TO BASH OR TO CHERISH?

the assault on and defense of our most precious gift

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” (Declaration of Independence). 

Thus, our founding documents declare that we are created, equal, and owe our blessings to God. These rights cannot be challenged, for they are unalienable, and they include life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We all want to be free, of course, and to use that freedom to achieve good things for ourselves and those we love. But notice that the prerequisite to this freedom and joy is the most basic ideal of all. We have the right to life—to be alive, to enjoy the gift granted by our Maker. 

Of course once you are alive, there is no shortage of opinion as to what this life can or should entail. For instance . . . 

“Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans” (Allen Saunders). 

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough” (Mae West). 

“Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself” (George Bernard Shaw). 

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving” (Albert Einstein). 

“We're all human, aren't we? Every human life is worth the same, and worth saving” (J.K. Rowling). 

“Where there is love there is life” (Mahatma Gandhi). 

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards” (Søren Kierkegaard). 

Everyone has an opinion on life—some profound and meaningful, others trivial and inaccurate, and a lot in between.

One common assumption among most all of them, though, is that there is indeed a life to live.

In our best moments, we treasure life. If you have been blessed with children, they are just that, a blessing. We even value the lives of dogs, cats, turtles, and a host of other animals. 

There is this life-priority within us. 

Life has primacy. 

We celebrate life.

We seek to preserve and protect life.  

When life isn't what we want it to be, we crave a better life.

When loved ones pass away, we mourn the loss of life. 

Life, life, life–—it is truly the essence of who and what we are, the essential factor of humanity, the presupposition for everything else. 

Indeed, most people down through the ages have attributed their very lives and whatever beneficial experiences they have had to a deity. God grants us life. 

THE ATTACK

Why, then, is there a relentless attack on what is primary? Why the effort to label as radical those who acknowledge and support the supreme characteristic in the universe? Why the bitter attack on, let's say it clearly, life itself? 

I have no doubt that some are caught up in what they deem a worthy cause. Some have other legitimate issues and vent their frustrations through popular themes. But others are clearly and deeply antagonistic when it comes to this most fundamental reality—life.

With the recent Supreme Court decision, sending the abortion issue back to the states, the opposition have been blinded by their insistence that abortion is not only allowable but actually a noble endeavor. The misrepresentations about this decision, the irrational responses—these are unfortunate. 

Yet, even deeper than these is the sheer determination to oppose and work so hard to eliminate life. When you are animated by vitriol aimed against life, when you regularly violate common decency regarding human existence, you are, well, you are strikingly anti-life. 

That which is anti-life is death. Indeed, the number of deaths of unborn children is staggering. In 2020 alone, there were 930,160 abortions in the United States! Since Roe v Wade, more than 63 million abortions have occurred in the US, and this might be an under count of the actual number! That’s more than the entire current population of England.

Of course the moment you mention such numbers, the inevitable response is to discuss rape, incest, and the life of the mother. While you can easily argue that even these difficult circumstances do not justify the death of the unborn, you can at least understand the emotional struggle involved. But even if we exclude the estimated number of abortions performed in these cases, and these are exceptionally rare, perhaps 2% of cases, and this might be generous, involve these so called exceptions. That still leaves us with over 900,000 abortions in 2020! Even pro abortion advocates from a generation ago spoke of abortion as “safe, legal, and rare,” to quote former president Bill Clinton. Today, Hillary Clinton has made the radical claim that “women are going to die” because of this Supreme Court decision. Never mind that abortion will likely still be available in blue states, never mind that she completely ignores the deaths within the womb that have been taking place for decades. Within a generation, the left’s views have become so radical that they threaten to turn civilization on its head. While it once was a near universal maxim that a mother would do anything, including giving her life, in the effort to protect her children, today the supposedly good and proper thing to do, the womanly thing to do is to sacrifice your children for your own benefit. 

The corruption of popular culture, including the clearly culpable media and the longstanding radicalism present within large swaths of academia, has contributed to this mentality of death. Indeed, there seems to be an ongoing aggression against that which is the cornerstone of civilization, the family. The absenteeism of many fathers, the lack of respect for marriage in some circles, and the desire to trivialize children—all play a role in the dark ideas so commonly accepted. Beyond this, some companies are so greedy that they are actually willing to pay for their employees’ abortions. After all, who wants to give women time off from work or to provide insurance for a larger family? 

While people are of course free to pursue a family, including children, or to choose an alternative, the consistent effort to undermine and even mock the traditional family is nothing short of sinister. At the heart of this attack has been the termination of countless pregnancies. Again, this is an assault on life.

YOUR OWN KIDS IN REVERSE?

For those of you who have kids, and certainly all of you have known kids, imagine that you had a time-machine that allowed you to go back to when those children were toddlers. Then, go back further until those children were infants. Next, go back to the very day they were born. Then, go back just a little more, say about 5 months or so, when those children were in their mothers’ wombs. At that point, according to abortionist “logic,” it would be just fine, acceptable, even noble, for you to terminate those pregnancies. Of course there is no time machine, and some would argue that it is somehow unfair to illustrate the point in this manner. 

But it is not invalid to propose thoughtful conversation that forces decision makers to consider what their choices entail. To choose the abortion of an otherwise healthy unborn is to thwart the process designed to produce infants, toddlers, children, and eventually adults. Life moves in that direction. Of course something might interfere with this process. A mother’s complications, an umbilical cord, the trauma of an automobile accident—lots of things can put an end to life. But life itself is intended to mature and grow. Life is directional, and that direction is one of continuance. 

Indeed, we know this is how it works not only because we see all around us the result of allowing pregnancies to continue, namely, civilization, a world of billions, but we learn this lesson when people are suddenly taken from us. A former student of mine, not that long ago, was involved in a horrific car accident that took her life. She was only eighteen years old. Her grief-torn mother wonders all the time what might have been, what the life of her daughter would look like today, when she turns 21, and on her wedding day. She can’t help but mourn the fact that her little girl won’t have her own children one day. Why does the grieving mom think this way? Because she knows that had that accident not taken place her child would likely have experienced all of these things and so much more. Life is directional. It moves in this direction unless something unfortunate occurs and interferes with the process. So it is, at a much earlier juncture, when a woman—for no other reason than convenience or panic or some other excuse—puts an end to her pregnancy. This is what happens when sperm and egg meet. Yes, many things, often outside our control, can interfere, but without such interference you get the continuance of life. 

LIFE FINDS A WAY

In the popular film Jurassic Park, one of the characters, referring to fossils that had been successfully brought back from their graves, said that “life finds a way.” Though this was a different context than the one discussed here, this is surely a fact of human existence. Life finds a way, or at least it intends to do so, at least we hope it does. The flippant disregard of this directionality, this desire to exist, to live, is ultimately an attack on the One who provides such directionality. 

Life is a constitutionally protected right of all, including those soon-to-be-newborns, toddlers, children, and adults, i.e., the unborn. This right is not a humanly contrived notion but rather a divinely provided one. We are all valuable, after all, because we are bearers of the divine image. Life, derived as it is from God, is to be gratefully embraced and celebrated, which is also why it must be protected. While there is no doubt that there can be complications along the way, controversies and uncertainties and emotional factors we can and should discuss, the ultimate priority is life itself. Anything less, anything else, is sub-human and only promotes a culture of death. 

YOUR CHOICE

We all have to decide the path we will take. Human experience can be complicated, of course, and there are questions we must entertain and answers we must pursue. At the most basic level, however, there is a simplicity to living that helps to clarify the direction we should take. Whatever else may be true, wisdom is always calling. Will you bash or cherish life? When considering the most vulnerable among us, I hope you will choose to cherish.