When is Killing Your Baby Okay?

I had a hard time just writing the title to this article. It's being written just after I read a piece from The Telegraph titled "Killing babies no different from abortion, experts say." If these "experts" were only making a statement, I would tend to agree, being that I am pro-life and believe that life begins at conception. But that is not what they are saying.

These authors, linked to the prestigious Oxford University, are actually laying out the argument that parents should have the right to have their baby killed after he or she is born  and that this "should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.” Their article was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Sadly, this is not new and I'm not surprised. The ethic espoused here was promoted by Peter Singer and others long ago. In fact, you can trace the philosophical underpinnings of their position back to some of the philosophers of the 19th century. Singer, later of Princeton University, wrote, in 1979, that “Human babies are not born self-aware, or capable of grasping that they exist over time. They are not persons”; therefore, “the life of a newborn is of less value than the life of a pig, a dog, or a chimpanzee.”

It is philosophers and so-called "ethicists" like these who have been the architects of what has been called the "culture of death." While most people find their views reprehensible and morally repugnant, we don't stop long enough to think about why they believe what they believe and what they are saying about society as a whole.

We, as a society, have made the decision that children in the womb are not human, and therefore not worthy of our protection. They have simply extended that logic a little bit further, stating that “The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual.” What we are now seeing and hearing is the result of our selfishness being taken to its logical conclusion.

A woman is pregnant, but it's not a good time in her life to have a child, so we tell her that it's not human until it's born, so it's okay to abort. We, in Canada anyway, have extended that "right" to legal abortion up until the moment the child fully emerges from her mother's womb. We don't talk about it, we don't think about it. It's uncomfortable. Anyone trying to shed light on what abortion is really like is shouted down in the public square. Right to life groups are routinely denied permission to state their case on college campuses. It's just easier for us to say that babies in the womb are not human. We know, scientifically, that is not true; we know morally that is not true, but we choose to suppress that knowledge for the sake of a "right to choose."

Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, the article's authors, have called society's bluff. They have thrown down the gauntlet, if you like. Here, in essence, is what they are saying. “We take ‘person’ to mean an individual who is capable of attributing to her own existence some (at least) basic value such that being deprived of this existence represents a loss to her.” One of these authors has written another article promoting euthenasia, another natural step down the same road. Because we, as a society, have denied the sanctity of human life and have arbitrarily removed the barrier preventing us from taking the life of the unborn, these authors have simply picked up the barrier and moved it again.

Here's a question, who are we to say that they are wrong? On what basis do we disagree - that we simply don't like what they are saying? That's not good enough. What is it that makes human life important? Is it simply because we say so? Are people only valuable as long as they can contribute something to society?

As much as I disagree with his philosophy, I do have to recognize the honesty of atheist philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who stated that "God is dead and we have killed him." In his Parable of the Madman and other writings he described what society would be like after we purged it of belief in God. Many of his predictions have come true. I've included a video below featuring Ravi Zacharias quoting Nietzsche's famous parable.




It was Charles Colson who said, "The 'devaluation of all values' is what the death of God has meant to politics. Dictinctions between right and wrong, justice and injustice have become meaningless. No objective guide is left to choose between 'all men are created equal' and 'the weak to the wall.'"

It is into this debate we once again declare what Konrad Adenauer, chancellor of Germany after World War II said to Billy Graham: “Outside of the resurrection of Jesus Christ I know of no other hope for mankind.” The issue is the heart. Nothing has more of a bearing on our moral choices than belief or disbelief in God. The Biblical worldview provides the foundation upon which to build, not only our individual lives, but society as well. As G.K. Chesterton rightly said, "The danger when men stop believing in God is not thaty they will believe in nothing, but that they will believe in anything."  Well - as you can see, in today's world, anything goes.

Related Articles:
Worldview - Part 1 - Origin
Worldview: Part 2 - Meaning
Worldview - Part 3 - Morality
Worldview - Part 4 - Destiny
"Gendercide" - A Deeper Look

Stem Cell Research & The Media

You likely haven't read it in any of the major newspapers or seen it covered by the CBC, ABC, CBS, Global, CTV, etc..., but there's been a major breakthrough in stem cell research. According to an article by Gudrun Schultz, Scientists in Britain have grown a human liver from stem cells taken from blood from an umbilical cord. In other words, no embryo had to be destroyed; no ethical lines had to be crossed. It was simply good science.

You won't have heard this story likely because there seems to be a very real media bias as regards stem cell research in favor of the mantra that embryonic stem cells provide the "best hope" for scientific breakthroughs. You've likely seen video or heard audio clips of Michael J. Fox's impassioned plea for the passage of a bill that would allow for the expansion of this type of research in order to treat diseases like Parkinson's, from which he suffers. Michael's sincerity is obvious, which makes it all the more important to look at the facts.

Regardless of why those embryos were created - another debate entirely - how do you morally justify their destruction when other alternatives are available? Perhaps the question of the day would be this - why would the mainstream media ignore a scientific breakthrough of this magnitude? This "eureka" type of discovery was covered in London's Daily Mail. These scientists foresee a day when "cord blood from millions of babies born each year is banked, creating a world-wide donor register for liver transplant and dialysis."

Rush Limbaugh's crude accusation that Michael J. Fox was "acting" and exaggerating the effects of his illness are simply a distraction from the real issue: is it a good idea to open a door to questionable scientific practices? My answer is a firm no! Just because we can do something does not mean that we ought to; especially when there is a safe and non-destructive alternative.

According to Schultz: "Research using embryonic stem cells is highly controversial because it requires the destruction of embryos in order to 'harvest' the cells. Further, to this date there has been no success in using embryonic cells to treat any disease or disorder. In contrast, the use of adult stem cells or of cells harvested from umbilical cord blood shortly after the birth of a baby have already been used successfully to treat multiple conditions, including spinal injury and blindness."

The point is this: while Michael J. Fox's condition does tug on the heart strings, it is not a valid argument. Emotion should not - cannot - be allowed to override sound reasoning. One of society's main responsibilities is to defend those who cannot defend themselves. In order to do that we must preserve a healthy respect for human life. Embryos ought not to be created to be destroyed; the U.S. should not open that door, and Canada should not have.

During the reign of our previous Liberal government, Bill C-6 was passed, allowing research on frozen embryos created for in vitro fertilization (IVF) but no longer wanted by the donors. The language of the bill was clear that testing was limited to these embryos. However, already the line has blurred and IVF donors are now being asked to consent to allowing their embryos to be harvested for research - exactly the type of abuse that was feared in the first place. The argument that such legal changes are a "slippery slope" is not mere conjecture, it's history, as Rory Leishman argues in his recent article.

Our culture needs to move off of its trendy pragmatism, and look once again at a moral framework that protects those who are the most vulnerable. We need to stop being lazy intellectually and work through the implications of the decisions we make. The consequences of doing otherwise are frightening indeed.