterly for not having had the strength to yield to my temptation."
Years later, as was the custom of the nurses at the hospital where Dr. Loomis served, an impressive Christmas party for the hospital staff and doctors was held. This year was particularly interesting. Every doctor and staff member who could be there was.
When the nurses, beautifully attired in their spotless uniforms, entered in procession, the audience stood as one to honor them. Then, from the back of the auditorium entered twenty more young nurses, each holding a lighted candle and singing the familiar strains of "Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright...."
The spotlight then focused on the elaborately decorated Christmas tree with every decoration shimmering with unusual beauty. Then the spotlight moved to center stage as the curtain was slowly drawn aside to reveal three lovely young musicians, all in glistening white evening gowns – a harpist, a cello player, and a violinist. Together with the organ the beautiful harmony of their music brought tears to many eyes.
The harpist played so exceptionally well that at the close of the evening Dr. Loomis waited to congratulate her.
As he sat alone waiting, a lady came running down the aisle and with outstretched arms excitedly cried out, "You saw her. You must have recognized your baby. That was my daughter who played the harp – I saw you watching her. Don’t you remember the little girl who was born with only one good leg 17 years ago? We tried everything else first, but now she has a whole artificial leg on that side – but you would never know it, would you? She can walk, she can swim, and she can almost dance.
"But, best of all, through all those years when she couldn’t do those things, she learned to use her hands so wonderfully ... She is so happy ... And here she is!"
And then they met.... Instinctively Dr. Loomis reached out and embraced the one whose life he came so close to destroying before she had a chance to live.
"You will never know, my dear," he said, "you never will know, nor will anyone else in all the world, just what tonight has meant to me. Go back to your harp for a moment, please – and play ‘Silent Night’ for me alone. I have a load on my shoulders that no one has ever seen, a load that only you can take away." *
How precious is the gift of life. There is only one gift that is greater – that is the gift of eternal life.
Some time ago one of my sons was upset with me about something. What I did I have long since forgotten but I will never forget what he said. In his frustration he blurted out, "Why did you have me anyhow?"
I paused for a moment and then replied from the depths of my heart, "Because you were part of God’s eternal plan."
And that is true of you and me also. From the moment we were conceived in our mother’s womb, God knew us by name. And we, too, are a part of his eternal plan. But at our birth only God could see our handicap. We were deformed, too – not physically perhaps – but spiritually. Because of our sinful nature, we were born spiritually dead and cut off from God – the giver of all life. But because we were so precious to and so loved by him, he sent his Son, Jesus, on that first Christmas to come to earth to die in our place for our sins, to deliver us from eternal death, and to give to us the greatest gift of all – the gift of eternal life. God has this gift for you, too. Whatever you do, don’t leave earth without it. There could be no greater tragedy.
_________________________
* Adapted from CHRISTMAS IN MY HEART, Book 2, by Joe L. Wheeler. Herald Publishing Association, 55 W. Oak Ridge Drive, Hagerstown, MD 21740, U.S.A.
Written and © by Dick Innes
© 1998 ACTS International
======================================
Another version by King Duncan:
Dr. Frederic Loomis faced the most difficult decision a physician could ever make -- whether to allow a deformed baby to live or die. He had only seconds to decide. Dr. Loomis had delivered hundreds of babies, but this one was different. The infant lay in a breech position, promising at best a difficult and dangerous birth. One of its feet stretched only to the knee of the other leg. Furthermore, it was missing a thigh. The mother, a frail person visiting the sterile delivery room for her first time, was not aware of the grossly deformed child struggling to survive.
Dr. Loomis closed his eyes; at his fingertips squirmed a pitiful creature yet unborn. Would not the most loving thing be to detain the birth long enough to cause the child to be stillborn? He agonized within himself. Will this kid not be considered a freak, a twisted burden to its delicate mother? How can I justify playing a part in such a cruel drama? Surely no one will ever know if I spare this family from inevitable pain. The doctor, through the baby's cord, felt its heartbeat -- dancing in rhythm to his own wildly racing heart. As Dr. Loomis continued to prevent the birth, he felt the normal foot pressing for passage into the world. Suddenly, he could no longer justify “playing God.” Instead, he would trust God to care for this child against what seemed to be impossible odds. Dr. Loomis delivered the infant into the world, which, he sensed, would be very unkind.
In the years that followed, Dr. Loomis often second-guessed his decision. He watched the anguish of the family as desperate parents sought in vain to find some correction for their child's deformity. Even after they moved away Dr. Loomis continued to lament the burden that he had saddled upon the family. The heartache, he often said to himself, was his fault.
In time, however, Dr. Loomis would find peace. It came at an unexpected time and place -- the hospital Christmas party. Typically, it was during the holiday season when his pain seemed most severe. He could not shake the image of that unfortunate child from his mind. While the world celebrated the greatest birth ever known, Dr. Loomis obsessed over the saddest birth he had ever known.
At this particular party, the most heavenly music filled the room. The sadness seemed to dissipate as the rich tones of “Silent Night” washed Dr. Loomis' anguished spirit. Following the concert, a woman approached him. “Doctor,” she said excitedly. “You saw her.”
Dr. Loomis studied the woman's face, wanting to recognize her but unable to recall the memory. “I'm sorry. I should know you, but you may need to help me.”
“Don't you remember the little girl with only one good leg, 17 years ago?”
Remember... it was the one thing in his life that he couldn't forget! In disbelief, he listened to her story.
“That baby was my daughter, doctor. And I saw you watching her play the harp tonight! She has an artificial leg. She's doing well.” At her Mom's bidding, the lovely harpist walked toward them. With soppy eyes, Dr. Loomis enveloped the girl in his arms.
“Please” he said in a tightening voice, “please play Silent Night' for me one more time.” The young lady returned to her harp and played his request with poise and perfection. As she played, Dr. Loomis reflected on the incredible gift of life. He thought about the sanctity in every person. And he exhaled 17 years of questions and wondering whether or not it was wise to grant a baby its life.
__________
By Karl Haffner, College Place, WA Source: Gleaner, August 2003, ISSN 0746-5874, mailto:gleaner@npuc.org. Cited in WITandWISDOM(tm) - August 6, 2003 ISSN 1538-8794.
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All that glitters is not gold, Shakespeare penned. To that, I add, all that glitters is not God. Shakespeare meant, of course, that all things that look like gold are not necessarily gold. I mean, that all that glitters like gold and so attracts our ever-seeking eyes, is not comparable to God and His works.
As evidence of my thesis allow me to tell an experience a colleague related to me. It occurred at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Hermitage, one of the world's pre-imminent galleries of art, houses room after spectacular room of the world's greatest art — from Monet, to Renoir, to Van Gogh, to the great works of the ancient masters. The heritage of the Hermitage runs deeper than art, though. Originally, it was the palace of the Tsars. And so at the heart of this massive complex, there is the throne room, the great Russian Imperial throne. Here the Tsars ruled from the outer rim of Siberia to the bustling streets of St. Petersburg. The room is immaculate. A large hall, all in white marble, with columns running down both sides. The gem of the room, of course, is the exquisite throne, which is crowned by a golden double-headed eagle, the crest of the Romanov family.
In this room that trumpets the grandeur of human power, my colleague sat, awed by its majesty. He imagined the epic dramas that must have transpired in this room of history. The titanic egos clashing with ample measures of wealth and power on all sides.
As he was caught up in these musings of majesty, a curious thing occurred. A child walked by. A child like any other. But his attention was caught. And he was transported from the glories of the throne room to the glories of a child made in the image of God. The wonder of human power and human majesty dulled as the wonder of the human creature glowed. Suddenly the fashionings of marble and gold seemed crude in comparison to fashionings of a child. There, before him walked an embodied soul, a cherub of wonder, a bearer of the divine image, a child.
There, in the great throne room. There, surrounded by that marvelous collection of painting and sculpture, an essential truth was on display. Man, as the wondrous creation of God, is of incalculable worth.
Human pretensions to power or glory, whether by kings or by commoners like you and me, must reckon with this truth. Otherwise, we are at peril of missing entirely the wealth that fills our world.
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Copyright © 2003 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #931]
Following World War II, the Allies put Nazi Germany's surviving leaders on trial for genocide and other war crimes. The chief medical consultant for the prosecution was an American doctor named Leo Alexander.
In 1949, Alexander summed up what he had learned from his experience at the Nuremberg War Trials. He wrote in the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE that the horrors of the Third Reich were made possible by a single idea: the belief that some lives are not worth living.
You would think that Alexander's words and the wreckage caused by Nazi barbarism would have driven that lesson home. Unfortunately, that's not the case.
The Nazis' phrase for the kind of lives Alexander wrote about was Lebensunwertes Leben, which means “lives not worth living.” They initially employed the phrase to justify killing the sick and the handicapped. They weren't concerned about individual suffering; their concern was the cost and inconvenience to society of keeping these people alive.
Once they convinced people to subject human life to a cost/benefit analysis with regards to the sick and the handicapped, it became easier to apply these standards to other groups.
Given this evil history, you'd expect that both the idea and the phrase would have been banished from German culture forever. They haven't been.
Nearly three-quarters of all Germans surveyed favor physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. Even worse, a survey of German doctors found that 6.4 percent of hospital physicians and 10.5 percent of general practitioners had been present when a physician euthanized a patient.
To add moral insult to mortal injury, the Nazi phrase is regularly used by German advocates of physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia.
Whatever lessons Germans have learned from their history apparently did not include a high regard for the sanctity of human life. And Germans are not alone in this regard. Dutch doctors heroically opposed the Nazis two generations ago. Now, Dutch doctors murder upwards of 3,500 patients a year.
It would be foolish to think that what's happening in Europe can't happen here. Given its current trajectory, American culture is well on its way to embracing what Pope John Paul II has called “the culture of death.”
Oregon has already legalized physician-assisted suicide. At least a dozen states have considered or are considering similar measures. While none of them have joined Oregon, it may only be a matter of time. Nearly half of all doctors surveyed favor legalizing physician-assisted suicide.
So-called “death with dignity” is depicted sympathetically in the media. A generation of Americans, like a generation of Germans seventy years ago, are being taught that there is such a thing as “a life not worth living.” What they are not told is that, once a culture believes that, there's no reason for a doctor to wait for his patients to request assistance.
