WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?

Almost 30 years have passed since I sat in the balcony of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia to view the film series, "Whatever Happened tovthe Human Race?" It was the premier showing of a stunning visual experience that eventually toured 20 major cities. The text and narration of the five-episode seminar were provided by Francis Schaeffer, an internationally acclaimed theologian, and by C. Everett Koop,then chief surgeon at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and, later, the Surgeon General of the United States.

Their combined expertise exposed the subtle but rapid loss of human rights through the growing acceptance of legalized abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia. Yet, even they could hardly have anticipated the rapidity with which America would embrace still more destructive policies and barbaric procedures. We now have partial-birth abortion, a cruel but legal method that would be criminal if used on animals. There is cloning by embryonic processes in which human life is created specifically for exploitation and eventual termination. The biological commingling of human and animal parts is a field of research rapidly evolving into even more exotic and unsettling mixes of species.

Great civilizational shifts usually require decades or even centuries of development. Almost overnight Roe v. Wade, the 1973 abortion ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, discarded an entire structure of moral reasoning, legal precedent, and cultural conscience. A "right to choose" became the highest moral and political good, and "choice" took (and continues to take) precedence over religious teachings, traditional values, and even truth. Choice, however, has proven to be terrible when there is no duty to guide it, no responsibility to regulate it, no character to curb it, and no truth to test it.

A number of years ago Louis Evans Sr. observed that 75% of Americans don't think, 15% think they think, but only 10% actually think. (And he said that before television, the mind-numbing plug-in drug!) Today it is estimated that only 3% of Americans are able to think critically. Thinking means connecting things, and while legalizing abortion 32 years ago was an attack on truth, it was also an attack on the mind. Many problems today that relate to human life don't suffer from a scarcity of solutions. They suffer from a scarcity of truth and a scarcity of thought. In the 1959 play by Eugene Ionesco, a human being turns into a rhinoceros. However, as the play progresses, that same transformation is undergone by all but one of the human characters. The heroine, who witnesses a man turning into an animal, provides the key to the drama's message. "Just before he became a beast," she says, "his last words were, 'We must move with the times.'"

When the highest court in the land chose to "move with the times" by making abortion a woman's choice (at any time and for any reason), it provided the soil for the sexual and familial issues we face today. The government chose to "move with the times" by endorsing condom distribution in public schools. The medical profession chose to "move with the times" when it opened the door to assisted suicide, euthanasia, and embryonic stem cell research. The American public chose to "move with the times" when it opted for accommodation in response to practices and policies that would have been unthinkable a few years earlier.

The apathy of so many "good people" has eased the way for America to "move with the times," but while that may have made life more efficient, more technological, and more economical, it has made life less human and less humane. Our acceptance of death solutions to life's problem has taken a toll on our ability to feel horror or shame, much less guilt. It has coarsened our moral sense and, as a culture, we have become increasingly desensitized to violence and to the admonitions of Scripture concerning "the least" among us.

There are also practical implications for having adopted a utilitarian view of human life. With the elimination of over 40 million unborn children through legal abortion, why are we surprised that we are experiencing a shortage of teachers, doctors, nurses, and church workers? We have aborted more babies than the total population of Canada; more than twice the population of Australia; more than the combined population of 12 U.S. states. Thirty years ago there were 23 workers for every retiree; today there are only three. Could the 40 million fewer Americans be a contributing factor in the current concern for the viability of Social Security?

The nation recently observed the ten-year anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. News coverage featured photos of the national memorial built on the site of the demolished federal office building. The memorial, named The Field of Empty Chairs, consists of 168 bronze and stone chairs, 19 of them child-sized, each one bearing the name of a person who perished in that brutal, senseless act of violence. As part of the ceremony, one second of silence was observed for each victim of what the media called "the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history." But is it? What if we were to observe a single second of silence for each unseen, unheard, unknown aborted child? We would have to be silent every day, around the clock, for a year and three months. What would a field of 40,000,000 empty chairs look like?

I think it was Voltaire who once said: "We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only the truth." We owe it to the 40 million aborted children to tell the truth about their humanity. To the living we owe respect and rotection regardless of their age or condition. There are some 180 million Christians from all denominations in the U.S. Many of them describe themselves as pro-choice despite repeating the Apostles' Creed every Sunday. "I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth." Those words affirm a familial relationship between God and humanity, a recognition that it is He who made us and not we ourselves. So then, by what authority does anyone claim "the right to choose" to tell God which of His creations we will or will not allow to born? What prerogative gives us license to kill human embryos to obtain their stem cells? By what right dare we condone actions that will end the life of human beings simply because they are old, weak, infirm, or handicapped? G. K. Chesterton rightly said, "The survival of the fittest leads to the survival of the nastiest."

We are responsible not only for what we ourselves do but also for what we allow to be done. Abortion isn't about the right to choose or the right to privacy. Essentially, it is about the decline of human significance. That is why it is an issue for the church. This country desperately needs renewal and restoration, but this country is going nowhere unless the church goes there first.

A pastor friend tells of one night when (after stories, drinks, and threats) his children were ready to say their bedtime prayers. His five-year-old prayed with unusual ntensity and length. The boy's list of things he was hankful for almost exhausted the animal kingdom, included all known relatives, and named every friend he had ever had. Then came the climactic moment when the little boy said, "But, most of all, Lord ... most of all, thank you for ..." Before he finished, the father, being a clergyman, puffed up with pride, certain his son would say something wonderfully spiritual. Instead, what the little boy said was, "But, most of all, Lord; most of all ... thank you for ME!" We forget how much children simply enjoy themselves; enjoy God's world; enjoy just being alive; and because of all of us who work together, sacrifice together, pray together, and witness together to the sanctity of human life, more and more unborn children will have the opportunity one day to say, "Thank you, Lord, for me!"