Making comparisons to the Nazi era can be inflammatory, but it is only fair to ask: What have we learned? Whatever else we may have learned, we have failed to understand the most important lesson: There is no such thing as “a life not worth living.” As Leo Alexander would tell you, it's the lesson that separates civilization from barbarism.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Dr. Leo Alexander, “Medical Science under Dictatorship,” NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE (July 1949). http://www.chninternational.com/leo_alexander_.htm
James A. Maccaro, “'From Small Beginnings': The Road to Genocide,” THE FREEMAN, August 1997 (posted on Liberty Haven's website). http://www.libertyhaven.com/theoreticalorphilosophicalissues/history/fromsmall.shtml
Nat Hentoff, “Are certain lives not worth living?”, JEWISH WORLD REVIEW, 27 February 2001. http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/hentoff022701.asp
Richard Miniter, “The Dutch Way of Death,” WALL STREET JOURNAL, 28 April 2001. http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=95000390
Terence Monmaney, “More Doctors Found Willing to Assist Suicide Medicine,” LOS ANGELES TIMES, 6 February 1997. http://www.aegis.com/news/lt/1997/LT970201.html
BreakPoint Commentary No. 030114, “Coming Soon to a Hospital Near You: 'Futile Care' and the Culture of Death.” http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Coming+Soon+to+a+Hospital+Near+You.htm
Also see “Abortion and the Holocaust, “ a recent “Worldview for Parents” page, for more information. http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/WorldviewForParents/Abortion+and+the+Holocaust.htm
Wesley J. Smith, THE CULTURE OF DEATH: THE ASSAULT ON MEDICAL ETHICS IN AMERICA (Encounter, 2002).
Don Feder, “Killing Us with Kindness: How Liberal Compassion Hurts,” Heritage Lecture #574, The Heritage Foundation, 13 January 1997. http://www.heritage.org/Research/PoliticalPhilosophy/HL574.cfm
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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #14002]
In a seminar Dr. Larry Crabb described the mature believer with these words:
Our personal need for security, significance (and sufficiency) can only be genuinely and fully met in relationship with Jesus Christ.... All we need to function effectively as persons is at any given moment fully supplied in relationship with Christ and in what He chooses to provide.... Every Christian is in fact totally secure and eternally significant. We are loved unconditionally by a personal God with a sacrificial love which is as profound as it is unwavering... Because of our position in Christ and our place in His purpose, our lives have meaning. We matter. We are valuable. We are significant. A personally healthy Christian is persuaded of his worth in Christ to the point where his motivation to live for God is rooted fundamentally in his relationship to God.... A personally full Christian needs nothing other than God and what He chooses to provide in order to persevere and to grow in responsible living.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #1532]
The courts have had something to say about the value of a man. A boy lost his hand and the courts allowed him $1,700. An eighteen-month-old child toddled into an alley where some rubbish was burning, and three toes were injured; the court allowed $750 damage. A young woman whose specialty was judging perfumes had her nose insured for $50,000. A Kansas City lad was so injured by a live wire that he could never smile again, and the courts allowed $20,000 damage. It seems that a boy's ability to smile is worth a lot. Ian Kubelik, great violinist, had the fingers of his left hand insured for $250,000; while Paderewski, the great pianist, carried $10,000,000 on his fingers. But how infinitely much more is the soul of a man worth! Its value can be rightly judged only when we consider that it took the blood of the Son of God to purchase its redemption.
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“Choice Illustrations” W.W. Clay, pg. 32
[Holwick – these damage awards must be from YEARS ago!]
How would you characterize someone who denies that you, and people like you, were persons when you were born, and says that your mother should have been free to kill you for being who you are?
This was the question facing Harriet McBryde Johnson, a prominent disabilities rights activist, when she was invited to debate Princeton ethicist Peter Singer. Singer believes in infanticide and that it is okay under certain circumstances to kill, at any age, individuals with physical impairments so severe they are no longer “persons.”
Ms. Johnson is a leading member of NOT DEAD YET, an organization of disabled Americans opposed to physician-assisted suicide and other “disability-based killing.” If NOT DEAD YET has a public enemy number one, it is Peter Singer.
Johnson is seriously impaired, unable to function on her own -- just the kind of person Singer regards as an “avoidable mistake.” But with some trepidation, she traveled to Princeton for the exchange with Singer before one of his classes, and later before the entire university -- an exchange she described in a brilliantly written Sunday NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE piece.
Johnson wrote poignantly of her emotions when meeting the man whom she expected to be a “monster” and the “ultimate evil.” Instead Singer surprised her by his graciousness. She described him as “easy to talk to and good company.” Of course, the issue is not whether Singer is a monster -- the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. The issue is where his ideas, beginning with his premises, lead.
And this is where Johnson ran into her problems. She repeatedly reminds readers that she is an atheist. In fact, she approves Singer's desire to ground ethics on “fact and reason” as opposed to religious beliefs. She referred to this as a “grand, heroic undertaking.”
But the problem for people like Johnson is that, historically speaking, the alternative to what they dismiss as just a religious belief is the kind of utilitarianism that provides the foundation for Singer's ideas -- that is, the goal is to maximize happiness in the world, by doing the greatest good for the greatest number.
People like Johnson, who require substantial resources to maintain what Singer regards as an inferior quality of life, would, by Singer's logic, be eliminated as early as possible.
No wonder Ms. Johnson, obviously an able advocate, wrote that she doubted whether she had bested Singer in the exchange. The reason is that, as an atheist, she is in a moral dead end; she has no moral basis to refute Singer's deadly logic so long as she embraces his premises about the origins of life.
Only the Christian ideal, that all life is sacred because it is created in the image of God, provides an unassailable answer to Singer's reasoning. It's the only sure basis for protecting people like Harriet McBryde Johnson from a moral calculus that reduces them to non-persons.
Ms. Johnson writes movingly, and the reader can feel her anguish over her difficult encounter with Singer. Though not the author's intent, the article in the NEW YORK TIMES -- of all places -- makes a powerful case for the Christian understanding of life.
FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
Harriet McBryde Johnson, “Unspeakable Conversations,” NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE, 16 February 2003 (free registration required). http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/16/magazine/16DISABLED.html?ex=1049860800&en=f38544e68895205b&ei=5070
Learn more about Not Dead Yet. http://www.notdeadyet.org
BreakPoint Commentary No. 030227, “'A Short Philosophical Hop, Skip, and Jump': The Threat of Embryonic Research.” http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/A+Short+Philosophical+Hop+Skip+and+Jump.htm
BreakPoint Commentary No. 020313, “Superman and Utilitarianism: Kindly Ignoring the Argument.” http://www.breakpoint.org/Breakpoint/ChannelRoot/FeaturesGroup/BreakPointCommentaries/Superman+and+Utilitarianism.htm
Gilbert Meilaender, BIOETHICS: A PRIMER FOR CHRISTIANS (Eerdmans, 1996).
“Debate of the Century: What Does It Mean to Be Human?” -- On June 7, 2002, Wilberforce Forum Dean Nigel Cameron debated Peter Singer of Princeton University on the topic: “What Does It Mean to Be Human?” Dr. Cameron argued the Christian worldview perspective: All human life is sacred, created in God's image. Dr. Singer, known for condoning infanticide, presented the extreme opposite view.
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Copyright (c) 2003 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #13096]
An aborted baby survived for 80 minutes while hospital staff watched, a coroner's court in Darwin, Australia, was told April 10, 2000.
The baby was born alive in 1998 after being induced the coroner said. Nurses covered the baby, made her as comfortable as possible, and waited for her to die, the Sydney Morning Herald said.
The midwife, Carrie Williams, told the court when she telephoned Dr. Kai Man Henry Cho, director of the Royal Darwin Hospital obstetrics and gynecology department, and reported the baby was alive, he said, "So?" and offered no instructions about the baby's care.
The coroner said hospitals should establish procedures to ensure babies who survive abortions are immediately assessed for age and likelihood of survival; deaths after such live births should be documented and reported to his office.
"The deceased, having been born alive, deserved all the dignity, respect, and value that our society places on human life," the coroner said. "The fact this birth was unexpected, and not the desired outcome of the medical procedure, should not result in her, and babies like her, being perceived as anything less than a complete human being."
Margaret Tighe, chairwoman of Right to Life Australia, hoped the baby's short life might serve to remind others that unborn babies are "as deserving of their right to life as are all others."
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Source/Attribution: religiontoday.crosswalk.com; ReligionToday News Summary, Wednesday, 12 April 2000; SIEW
It sounds like the baby shower from hell. As cake and punch are passed around, a doctor runs medical tests on a month-old baby. If he passes the tests, the guests welcome the child to the human community. But if the baby fails -- if he has, say, Down's syndrome, or cerebral palsy -- the parents bid him a sad farewell.
And then, the doctor snuffs out his life.
Believe it or not, a Princeton professor thinks parties like these would be a good idea. This is a tragic illustration that the killing of a month-old child -- once absolutely unthinkable -- has become a debatable moral question.
In an article entitled "Killing Babies Isn't Always Wrong," philosopher Peter Singer writes: "Perhaps, like the ancient Greeks, we should have a ceremony a month after birth, at which the infant is admitted to the community. Before that time," he says, "infants would not be recognized as having the same right to life as older people."
This means that if the child is considered "defective" in some way, the parents would presumably have a different kind of ceremony -- one that ends with child being admitted, not to the human community, but to a grave.
This is morally acceptable, Singer says, because newborns, while indisputably human, are not really persons. They don't become persons, and acquire a right to life, until weeks or even months after birth because they lack "self-awareness."
Extreme beliefs, yes, but Singer is hardly alone in espousing them. As far back as 1972, University of Colorado philosopher Michael Tooley was saying that fetuses and infants are non-persons who "do not have a right to life."
American University philosopher Jeffrey Reiman agrees. He maintains that infants do not "possess in their own right a property that makes it wrong to kill them." I could go on and on. But suffice it to say that people who wish to destroy handicapped or just plain unwanted newborns have influential supporters. And they're getting more and more aggressive.
Well, we can't say we weren't warned. In the 1960s, as the abortion movement gained momentum, critics warned that the logic of abortion would lead directly from the womb to the cradle: Babies already born would become the next targets.
These critics have been proven right. Three decades after Roe V. Wade, influential voices are clamoring for out-and-out infanticide.