The last bit from David Brook's piece from the New York Times on 4/21/05 entitled "Roe's Birth, and Death":

The fact is, the entire country is trapped. Harry Blackmun and his colleagues suppressed that democratic abortion debate the nation needs to have. The poisons have been building ever since. You can complain about the incivility of politics, but you can't stop the escalation of conflict in the middle. You have to kill it at the root. Unless Roe v. Wade is overturned, politics will never get better.

There is still hope as long as people remember that 'character' above all else defines us.

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. . . . You ask,
what is our policy? I say it is to wage war by land, sea, and air. War with
all our might and with all the strength God has given us, and to wage war
against a monstrous tyranny never surpassed in the dark and lamentable
catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I
can answer in one word. It is victory. Victory at all costs - Victory in
spite of all terrors - Victory, however long and hard the road may be, for
without victory there is no survival."
- Winston Churchill

"I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. . . .

Unfortunately I believe there are very few Americans who would express WC's words. Some have become so immersed in Political Correctness that they have become cowards and worshippers of the status quo, whatever that means to anyone as it is ever changing.

We have been exposed to the evil that is government usurpation by small degrees and some are amazed at how deeply we have sunk. Further, some are shocked at what we have allowed our political class to do to us.

Having said that I will never believe that we can't reverse this evil, but it will take mountains of help from our Creator.

"A "right to choose" became the highest moral and political good, and "choice" took (and continues to take) precedence over religious teachings, traditional values, and even truth. Choice, however, has proven to be terrible when there is no duty to guide it, no responsibility to regulate it, no character to curb it, and no truth to test it."

Well stated.

We've always had the 'right' to choose and always will. What the courts did was create a 'right' not to be prosecuted for the consequences of wrong choices, substituting a judicial blessing instead.

Eastbound wrote:

We've always had the 'right' to choose and always will.
What the courts did was create a 'right' not to be prosecuted for the consequences of wrong choices ---

Our 'right' not to be prosecuted for the "consequences of wrong choices" has always existed, as we have never given governments the power to "deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."

Prohibitive laws violate due process.
The protection of individual rights by due process is part of the Constitution and it requires that the substance of the laws be constitutional.

"Our 'right' not to be prosecuted for the "consequences of wrong choices" has always existed,.."

I'm not sure what your are saying here.

Supposing you were driving while intoxicated (that was a wrong choice) and you ran over someone and killed them (that is a consequence). Are you saying that you have a right not to be arrested on a DWI or prosecuted for negligent homicide, the consequence of your choice? Not for the act of choosing, but for the consequence of the choice which produces an 'injured' party, a human, corporate or state.

Eastbound wrote:

We've always had the 'right' to choose and always will.
What the courts did was create a 'right' not to be prosecuted for the consequences of wrong choices ---

Our 'right' not to be prosecuted for the "consequences of wrong choices" has always existed; --- as we have never given governments the power to "deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law."
Prohibitive laws violate due process.
The protection of individual rights by due process is part of the Constitution and it requires that the substance of the laws be constitutional.

I'm not sure what your are saying here.

If you read all of my comment, my point becomes obvious. -- Laws that prohibit personal behaviors require that the substance of those laws must be Constitutional.

Supposing you were driving while intoxicated (that was a wrong choice) and you ran over someone and killed them (that is a consequence).

We have always had well written [thus constitutional] laws against negligent homicide. The driver can be prosecuted for murder and a jury will no doubt convict.

Are you saying that you have a right not to be arrested on a DWI or prosecuted for negligent homicide, the consequence of your choice? Not for the act of choosing, but for the consequence of the choice which produces an 'injured' party, a human, corporate or state.

I'm saying we don't need prohibitively restrictive [thus unconstitutional] laws that treat drunken driving as though it is a form of attempted murder.
Many of our present DUI laws are unreasonably restrictive & violate due process by virtually presuming guilty intent. Juries are told they must convict if the defendant was over the statutory level..

"If you read all of my comment, my point becomes obvious. -- Laws that prohibit personal behaviors require that the substance of those laws must be Constitutional."

Well, yes. I did read all of your comment and have no problem with the balance of your statement, but I don't think it was relevant to my point.

You flat out said that we have a right not to be persecuted for the consequences of our choices. I'm saying that we do not have the right not to be persecuted if we are in violation, regardless of how the judge instructs the jury or how the law is interpreted. That is a different matter.

My statement was just simple, basic, and logical and due process will establish that truth. But the ins and outs and machinations of due process, statutes and laws, and judge's decrees are not all that consistent, and perhaps in some instances, unconstitutional, I'll agree.

BTW, welcome to Free Republic!

I'm not sure what your are saying here.

If you read all of my comment, my point becomes obvious. -- Laws that prohibit personal behaviors require that the substance of those laws must be Constitutional.

Well, yes. I did read all of your comment and have no problem with the balance of your statement, but I don't think it was relevant to my point.
You flat out said that we have a right not to be persecuted for the consequences of our choices.

No, I did not 'flat out' write that, I qualified my remarks on prosecutions in the rest of my post.

I'm saying that we do not have the right not to be persecuted if we are in violation, regardless of how the judge instructs the jury or how the law is interpreted. That is a different matter. My statement was just simple, basic, and logical and due process will establish that truth. But the ins and outs and machinations of due process, statutes and laws, and judge's decrees are not all that consistent, and perhaps in some instances, unconstitutional, I'll agree.

Thanks.

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