The reasoning behind it -- that newborns are somehow less than human -- is already seeping into society. Witness the rash of "dumpster babies" -- newborns thrown out by their mothers.
If this nation ever condones infanticide, we will be destroying the very principle that is at the heart of Judeo-Christian concepts of human rights and equality, namely, that it's always wrong to deliberately kill innocent human beings.
Florida Congressman Charles Canady is among those trying to prevent this dangerous redefinition. He has introduced a bill called the "Born Alive Infants Protection Act." Now, I know the abortion issue has been around a long time, and people get weary of it. But I urge you to learn more about this bill, and you can do so by visiting our BreakPoint webpage (www.breakpoint.org).
A bill like this is a vital and important protection against those hideous "baby showers" that Peter Singer proposes -- celebrations that end only in death.
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Copyright (c) 2000 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Triage during World War II was an intense experience. In triage a wounded soldier was either given a yellow tag, red tag or blue tag. The yellow tag meant that the soldier could return to duty; the injury was not that severe. The red tag meant the soldier had no hope and was red-tagged which meant literally left to die. The blue tag signaled that the soldier would need treatment and could be saved if they gave them medical treatment. Supplies were low during this time so doctors had to determine if a soldier was really worth saving.
A soldier named Lou was given the red tag by doctors. He was still conscience though and a nurse began to talk to him. After speaking with him for about 20 minutes the nurse broke the rules and switched a blue tag on Lou from his original red tag. Lou was transported to a hospital and his life was saved even though Lou had his leg amputated due to the injuries. A few years later the war ended and the nurse came home to the states. She got married and lived a wonderful life. Her husband was LOU.
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Illustrations and Quotes by Burns and McKinnon
In 1960 the Israeli Mossad masterminded one of the most incredible feats of its history when it tracked down Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Eichmann was one of the principal architects of the Holocaust and had been hiding away in Argentina. The point man implementing the whole plan was Peter Malkin. Several of Malkin’s family members were killed by the Third Reich and in particular, he still grieved over the loss of his sister and his six-year-old nephew, Peter.
As Malkin covertly monitored Eichmann and noticed how every day when Eichmann came home from work he was greeted by a young boy who threw his arms around him, Malkin would think of his own nephew when he saw this display of affection, but he was baffled by Eichmann’s tender response; he had thought of him only as a cold-hearted killer.
Finally one day, after the plans were meticulously laid, Eichmann was seized and dragged into a waiting car to the satisfaction of millions. The capture led to the trial and execution of the man who had sent tens of thousands to the gas chambers.
Malkin recently broke a thirty-year silence to tell of a private moment that left him devastated. It was of supreme importance to Malkin that Eichmann voice two things. First, he wanted desperately to know how it was possible that an ordinary human being could commit such untold evil and still feel no guilt. But there was a second thing - a very personal and nagging question. Malkin discovered that the little boy who so enthralled Eichmann was his own son. At the most opportune moment when Eichmann spoke passionately of how he missed his son, Malkin posed the question. "My sister’s boy ... was just your son’s age ... also blond and blue-eyed, just like your son. And you killed him." He waited for an explanation, confident that Eichmann could make the extension. With complete indifference he muttered, "But your nephew was Jewish, wasn’t he."
Hate wears a face of such indifference that it is terrifying. This story tells us something about the nature of guilt: that one’s feeling of guilt is inextricably bound to one’s view of life itself. For Eichmann, certain lives held no value and he, therefore, felt no guilt in destroying them. But our hearts cry out against such hatred because we know that every life is sacred and valuable. That sacredness is intrinsic for all humanity, because of our creator. May that cry point you to God himself, who sent his own Son to die that you may truly know how precious you are in His sight.
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Copyright © 2002 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.
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In the 1950s, local banks sent personalized checks to non-customers to try to generate new business. I was eight years old, proud of my new writing and spelling ability, so I begged for these checks from my parents.
In our family, special occasions meant gifts from parents, siblings and friends, but from others it meant cards with money. Cards with crisp ones, fives, tens or twenties meant "I love you." So using these advertisements - gimmick checks - I did the same. My homemade cards, heavily colored and flowery with prose and poetry, with a bogus check inside, were made out to the honoree in the amount appropriate to the extent of my love. For my brothers, it was a dollar. For my parents, it was thousands. For my Uncle Howard, it was a million dollars.
In July of 1958, we held a Sunday dinner birthday celebration for my uncle. He opened the card I'd made, read the message inside and looked at the check enclosed for a long time. Smiling at me from across the dinner table, he thanked me for the card and check. Then he took his wallet out of his back pocket, folded and tucked the check away, saying, "I'll just keep this with me until I need it."
Thirty-five years later, I sat drinking coffee, early in the morning, at that same table, across from the same smile, hearing the same voice, sharing the same memories of those thirty-five years, with the same Uncle Howard - probably for the last time. My uncle was dying of cancer. Radiation and chemotherapy had been administered without success and ended so his crew cut was growing back. The nausea that had plagued him during treatments was no longer a problem. He was eating again and putting on the weight he had lost. Sitting there talking about the good old days, I fooled myself into thinking this was a pleasure visit and there would be others to come. But deep down, I knew that this visit was for good-bye.
Putting down his coffee mug, he reached for his hip pocket. Unfolding his wallet, he reached inside and handed me a pale blue slip of paper, folded in half, saying, "Remember this?" There was the birthday check for a million dollars. He had kept it, carrying it with him, shifting it from old wallet to new wallet for thirty-five years.
"You never tried to cash it," I joked.
"I never needed it," he said. "I'll just keep this with me a little longer in case I need it yet." He put it away once more.
I left him that afternoon with final hugs, kisses, and the final good-byes. Four days later, he was gone.
Shortly after the funeral, I returned home from work and found a package on the kitchen table mailed to me, the handwritten return address from my aunt. Inside was another small package with a short note in Uncle Howard's handwriting. "Since I don't need this anymore, I thought you might want it back. With love, Uncle Howard." Enclosed was the check for a million dollars, mounted inside a frame. Thanks, Uncle Howard, for a million-dollar love that lasts longer than a lifetime.
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Kathleen Dixon (c) 1999, from Chicken Soup for the Christian Family Soul by Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen, Patty Aubery and Nancy Mitchell Autio. All rights reserved.
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The Baptist Faith and Message statement on man highlights two aspects of the human condition that set this species of creation apart from all others: man's noble status and man's ignoble state.
In its celebration of the creative power of God, Genesis 1:1-2:4a also celebrates the distinctive nobility of man.
There is no doubt that in the mind of the author of this text the creation of Adam represents the climax of creation: 1 Adam is created last; 2. Adam is presented as the product of divine deliberation; 3. The description of the creation of Adam is more intensive and extensive than any aspect of creation; 4. The account uses a special verb to describe the creation of Adam, which always involves a special creative act of God; 5. Once Adam is on the scene the Lord can pronounce the created world "extremely good" (v. 31); 6. Adam is expressly created as "the image of God."
The last point is especially significant, for, according to the Scriptures, what separates man from other creatures is not fundamentally his superior intelligence or more complex evolutionary development, but his status as the image of God.
Theologians today interpret our "image-ness" in terms of human rationality, spirituality, intellectual freedom, relationality (to God and fellow human beings) or triunity (body, soul, spirit). But within the biblical literary context and the ancient Near Eastern cultural context, "imageness" had more to do with the role played by man than with an ontological quality about man.
As the image of God, man is divinely authorized to serve as his representative (not representation) and charged to function as his deputy (cf. Gen 1:26-28; Psalm 8). According to Genesis 1 and 2, man was endowed with the needed qualities to govern creation on God's behalf as he would were he personally and physically present.
In this regard the Israelites' view of man differed fundamentally from that of the world in which they lived. Whereas in Babylon the status of "image of divinity" was reserved for kings and priests, the Bible democratizes the notion -- the children of Adam as a race in general and individual members of the race in particular, are all invested with this status. This revolutionary idea has extremely significant anthropological and ethical implications.
First, in accordance with the biblical perspective that all humankind originates in a single pair of parents, all human beings inherit equal nobility in the sight of God. Therefore, any view of the human species that diminishes the dignity of any member on any grounds (gender, race, intelligence, physical form, circumstances of conception) is to be repudiated.
Second, in accordance with the biblical perspective that Adam as a race was created male and female, any view of the human species that blurs the fundamental distinction between male and female is to be repudiated.
Third, in accordance with the biblical perspective that each person is an image of God, parenthood is elevated from a merely procreative act to a co-creative act -- God involving a man and a woman in the creation of new images of himself.
As a corollary, willful abortion represents arrogant interference in a divine creative act, and it is to be repudiated.
Fourth, in accordance with the biblical view that all human beings serve as representatives of God, any act directed at another person, whether for good or evil, is an act directed at God (Proverbs 14:31; 17:5; Matthew 25:31-46; James 3:8-10). All pious professions aside, our disposition toward God is most graphically expressed in our treatment of fellow human beings, especially those deemed socially inferior.
But the Scriptures also present another, sadder side to the picture. If they are clear in portraying humankind as uniquely endowed with divine dignity, they are equally clear in emphasizing humankind's unique and utter depravity.
Because of sin, which may be understood fundamentally as rebellion against God, we all come under the curse of God. In accordance with the biblical perspective of the entire human race as united in descent from Adam, the guilt of Adam's sin falls on all, and estrangement from God in whose image we are made extends to all.
But thanks be to God, the biblical story does not end here. Through God's Son, Jesus Christ, the perfect image of God, the redeemed enjoy the removal of that guilt and are restored to fellowship and communion with their Maker.
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Full text of Article 3: Man
Man is the special creation of God, made in His own image. He created them male and female as the crowning work of His creation. The gift of gender is thus part of the goodness of God's creation. In the beginning man was innocent of sin and was endowed by his Creator with freedom of choice. By his free choice man sinned against God and brought sin into the human race. Through the temptation of Satan man transgressed the command of God, and fell from his original innocence whereby his posterity inherit a nature and an environment inclined toward sin. Therefore, as soon as they are capable of moral action, they become transgressors and are under condemnation. Only the grace of God can bring man into His holy fellowship and enable man to fulfill the creative purpose of God. The sacredness of human personality is evident in that God created man in His own image, and in that Christ died for man; therefore, every person of every race possesses full dignity and is worthy of respect and Christian love.
Genesis 1:26-30; 2:5,7,18-22; 3; 9:6; Psalms 1; 8:3-6; 32:1-5; 51:5; Isaiah 6:5; Jeremiah 17:5; Matthew 16:26; Acts 17:26-31; Romans 1:19-32; 3:10-18,23; 5:6,12,19; 6:6; 7:14-25; 8:14-18,29; 1 Corinthians 1:21-31; 15:19,21-22; Ephesians 2:1-22; Colossians 1:21-22; 3:9-11.
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Block is the John R. Sampey Professor of Old Testament Interpretation and associate dean of Scripture and interpretation in the school of theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky.
Two intellectuals recently debated a timely moral question: Is the human embryo a tiny human being, worthy of protection? Or is it just a cluster of cells we can and should use in research? One of the debaters was a Christian philosopher; the other, a scientist.
Now, you might assume that the Christian argued theology and that the scientist kept to empirical facts. If so, you'd be wrong.
The moral boxing match took place in the pages of the Wall Street Journal. In the left corner, defending embryo destruction, was David Baltimore, president of the California Institute of Technology and a Nobel Prize-winning scientist. In the right corner, defending the inherent dignity of embryos, was Robert George, the distinguished Princeton moral and political philosopher.
George pointed out that embryos possess the "epigenetic primordia" for internally directed growth and maturation as distinct, self-integrating, human organisms. Each embryo is therefore already -- and not merely potentially -- a living member of the human species.
As George put it, "The being that is now you or me is the same being that was once an adolescent, and before that a toddler, and before that an infant, and before that a fetus, and before that an embryo. To have destroyed the being that is you or me at any of these stages would have been to destroy you or me."
Baltimore could deny none of this. After all, George was simply pointing out the stubborn facts of science and logic. Instead, Baltimore made his appeal based on subjective feeling. "To me," Baltimore said, "a tiny mass of cells that has never been in a uterus is hardly a human being."
Somebody should give Baltimore a history lesson. The past warns of the danger of making personal opinion the basis for defining humanity. Sixty years ago, the Nazis justified horrific medical experiments on Jews because to them, Jews were "hardly human beings." A hundred and fifty years ago, white Southerners enslaved black Africans because in their opinion, Africans were "hardly human beings."
Dr. George is right: Biologically, human embryos are fully human. The only question remaining is, will we protect them, or will we allow some humans, because of their age, size, stage of development, or condition of dependency, to be killed to benefit others?
As George notes, we should recoil from and resist defining humanity based on such morally irrelevant criteria. Where would this leave the weak, the frail, and the handicapped? They'd end up in the researcher's lab, that's where.
It's worth noting that George, a Christian, made his case without appealing to religious authority. Instead, he confronted his opponent -- a man of science -- with facts of science that utterly devastated the case for killing embryonic humans. In doing so, he proved that Christians have nothing to fear from science. The Judeo-Christian worldview always conforms to reality. We should not be surprised that science backs up biblical doctrine -- doctrine which teaching that our humanity begins at conception.
We ought to remember this the next time we get into a discussion about embryonic research with our unsaved friends -- or when you talk to your senators or congressmen. We don't have to argue theology, which they may not accept. As Dr. George puts it, science will do just fine.
For further reading:
"Stem Cell Research: A Debate." The Wall Street Journal, July 30, 2001.
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Copyright (c) 2001 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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I'd never been to a quilt auction before. And I probably never would have except for the fact that I had been invited to speak at an outreach at a Mennonite Relief Sale, where thousands come to bid on items made by Mennonite and Amish craftspeople. All the funds go toward worldwide relief efforts. It was amazing to hear the spiraling bids shouted out for some exquisitely designed quilts. While I was there, one went for $2,000. Last year, one quilt went for $4,000. They even sold two handmade dolls for almost $1,000! I was there long enough to see what gave great value to an auction item. Those dolls, for example, were made by a Ugandan refugee. The quilt that went for $4,000 was made laboriously by a severely handicapped woman - and it was the last one she made before she died. When we were told who made it ... when we were told the effort they went to make it - well, it was suddenly worth a whole lot more.
Well, I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A WORD WITH YOU today about "The Bid For You."
Something takes on great value when it's a handmade original. That's why you're worth so much. Something takes on great value when the creator sacrificed a lot for it. That's why you're worth so much.
It may be that you don't feel like you're worth much - not after the things you've been called, the way you've been treated, the abuse, the abandonment, the rejection you've experienced. But none of that has anything to do with how much you're worth. Your value is based on Who made you - and how much your Creator sacrificed for you. No one on earth gave you your worth - and no one on earth can take it away!
The Bible clearly says that you are "God's workmanship" (Ephesians 2:10) - His handmade, masterpiece creation. You are a divine original! Let's settle once and for all how much you're worth to the One who made you. 1 John 4:9-10, our word for today from the Word of God says, "This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
God thought you were worth the life of His one and only Son! At the auction I attended, people expressed how much they valued what was available by how much they were willing to spend on it. There is no question Who has made the highest bid for you - by far. At the cross, Jesus offered His life as the price to bring you back to God.
Which may be why you've questioned your value, why you've felt like you're not worth much - you're away from the One who made you, away from the God who gave you your worth! You've run the life He was supposed to run, and your sin has put a wall between you and Him. But it doesn't have to stay that way - not after the bid Jesus made for you at the cross. Your sin-penalty has been paid - that wall can come down ... today!
If you've never begun your personal relationship with the One who loves you most, this could be the day you finally experience the love you've been looking for your whole life. Would you tell Jesus you're ready to turn from running your own life ... that you're committing yourself completely to Him?
You are handmade by God Himself. You're paid for with the life of God's one and only Son. You are so precious to Him. Now, isn't it time that you belong to Him?
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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"
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Mark and Barbara Stringer, missionaries to Colombia, South America, recently wrote an article entitled, "Disposable People." Today’s society has disposable clothes, cups, diapers, plates, etc., so why not have disposable people. This is a reality in parts of Latin America.
Los Desechables are the beggars, the drug addicts, the homeless children and the insane. Some sleep under bridges or on the streets while sustaining themselves through prostitution or stealing. Many are addicted to sniffing glue because they say it keeps them from feeling hungry.
When there gets to be too many on the streets of any one city, the city fathers have been known to order the police to load as many as they can catch into a stock truck and deposit them just outside the city limits of a neighboring city. These people do not usually live long in their harsh environment, but on occasion, when there is a lot of thievery, a death squad will speed up the process at night.
A disposable little black boy was abandoned on the streets of Bogota over 30 years ago, but his fate was different. The orphanage directed by Mark and Barbara took him in. Warren and Phyllis Sanders, also Colombian missionaries, adopted him. They say God’s image in him, not a disposable person.
He became a good preacher of the word, an accomplished musician, and editor of a Hispanic newspaper in Washington D.C. before returning as a missionary to his native land. It should come as no surprise that among the many hymns Martin Sanders has composed, one proclaims that IN GOD’S EYES NO ONE IS DISPOSABLE.
Who are Los Desechables of American society? They fill our jails, prisons and reformatories beyond capacity. The L.A. County Jail is known as California’s largest mental institution. Out of sight, out of mind.
A wise man once wrote, "Do not do what seems to lie in the future, but attend to those things at hand." Is there even one disposable person in your local youth detention center, city jail or community prison in whom you can see the image of God? Go to that person. Dare to love God through them.
A little girl was late for dinner and explained she was with Sally who fell and broke her new doll. Her father said, "Oh, did you stay and help her fix her doll?" The little girl replied, "Oh no, daddy, I don’t know how to fix dolls, I stayed with Sally to help her cry."
Sometimes, and often initially, all we can do is visit the prisoner and help him pray. Then the life-changing relationship begins.
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January 22 marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in the Roe V. Wade case that legalized abortion on demand throughout the United States. In the three decades since that infamous ruling, human life in America has become exceedingly cheap.
Allow me to illustrate:
In January 2000, Joseph R. Henderson of Bend, Ore., was sentenced to serve seven years in a juvenile detention facility for killing a dog. The then-17-year-old confessed to stealing a woman's pet and tying it to the bumper of his car and dragging it for almost a mile before stabbing it to death.
After announcing Henderson's sentence, Judge Stephen P. Forte commented directly to the teen, “The harm you did to another life form is inconceivable. You need treatment.” The judge added that the dog's demise was comparable to the 1998 murder of James Byrd, the African American man who was dragged to death in Texas.
Contrast Henderson's crime and punishment with that of Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg. In the spring of 1998 the pair pled guilty to causing the death of their newborn son two years earlier. The baby's body was found wrapped in plastic and lying in a dumpster outside a motel in Delaware.
The couple, who both were college freshmen in November 1996, the time of the crime, said they believed the child was stillborn when they placed him in the trash bin. However, the medical examiner's report indicated the baby had died of skull fractures.
Peterson and Grossberg both pled guilty to manslaughter. As a result, Peterson received a two-year sentence but served only 18 months. Grossberg was sentenced to two and a half years and was released after serving not quite two years. For the record, the judge could have given a maximum sentence of 10 years to each.
So, a young man admits to killing a dog and receives a seven-year sentence. A couple pleads guilty to causing the death of their own flesh and blood and they are sentenced to less than three years. What's wrong with this picture?
The mutilation of the canine in Oregon was a horrible crime and indicates a twisted mind in need of help. I do not quibble with the seven-year sentence Henderson received. However, when a parent takes the life of his or her innocent infant, even seven years behind bars would seem like a lenient sentence.
Even if you buy Peterson and Grossberg's story that they thought the child was dead at birth, their cavalier attitude toward their newborn son is appalling. Simply tossing a lifeless baby in the trash like a dead rat seems to deserve more than a minimum sentence.
If the judicial contrast between these crimes is not disturbing enough, the public reaction should be. People from around the country reacted strongly to the dog's death. The result was a three-foot stack of e- mails, faxes and letters condemning the killer and calling for an even harsher punishment. One official handling the response to the canine killing said, “Without a doubt, this is the most public reaction we've ever had to a crime in the 15 years I've been here.”
How did American society arrive at a place where taking a dog's life is tantamount to the killing of a newborn infant? It began 31 years ago when the Supreme Court slithered out on a slippery moral slope and legalized abortion on demand. The value of life has been sliding downhill ever since.
There are signs the worth of human life is making a comeback in the United States. Abortion rates have declined in recent years, young people by the scores now espouse a pro-life philosophy and abortion- performing clinics continue to close. However, don't expect life in America to regain its true value until Roe V. Wade has been repealed.
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What a deal I got on a masterpiece! I was in Paris, touring what is probably the world's most famous art museum, The Louvre. All day long I had been seeing these works by great artists like Michel Angelo, and Rembrandt, and you know, the biggies! And then I rounded this one corner and I saw this room jammed with people. It was lit with special lighting. It was guarded by security guards, and when I finally got into that room, there she was. The one painting you've heard of if you've only heard of one painting - the Mona Lisa! There she was smiling at me in a painting that took up an entire wall. At the bottom - this signature, Leonardo DaVinci, the artist. You can't buy the Mona Lisa. She's literally priceless. But, I bought the Mona Lisa for 25 cents that day! Yes, I did. It's in a drawer at home. I could show it to you. Actually it's a postcard of the Mona Lisa. What's the difference? Well, the postcard is a copy - it's cheap. The one in the museum is an original, signed by the artist - priceless!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft and I want to have A Word With You today about “Untouchable Worth.”
Let's get an estimate of what you're worth. Our word for today from the Word of God, Ephesians 2:10 says this, “We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” Did you get that? God's workmanship! Now, put your name in there. “________ is God's workmanship.” You're unique! You're a one-of-a-kind original masterpiece! You may not feel like you're a masterpiece. You may not have been treated like a masterpiece, but the one who designed you says that's exactly what you are. From the time that egg and sperm came together to begin you, God was creating an original and building into you the qualities and the experiences and the capabilities to make a unique difference, to “do good works which God prepared in advance for you to do.” You're an original! You're priceless - unless you become a copy of someone else, in which case you go for cheap.
You've probably had plenty of messages in your life that made you feel more like the postcard than the masterpiece. Maybe you've been rejected, you've been ignored, hurt, used. Maybe you've been criticized and put down, all by people who didn't know who you really are, but because of all those negative messages you have this lie playing in your brain, “You're not worth much. You can't do much. You're not good enough.”
Remember, it's not your friends who determine what you're worth, or your critics, or your family, or your culture, or your boss. It's your designer you got your worth from the moment you were conceived by God. You've got intrinsic value - so your worth is not because of how much you make, or what title you have, or whether anyone asks you out or not. You are God's workmanship. No one on earth gave you your worth, and no one on earth can take it away. It's untouchable worth!
There are three words in this verse that point us in the direction of where personal worth can be found. It says, “...in Christ Jesus.” It's when you're in Christ Jesus that you finally realize how much you're worth. You don't know who you are until you're in the hands of the one who loves you most, who thinks you are so valuable He paid for your sin with His life. God's Son died for you. That's how much He thinks you're worth!
It may be that you've never given yourself to Jesus or put your trust in Him to be your rescuer from your sin. This could be your day to open up to His love and begin your personal love relationship with Him. See, God wants you to live like the masterpiece He created you to be. You've been designed by the Master Artist and paid for with the Master's life. You are priceless!
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Copyright © Ron Hutchcraft Ministries, Inc., PO Box 400, Harrison, AR 72602. Used by permission. Written by Ron Hutchcraft. "Practical Answers to Real Life Issues"
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Robert Destro works for the Catholic League for Religious Civil Rights. His job now focuses almost full-time on cases involving treatment given to the disabled.
One in particular jolted his conscience. A young California boy with Down syndrome needed a heart operation. But the boy's father wanted to withhold treatment. Why fix the heart value? the father asked. The boy was retarded.
Destro was outraged. “Are we going to stand by and watch this child die of medical neglect simply because he's retarded?” he asked.
Unbelievably, the state of California sided with the boy's father.
You have probably heard a sick or dying person say, “What I wouldn’t give for one more day .... ” Regardless of the setting, the meaning is the same: Life is priceless, something worth fighting for.
It turns out that “priceless” and “worth fighting for” may have their limits, at least measured in dollars and cents.
Some 30 percent of Medicare expenditures go to caring for people in the last year of their lives. Internationally, many countries and insurance companies explicitly ration health care based on cost effectiveness. Simply put, if a year of “quality life” costs more than a certain amount — usually $50,000 — they simply will not pay for the care.
Medicare, in contrast, does not have a monetary threshold — at least not yet. Instead, Medicare makes a determination based on whether the treatment is “medically necessary and appropriate.”
A group of researchers at Stanford’s medical and business schools set out to determine if the $50,000 threshold was too low. They used kidney dialysis, which “typically has been used as a benchmark for evaluating the cost-effectiveness of all new technologies.”
In their new study, they conclude the $50,000 figure is much too low. They found that it costs $129,000 to provide a patient with what they called a “quality-adjusted” year of life — in their estimation, two years on dialysis was equivalent, quality wise, to one year off it.
To put it mildly, the implications of their findings are chilling. There is an obvious and disturbing question of how many people have died around the world because of the $50,000 threshold. While two years may not seem so long, it is priceless to those facing the end of life.
Even more frightening are the implications for the future: If Medicare were to follow the lead of other countries, how many Americans would be denied access to life-prolonging treatment?
To their credit, the authors of the study were aware of this and other ethical issues raised by their research. They also raised the prospect of the “sickest subgroups of patients” being “denied access to expensive treatments such as dialysis.”
It is not only the sickest who are at risk: When life is reduced to a cold calculation, the poor and marginalized are also at risk. We all are, as a matter of fact. Professor Peter Singer, for example, teaches packed classes at Princeton that funds should not be wasted on the terminally ill, or on abnormal babies — or who knows who is next, the severely disabled?
Few health care experts will go as far as the former governor of Colorado, who once famously said that the elderly have a “duty to die.” Showing how much it costs to keep people alive for another year or two, however, is the next-best-thing — the camel’s nose under the tent. It provides an economic rationale against prolonging life.
Now, there is a point at which we all must accept the inevitable. And that is why we should applaud efforts like hospice care that allow the terminally ill to die with true dignity.
But what we are talking about here is allowing people to die because we do not think their lives are worth $129,000 a year.
Whether they think the life is worth fighting for does not figure into the calculations — sorry.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
It is very early on Tuesday morning, after a night of tossing and turning, my mind replaying the scenes and interviews I had witnessed the previous day on various news outlets covering the senseless tragedy at a country music festival in Las Vegas.
I probably had fallen into and out of light sleep but my heart had become so troubled that I woke up weeping, crying to the Lord. My burden this night was not so much struggling with the question of why things like this occur, though like many Christians, I do think on this question in times like these.
This night my burden is simply over the loss of at least 58 human lives, the suffering that nearly 500 others are enduring personally and the thousands of family and friends of those affected.
With a certain measure of guilt, I seriously question whether I have ever had such an overwhelming sense of the importance of human life to God. I am struggling to understand why I have not felt this level of grief in the multitude of terrorist attacks we have seen in our country and the world in the past two decades.
Further, every night that I turn on the local news I see a senseless act that has led to the death of one or more individuals.
Why hasn’t the sum of these acts ever brought me to this level of sorrow over the loss of human life? Probably the biggest source of my measure of guilt from this new sense of the importance of human life comes in considering the estimated 40–50 million lives taken through the heinous act of abortion.
I have witnessed countless others give testimony to the grief they themselves have over the murder of children and certainly felt grief and sorrow. For me, though, this night was unlike any other.
As Christians, and especially as Southern Baptists, we regularly affirm the value of human life. We set aside one Sunday each year to do so and, in 2015, we passed a resolution on the issue in our annual meeting in Columbus, Ohio.
As evident in the wake of recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida, we have churches that consistently aid in disaster relief. We serve in variety of ways to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and serve our communities in ministry projects. An entity in our convention, the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, aids churches in promoting the sanctity of human life to governmental officials in policy and legislation. We have professors in our seminaries who often produce sound biblical arguments on the importance of human life.
Still, in light of recent events, we must strengthen our resolve.
The church today cannot overemphasize the value of human life. Though we face a variety of issues in our culture today, it is this one that demands our constant attention. Further, this commonly-held belief relates to many other issues we are facing regarding sexuality, race, bioethics, immigration, human suffering, political agendas, the threat of nuclear war and even questions about the long-term effects of certain forms of athletic competition.
I do not claim to have all of the answers to how we might do more as Christians and as churches, but I am convinced that our mission, our teaching and our ministries must manifest both a clear articulation and a visible representation of our commitment that human beings, who alone are created in the image of and show forth the attributes of the triune God, have immeasurable worth to that same God and to His church.
Foundational to this is the unwavering commitment that the same God who created humans in His image has sent His only Son -- who Himself is the image of the invisible God, the exact representation of His nature -- to be sin for us.
It is in the Gospel that we truly understand the inexplicable value of human life to God. Christ came so that man might have life and that abundantly. He came to gain victory over death. Therefore, as followers of Christ who possess assurance of these truths, we must grow to value life in everything we say, think and do as we carry the message to a world that feels the sting of death -- both physical and spiritual.
We take this Gospel to every human being, knowing that whosoever will can receive the gift of everlasting life. Ultimately, this investment in the lives of others grows in direct relation to the value we place on human life itself.
The Brits may be losing their marbles. The distinguished Baroness Warnock, labeled by the Daily Telegraph as Britain’s leading moral philosopher, ought to be ashamed of herself.
You see, Lady Warnock once chaired a government committee that helped legalize embryonic research. She’s known for supporting assisted suicide for people don’t want to burden their caregivers.
But now Lady Warnock has gone a step further. She says elderly people who suffer from dementia are “wasting people’s lives” — that is, the lives of those who care for them — and ought to choose to die even if they’re not suffering.
And even if they aren’t a burden on their families, they ought to “off” themselves anyway, as she puts it, because they’re a burden on the public, which, under British national health care, pays for their treatment. According to the Daily Telegraph, Warnock hopes people will soon be “licensed to put others down.”
Putting others down? That’s the kind of euphemism we use when talking about injured horses or sick dogs. It’s not how we talk about human beings — or at least, it’s not how we used to talk about them.
At age 84, Lady Warnock is old enough to remember Hitler’s Final Solution — and the thinking that drove the slaughter, not only of the Jews, but also of the handicapped, gypsies, and others the Nazis considered “defective” or “useless.”
But even though Lady Warnock should remember World War II, she evidently has forgotten its terrible lessons. Given her despicable recommendation for the elderly, she ought to hope that her memory issues aren’t related to dementia.
Thankfully, at least a few Brits are outraged by Warnock’s comments, calling them — in typical British understatement — both callous and deeply ignorant. Neil Hunt, a spokesman for the British Alzheimer’s Society, says to suggest that people with dementia “have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric.”
More ominously, a spokesman for a British right to life group said Warnock’s views “are an illustration that while euthanasia is promoted as a right to choose, it pretty rapidly becomes” an obligation to die.
This tale out of England is also a dire warning about what happens when countries nationalize health care. There’s never enough money to go around — and some bureaucrat at the top is always going to start making choices about who gets to live and who’s going to die. If those targeted for death don’t go willingly, well, they will need to be encouraged to die — or they might get a visit from someone “licensed to put others down.”
Has the Western world truly sunk this low? Do we ever need a more vivid reminder of the tremendous importance of worldview?
Either all human life — from unborn children to demented mothers and fathers — is created in the image of God and therefore infinitely precious, or humans are nothing but the result of mere chance, indistinguishable morally from a sand flea. The choice society makes will determine whether the most vulnerable among us will be respected and protected ... or whether we will “put them down” when they become a burden.
We Christians must speak out as others — especially those in authority — move us closer and closer to compulsory killing.
If we do nothing, it’s evidence that perhaps we’ve all lost our marbles.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
If it is true, as Richard Weaver famously put it, that “ideas have consequences,” it is also true that bad ideas have victims. On no other contemporary issue today is the connection between a bad idea and its victims clearer than assisted suicide. In no other nation today are the bad ideas and their victims more aggressively embraced than in Canada.
In a lengthy and powerful essay at The Atlantic this month, David Brooks exposed just how monstrous Canada’s so-called “medical aid in dying” regime has become since it was enacted in 2016. Originally, Canada only permitted the request for medical aid in dying to those with serious illness, in advanced or irreversible decline, unbearable physical or mental suffering, or whose death was “reasonably foreseeable.” The criteria are vague enough. Since the law went into effect, however, the number of Canadians killed annually has gone from 1,000 to over 10,000. In 2021, one in thirty Canadian deaths was by assisted suicide, and only 4% of those who applied to die were turned down.
Were all these people terminally ill or suffering from serious and irreversible conditions? Hardly. In fact, Brooks tells the story of a man whose only physical condition was hearing loss yet who was “put to death” over the objections of his family. Another patient had fibromyalgia and leukemia yet wrote that “the suffering I experience is mental suffering, not physical. I think if more people cared about me, I might be able to handle the suffering caused by my physical illnesses alone.” One otherwise healthy 37-year-old who suffers from schizoaffective disorder and is unemployed said, “logistically, I really don’t have a future. ... I’m not going anywhere.” As of Brooks’ writing, that man was awaiting approval for assisted suicide.
Simply put, Canadians who need help are instead being helped to kill themselves because they’re depressed, lonely, or mentally ill. And the slope keeps getting slipperier. Brooks described patients who have been pressured by doctors and hospital staff into killing themselves to avoid medical bills. Earlier this year, the Canadian Parliament’s Special Committee on Medical Assistance in Death recommended extending the program to mature minors” as young as twelve.
Brooks observed, this is what happens “when a society takes individualism to its logical conclusion.” The core question “is no longer, ‘Should the state help those who are suffering at the end of life die?’” It is now whether any degree of suffering is worth living with. He concludes, “The lines between assisted suicide for medical reasons ... and straight-up suicide are blurring.”
Brooks clearly identified the bad idea behind these victims: what he calls “autonomy-based liberalism.” In its place, he proposed something called “gifts-based liberalism,” which acknowledges that each of us is a “receiver of gifts ... including the gift of life itself.” That life, Brooks insists, is “sacred” because each of us is endowed with “dignity,” and society has a duty to say, “No, suicide is out of bounds. ... You don’t have the right to make a choice you will never be able to revisit. ... We are responsible for one another.” At least, that is, in most cases, according to Brooks.
He is so close to getting this one right and articulating the sanctity of life in the way Christianity does. That’s why it’s frustrating that Brooks seems to think it’s possible to climb back up the slippery slope and re-establish assisted suicide only for “extreme” cases. He writes, “I don’t have great moral qualms about assisted suicide for people who are suffering intensely in the face of imminent death.”
But, David, the moment you begin setting criteria for when a life is no longer worth living, no longer sacred, and a person no longer deserving of love instead of lethal injection, you let the bad idea that led to all those victims right back in the cultural door! For all his admirable reporting on how bad it has gotten in Canada, Brooks never gets around to answering his core question: Why did Canada’s “medical aid in dying” law – which supposedly limited victims to only those he agrees should have the right to die – become government-sponsored mass suicide in just seven years?
The answer is simple: because the value of human life is not based on any extrinsic quality. Period. It’s instead based on the fact that humans are made in God’s image. We belong to Him, not to ourselves. This is ultimately why the slope from accepting some suicides to all suicides is so slippery. It’s also why “gifts-based liberalism,” until it acknowledges the one who gave us life, will never be able to keep its footing or help those intent on throwing away the very gift.
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Copyright (c) 2023 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Autism Spectrum Disorder, which runs the gamut from profoundly disabled to high-functioning individuals capable of living fairly normal lives, affects millions of families: 1 out of every 110 births today are autistic kids.
The families of these children, like my grandson Max, don’t see these children as burdens but, instead, as blessings. Not because the parents are in “denial,” but because they love their children, and that love has helped them to see what is really important and where human worth really lies.
Unfortunately, there are many others, unlike these parents, who believe that parents and society would be better off if kids like Max were never born.
And these days, pre-natal testing allows doctors, insurance companies, and prospective parents to determine which babies in the womb will be so-called “normal and healthy,” and which will be born with handicaps. Which is why more and more of them identified with handicaps, like Down Syndrome, are being aborted.
The demonic “logic” behind targeting people with Down Syndrome can be applied to anyone with disabilities. A combination of fear, concern over the costs of caring for these kids, desires for a “perfect” child can prove irresistible. Medical technology may never enable us to “cure” things like autism, but it may enable us to identify — and target — autistic people in the womb.
If you’re thinking “this can’t happen here,” it already has. As Dr. Christopher Hook of the Mayo Clinic warns, “Eugenics is back in America.” Eugenics is the belief that we can improve the human race by eliminating undesirable genetic traits, usually, that is, the people who carry those traits. In fact, the modern eugenics movement began here in the United States. Among its proponents were people like Oliver Wendell Holmes and Margaret Sanger.
Eugenics is so dangerous and pernicious because it represents a radical disrespect for every human life — not just the life of the unborn. Adolf Hitler, an open admirer of the American and German eugenics movements, began eliminating the mentally and physically handicapped years before he started killing Jews.
The re-birth of eugenics in this country doesn’t require Nazi brown-shirts or even new laws. In fact, all it requires is for Christians not to pay attention. Then a combination of medical rationing and other economic and cultural forces will enable the forces of death to follow the demonic “logic” to its deadly conclusion.
So, how do we prevent this? We stand up for life, from conception to natural death. We make it clear to both our “leaders” and the chattering classes that respect for life is the great non-negotiable.
And it’s non-negotiable precisely because of people like Max. He will never pay taxes or hold down a job. He’ll never cure the common cold or cure the economy. But he has brought love and joy into the world in ways I never could have imagined. And I’ll talk more about that Monday.
Please, get a copy of Dancing with Max. I can almost guarantee you’ll fall in love with my grandson. And he’ll teach you exactly why we must resist every effort for humans to play God and decide who lives and who dies.
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Copyright (c) 2010 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University, Peter Singer is one of the most reprehensible intellectual forces alive today. He has advocated the morality of human infanticide, for the greater value of animal life over some human life, and for a radical vision of animal rights that is based in his purely evolutionary view of life.
Now, in an “Opinionator” column for The New York Times, Singer considers whether the current generation of human beings should be the last. He cites the work of David Benatar, who has argued that it is immoral for human beings to reproduce, given the probability of some pain experienced as a consequence of life.
“So why don’t we make ourselves the last generation on earth?”, Singer asks. In the end, his only argument is that in his own personal judgment, “for most people, life is worth living.” If this is not yet so, Singer predicts that future developments for human happiness are likely to make it so. That is all he has to offer.
Behind all this is purely materialistic view of all life. In an article published in THE GUARDIAN [London] just two days later, Singer made that position clear:
The belief that the animals exist because God created them – and
that he created them so we can better meet our needs – is
contrary to our scientific understanding of evolution and, of
course, to the fossil record, which shows the existence of non-
human primates and other animals millions of years before there
were any human beings at all.
In the end, everything Peter Singer believes about life can be traced back to that kind of statement. If life is an accident, it just might be conceivable that life is not worth living.
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Peter Singer, “Religion’s Regressive Hold on Animal Rights Issues,” THE GUARDIAN [London], Tuesday, June 8, 2010.
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[Original illustration at this number was moved to HolwickID #29045]
When it comes to ministering to the intellectually disabled, who is ministering to whom?
In March, the Templeton Foundation announced that this year’s winner of the Templeton Prize is philosopher Jean Vanier. The Templeton Prize is given to those who make an “exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension, whether through insight, discovery, or practical works.”
Vanier joins the likes of Mother Theresa, physicist-turned-theologian John Polkinghorne and, yes, Chuck Colson, as Templeton Laureates.
It’s hard to imagine a more deserving recipient than Vanier.
After serving in the British Royal Navy during World War II, Vanier felt called to study philosophy and became a Catholic lay leader.
In 1964, through his friend, Father Thomas Phillippe, Vanier “became aware of the plight of thousands of people institutionalized with developmental disabilities.”
Vanier invited two institutionalized men to come and live with him in Trosly-Breuil, France. This invitation became the start of a worldwide federation of communities that came to be called L’Arche, which is French for “The Ark.”
Today there are 147 of these communities in 35 countries on 5 continents. All of them subscribe to a “Statement of Identity and Mission” which states: “We are people, with and without developmental disabilities, sharing life in communities ... Mutual relationships and trust in God are at the heart of our journey together. We celebrate the unique value of every person and recognize our need of one another.”
Please note that the relationship between the non-disabled and the disabled is not that of caretaker to those being taken care of. Instead, it’s that of shared lives and journeys. For that to happen, the nondisabled must believe that the disabled have something to offer in return.
What is that “something?” A fuller understanding of what it means to be human.
Historically, Vanier tells us, “the value of human beings resided so often in their qualities of strength, of competence, of efficiency and of knowledge ... It was power and competence that defined the identity of someone.”
Obviously, “people with intellectual disabilities are not able to assume important roles of power and of efficacy.” So their identity and value comes from something else. What Vanier and L’Arche have discovered is the intellectually disabled are “essentially people of the heart. When they meet others they do not have a hidden agenda for power or for success.”
Of course, we’re all called to be “people of the heart.” As Vanier puts it, “At the heart of who you are, you’re someone also crying out, ‘Does somebody love me?’ not just for what I can do, but for who I am.”
The intellectually-disabled don’t pretend otherwise. That’s their gift to us. They remind us that the Kingdom does not belong to the powerful and efficacious — it belongs, as Jesus told us, to those who are like little children — vulnerable, dependent, and open to the gifts that God has in store for those who don’t pretend otherwise.
L’Arche is, to borrow a phrase from Luke’s gospel, a “sign of contradiction.” It’s a reminder that the world is oh-so-very-wrong about the source of human dignity and worth. It’s a reminder that when God intervened decisively in human history, he took on our frailty, not our pretense to omnipotence.
After watching Vanier talk about what it means to be human, Rod Dreher described Vanier as “luminous” and added, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anyone who looks so sure of himself, but also so vulnerable, so open, so humble, so illimitably kind.”
Vanier would tell us that it’s a function of the company he keeps, Jesus and his very special and beautifully human brethren.
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Copyright (c) 2015 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
While working on a reprint project of the Mayo brothers and other prominent early physicians at Mayo Clinic, we came across an interesting, if not whimsical, interview of Dr. Charles H. Mayo that appeared in the Northwestern Health Journal (Dec. 1924, 9:9-10). Dr. Charlie had only recently been elected president of the American Medical Association at the time of the interview; and the article was titled, “Our Bodies’ Worth Only 84 Cents – Dr. Mayo.” After browsing through this light-hearted piece, it begged the question — what is the human body worth today?
The interview format provided an opportunity to “experience” the voice of Dr. Charlie and to enjoy some of his humor. In those 84 cents he said “there is enough sulfur to keep the fleas off a dog and enough iron for an eight-penny nail.” His good-natured personality glowed throughout. One of his “pet” topics was what people eat. He compared what people eat to the value of the human body. He stated that the food we consumed on a daily basis was worth much more than our entire body. Over the decades the question of what is a body worth has recurred. An authoritative source for the chemical composition of the body dates back to the U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils, now part of the United States Department of Agriculture. Theirs was a highly scientific approach to the chemical composition of the human body.
Oxygen 65%
Carbon 18%
Hydrogen 10%
Nitrogen 3%
Calcium 1.5%
Phosphorous 1%
Potassium 0.35%
Sulfur 0.25%
Sodium 0.15%
Chlorine 0.15%
Magnesium 0.05%
Iron 0.0004%
Iodine 0.00004%
Surprisingly the actual values of the chemicals have varied little over time depending on the market value of the elements. A Google search illustrates much evidence of renewed interest in this medical parlor game. Contemporary entries go beyond the individual “elements” and focus on “other” global markets; e.g., bone marrow, ($23 million) and DNA ($9.7 million).
The current monetary worth placed of the basic “elements” in an individual human body is $4.50: $3.50 for the skin and the remainder of the worth assigned in the aggregate to the major elements — $1.00. Almost 100 years have passed and the difference is only 16 cents from Dr. Charlie’s long ago calculation! We can’t say that we have increased in value markedly, but at least we aren’t worth any less. For most of us the value of the human body is priceless; but we do well to remember a quote attributed to Thomas Edison, “From his neck down a man is worth a couple of dollars a day, from his neck up he is worth anything that his brain can produce.”
When a federal agency wants to implement a new regulation, it often needs to answer one basic question first: Do the benefits outweigh the costs? One way of calculating how beneficial a regulation might be is to measure how many deaths it would prevent, and what each life saved is worth.
Some federal agencies have decided that your life is exceedingly valuable. While the average U.S. household has a net worth of less than $100,000, the Environmental Protection Agency pegs the value of one life at about $10 million, one of the highest among federal agencies.
Life Measured in Dollars
EPA’s value of statistical life, 2016
$10M
Average lifetime earnings for college graduates, 2011
$2.4M
Median wrongful death jury award, 2009-2013
$2.2M
Median 9-11 settlement compensation, 2003
$1.7M
Average life-insurance policy face value, 2015
$160,000
Average net worth of U.S. household, 2013
$80,039
Sources: Bloomberg research; Census Bureau; American Council of Life Insurers; What is Life Worth?, Kenneth R. Feinberg; North Carolina state case-study, 2009-2013, Campbell Law Review; Sept. 2015 Regulatory Impact Analysis, VSL accounts for income growth to 2024, EPA
Not every regulation depends on a value of statistical life, or VSL, to calculate its benefits. And while a proposed rule is not required to pass a cost-benefit analysis, it has a much better chance of going into effect if it does. Typically, VSLs are cited in no more than a dozen rules in a given year. But these “major rules” by definition have a significant economic impact.
When the VSL is used, it has proven to be a valuable benchmark in offsetting anticipated costs of a regulation. And over time, as wages and the public’s willingness to pay for safety measures have grown, agencies have dramatically increased what they think a life is worth.
Agencies Agree on One Thing: The Value of Life is Going Up
Adjusted for inflation, the VSL used by major U.S. regulatory agencies has risen dramatically.
Department of Agriculture
1994: $3.6 million
2016: $8.9 million
Food and Drug Administration/Health and Human Services
1996: $3.7 million
2017: $9.5 million
Environmental Protection Agency
1985: $2.3 million
2016: $10.0 million
While agencies calculate their VSL based on scientific studies (the EPA consults 26 that recommend VSLs ranging from $1 million to $24.5 million), the math can be subject to interpretation.
The Trump administration has rolled back dozens of regulations put in place by President Barack Obama, citing cost projections it says were too low or benefits that were inflated.
Last week, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt began the process of repealing the Clean Power Plan, a regulation that placed limits on greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. He disputed, in part, $55 billion to $93 billion in estimated health and life-saving benefits the agency had calculated under Obama as justification for the rule. And when the Trump administration ran its own math, it said the regulation would cost as much as $33 billion, compared to $8 billion calculated under the Obama administration.
It’s not just political interpretation that can alter the fate of a regulation. As VSLs have increased, once marginally beneficial safety measures can suddenly yield benefits far in excess of costs — meaning proposed regulations left for dead can have new life.
In 2007, the Department of Transportation was petitioned to consider a rule that would force automakers to install rear seat belt reminder systems in every car. The agency estimates the rule will save at least 44 lives each year and cost the auto industry up to $325 million annually. Considering the Department of Transportation’s inflation-adjusted VSL of $6.4 million in 2008, the regulation’s high-end cost estimate at the time of the petition exceeded low-end benefits.
The agency is still considering the rule. But now, its VSL has ballooned to $9.6 million. So assuming similar estimates to lives saved and costs to automakers, the rule’s benefits now far exceed their costs.
Benefiting From a Higher VSL
Using a $9.6 million value of statistical life, the estimated benefits of a proposed seat belt reminder system outweigh the $324.6 million high-end costs that would be imposed on car manufacturers.
Are federal agency estimations of the value of life correct? Some say no.
In a study published in March, the libertarian think-tank Strata suggests that the VSL may be several millions of dollars too high. Study co-author Ryan Bosworth, professor of applied economics at Utah State, says people do a bad job calculating risk trade-offs.
“A couple will pay a premium for an infant car safety seat engineered with titanium, then drive with reckless abandon,” Bosworth said. “They’re not getting a lot of bang for their buck.”
Richard Thaler, winner of the 2017 Nobel Prize in Economics, similarly calculated a much lower estimate for human life. His wage studies, which are used by federal agencies as the most common way of estimating VSL, calculated how much more a worker would expect to be paid to assume a risk. The size of the worker pool at risk for one annual death multiplied by the amount of extra wages equals the VSL. In 1976, Thaler calculated the value of life at approximately $200,000 in 1967 dollars, or $1.5 million in today’s dollars.
The Science of Valuing Life
Scientists look at market forces to estimate a value of statistical life. Dangerous jobs are compensated based on a degree of risk. In this hypothetical example, if a miner faces an additional 1-in-5,000 chance of death compared to similar jobs, then the total extra wages paid equals the VSL.
5,000 miners at risk of one death x $2,000 extra pay per miner = $10M
It’s doubtful agencies would be willing to make such drastic reductions to their VSLs. The Office of Management and Budget has generally endorsed agency VSLs as high as $10 million, though it hasn’t set a single government-wide VSL.
According to W. Kip Viscusi, professor of law and economics at Vanderbilt University, the EPA tried to adjust life values downward in 2003 — igniting a political firestorm. In preparing an analysis for the Clear Skies Initiative, the agency applied a 37 percent lower life value for people 65 and older. The EPA quickly abandoned what became known as the “senior discount.”
One of the charges leveled at the Bible and at Christianity is that it devalues women. In support of this belief, certain proof-texts are often trotted out.
One such passage is Leviticus 27:1-8. In this passage, Moses gives the Israelites instructions for how to “redeem” a person who has been dedicated to the LORD’s service. In Old Testament Israel, it was possible to make a vow dedicating yourself or one of your children to the LORD. This person then served full time in the temple. You see an example of this in 1 Samuel chapter one. Samuel’s mother Hannah dedicates him to the LORD’s service and Samuel goes to live in the temple beginning right after he’s weaned, eventually becoming Israel’s last Judge before the monarchy is established.
However, in this passage in Leviticus, Moses explains how, by paying a specified amount to the Temple, the person dedicated to the LORD can be released from the vow. A value is specified for each type of person with the value to redeem females set lower than the value for males. Gottcha! The Bible says women are worth less than men!
But, there’s more to it than that. As you read the passage, notice there are differing values for several categories of people. The most valuable is a male between the ages of 20–60. After that is a female in that age range. Then for younger males and females there are lower values – the younger the person the lower the value. The same is true for those in advanced age. People over 60 are valued less then people between 20–60. But still, within each age group, the value placed on females is less than that placed on males.
While that seems to say women are not as valuable to God as men, I submit these amounts have nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of the individuals. This is a value based on financial or productivity considerations. In an agrarian, manual-labor intensive society, young, strong men were worth more to the culture than were women, children and the aged. Even when younger or older, a man, because of his strength, was worth more compared to a woman of the same age. But, it’s interesting to note, a woman in the prime of health (between the ages of 20–60) is worth more than an older or younger male.
A similar principle is seen later in the chapter with regard to valuing land (Leviticus 27:22-25). The closer in time to the year of Jubilee, the less was required to redeem the land because there was less productive time left before the land reverted to the original owner. Exact same parcel of land but differing values for redemption based on the amount of productive output expected.
So what’s being recognized here is that young, strong men are worth more when you have manual labor to do than are their female counterparts.
You have similar valuations based on skills today. A doctor is “worth” more from a financial standpoint than a sales clerk. It has nothing to do with the intrinsic value of the person but with what they bring to the culture skills-wise. Sometimes the value is based on circumstances.
Is a plumber “worth” more than a doctor? Yes, if I have a broken pipe pouring water into my basement.
Is a young man in ancient Israel “worth” more than a woman? Yes, if I have a field to plow.
While the Bible speaks of differing roles for men and women, it does not teach that men and women have different worth in the eyes of God simply because of their gender.
Though Jews today differ tremendously on abortion (also not surprising, since they also differ tremendously on all manner of theological, liturgical, moral, and political issues), historically, the position is much clearer. Except to save the life of the mother, Judaism has historically opposed abortion.
The Jewish position goes back to Genesis 9:6. Because this is the record of God’s instructions to Noah after the Flood, many Jewish scholars have understood this verse to be binding on all humanity. While modern Christian Bibles such as the ESV translate the verse as, “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for man is made in the image of God,” Jewish scholars who comment on this passage suggest that the text actually says, “Whoever sheds the blood of man within man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man.” Rabbis who understood the text to read “man within man” believe that this teaching refers to an unborn child. Thus, these scholars argued for a universal prohibition of abortion for all of Noah’s descendants, Jews and Gentiles alike.
In Jewish law, the unborn is recognized as nearly a full-fledged human being, but not quite. Consequently, it was considered a sin to deliberately harm a fetus, but doing so did not carry the full penalty associated with harming someone already born. In Exodus, a man who strikes a woman and causes her to give birth was not guilty of murder but had to pay a financial penalty. While this could refer simply to a premature but live birth, to the rabbis, this referred to miscarriage or stillbirth. They treated this loss as more of a property crime than a murder, despite the unborn being made in the image of God. (Exodus 21:22-25)
Similarly, if a woman’s pregnancy threatens her life, the fetus was to be considered “one who is pursuing another” to kill her. Jewish law permits one to kill a pursuer to save the life of the one pursued, and hence abortion is permissible to save the mother’s life if directly threatened by the pregnancy. If the baby’s head had emerged, however, the baby was given the same moral status as the mother and, thus, could not be killed.
Since Judaism refuses to assign differing values to life, Orthodox rabbis authorized to decide matters of Jewish law rejected abortion for fetal abnormalities or deformities. Historically, then, Judaism opposed abortion under normal circumstances but permitted it in a very limited number of situations, primarily the saving of the mother’s life. For example, the great medieval rabbi Maimonides permitted abortion only if the pregnancy “definitely and without question” endangered the life of the mother. This was the nearly universal view within Judaism until less than a century ago.
Today, some modern Orthodox Jewish scholars permit abortion to save the life of the mother, even if the fetus is not the direct cause of the threat to the mother’s life. Others extend permission further to protect the mother’s physical or mental health; some to pregnancies caused by forbidden sexual relations such as adultery, rape, or incest; and some, a minority, to severe and proven fetal abnormalities.
These are not universal concessions, however. Therefore, most Orthodox Jewish scholars advocate making such decisions on a case-by-case basis rather than establishing general rules for handling these situations. Abortion is understood differently within the Conservative and Reform branches of Judaism.
The Conservative branch of Jews, unlike the Orthodox Jews, generally follows a somewhat looser interpretation of these guidelines. In 1983, leading Conservative rabbis issued a statement permitting abortion to prevent severe physical or psychological harm to the mother or in the case of extreme fetal abnormalities. These were essentially the same guidelines already adopted by Reform Judaism in 1958, which were then modified in 1985 to specify that psychological reasons included rape and incest. At the same time, however, most Reform rabbis opposed abortion on demand, abortion for trivial reasons, or abortion because of family hardship.
Therefore, using Judaism as a counterexample to the Christian position that life is sacred from the moment of conception is a red herring, and ignores the real limitations placed on abortion within historic Judaism. While Conservative and Reform Jews do support legal access to abortion, they have only done so recently and despite their moral and religious views, not because of them.
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Copyright (c) 2022 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
January 22 marked the anniversary of the Supreme Court decision in the Roe V. Wade case that legalized abortion on demand throughout the United States. In the three decades since that infamous ruling, human life in America has become exceedingly cheap.
Allow me to illustrate:
In January 2000, Joseph R. Henderson of Bend, Ore., was sentenced to serve seven years in a juvenile detention facility for killing a dog. The then-17-year-old confessed to stealing a woman's pet and tying it to the bumper of his car and dragging it for almost a mile before stabbing it to death.
After announcing Henderson's sentence, Judge Stephen P. Forte commented directly to the teen, “The harm you did to another life form is inconceivable. You need treatment.” The judge added that the dog's demise was comparable to the 1998 murder of James Byrd, the African American man who was dragged to death in Texas.
Contrast Henderson's crime and punishment with that of Brian Peterson and Amy Grossberg. In the spring of 1998 the pair pled guilty to causing the death of their newborn son two years earlier. The baby's body was found wrapped in plastic and lying in a dumpster outside a motel in Delaware.
The couple, who both were college freshmen in November 1996, the time of the crime, said they believed the child was stillborn when they placed him in the trash bin. However, the medical examiner's report indicated the baby had died of skull fractures.
Peterson and Grossberg both pled guilty to manslaughter. As a result, Peterson received a two-year sentence but served only 18 months. Grossberg was sentenced to two and a half years and was released after serving not quite two years. For the record, the judge could have given a maximum sentence of 10 years to each.
So, a young man admits to killing a dog and receives a seven-year sentence. A couple pleads guilty to causing the death of their own flesh and blood and they are sentenced to less than three years. What's wrong with this picture?
The mutilation of the canine in Oregon was a horrible crime and indicates a twisted mind in need of help. I do not quibble with the seven-year sentence Henderson received. However, when a parent takes the life of his or her innocent infant, even seven years behind bars would seem like a lenient sentence.
Even if you buy Peterson and Grossberg's story that they thought the child was dead at birth, their cavalier attitude toward their newborn son is appalling. Simply tossing a lifeless baby in the trash like a dead rat seems to deserve more than a minimum sentence.
If the judicial contrast between these crimes is not disturbing enough, the public reaction should be. People from around the country reacted strongly to the dog's death. The result was a three-foot stack of e- mails, faxes and letters condemning the killer and calling for an even harsher punishment. One official handling the response to the canine killing said, “Without a doubt, this is the most public reaction we've ever had to a crime in the 15 years I've been here.”
How did American society arrive at a place where taking a dog's life is tantamount to the killing of a newborn infant? It began 31 years ago when the Supreme Court slithered out on a slippery moral slope and legalized abortion on demand. The value of life has been sliding downhill ever since.
There are signs the worth of human life is making a comeback in the United States. Abortion rates have declined in recent years, young people by the scores now espouse a pro-life philosophy and abortion- performing clinics continue to close. However, don't expect life in America to regain its true value until Roe V. Wade has been repealed.
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The Brits may be losing their marbles. The distinguished Baroness Warnock, labeled by the Daily Telegraph as Britain’s leading moral philosopher, ought to be ashamed of herself.
You see, Lady Warnock once chaired a government committee that helped legalize embryonic research. She’s known for supporting assisted suicide for people don’t want to burden their caregivers.
But now Lady Warnock has gone a step further. She says elderly people who suffer from dementia are “wasting people’s lives” — that is, the lives of those who care for them — and ought to choose to die even if they’re not suffering.
And even if they aren’t a burden on their families, they ought to “off” themselves anyway, as she puts it, because they’re a burden on the public, which, under British national health care, pays for their treatment. According to the Daily Telegraph, Warnock hopes people will soon be “licensed to put others down.”
Putting others down? That’s the kind of euphemism we use when talking about injured horses or sick dogs. It’s not how we talk about human beings — or at least, it’s not how we used to talk about them.
At age 84, Lady Warnock is old enough to remember Hitler’s Final Solution — and the thinking that drove the slaughter, not only of the Jews, but also of the handicapped, gypsies, and others the Nazis considered “defective” or “useless.”
But even though Lady Warnock should remember World War II, she evidently has forgotten its terrible lessons. Given her despicable recommendation for the elderly, she ought to hope that her memory issues aren’t related to dementia.
Thankfully, at least a few Brits are outraged by Warnock’s comments, calling them — in typical British understatement — both callous and deeply ignorant. Neil Hunt, a spokesman for the British Alzheimer’s Society, says to suggest that people with dementia “have some sort of duty to kill themselves is nothing short of barbaric.”
More ominously, a spokesman for a British right to life group said Warnock’s views “are an illustration that while euthanasia is promoted as a right to choose, it pretty rapidly becomes” an obligation to die.
This tale out of England is also a dire warning about what happens when countries nationalize health care. There’s never enough money to go around — and some bureaucrat at the top is always going to start making choices about who gets to live and who’s going to die. If those targeted for death don’t go willingly, well, they will need to be encouraged to die — or they might get a visit from someone “licensed to put others down.”
Has the Western world truly sunk this low? Do we ever need a more vivid reminder of the tremendous importance of worldview?
Either all human life — from unborn children to demented mothers and fathers — is created in the image of God and therefore infinitely precious, or humans are nothing but the result of mere chance, indistinguishable morally from a sand flea. The choice society makes will determine whether the most vulnerable among us will be respected and protected ... or whether we will “put them down” when they become a burden.
We Christians must speak out as others — especially those in authority — move us closer and closer to compulsory killing.
If we do nothing, it’s evidence that perhaps we’ve all lost our marbles.
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Copyright (c) 2008 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.
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