"Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you. Why do you notice the splinter in your brother’s eye, but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me remove that splinter from your eye,’ while the wooden beam is in your eye? You hypocrite, remove the wooden beam from your eye first; then you will see clearly to remove the splinter from your brother’s eye."
• Matthew 7:1-5
We live in a culture that is very skeptical of history. This is not new, as the one thing history has taught us is how much society rejects history. There are, however, those in our culture who, rather than hold us accountable for what we do, want to make us accountable for what our ancestors did. Ancestors who died long before our own parents were born. And this poisonous idea seems to be spreading.
It is one thing to try to understand what happened in history as a learning experience; it is quite another to use history as a distraction from the sins we are committing today. It is easy to look at the founders of the U.S. Constitution as being evil because many of them owned slaves and/or begat many illegitimate children. There are those that claim that since these men were evil, the society they created must likewise be evil.
Whatever shortcomings these men had (and as individuals, some will certainly have much to answer for on judgment day), they at least acknowledged their shortcomings. The society they created was specifically and explicitly designed so future generations could correct their mistakes. Despite the apparent cognitive dissonance some of the signers had, the Declaration of Independence actually laid the groundwork for the abolition of slavery when it declared that "all men are created equal." As time went on, it became increasingly obvious that slavery was incompatible with the ideals that would shape the nation. It was not by coincidence that it was the slave-owning states who wished to secede from the Union. Their economy was incompatible with what the Union stood for.
Unique among all the countries in the history of the world, the United States was founded on the premise that its citizens had the right, indeed the obligation, to make the nation a better place to live in. Its citizens were given the power to do so peacefully. Yet the revolutionaries in our country today are all too happy to use violence and the threat of violence to achieve their goals, even when peaceful means are possible. There was recently an example of protesters destroying statues they felt were "offensive," even though the local government had already consented to remove these statues and was in the process of hiring contractors to do so. Some may ask, what does this have to do with a Christian discussion? Well, with all the hype going on over the violent removal of the statues, the media had seen fit to underplay the fact that Satan worshipers moved in and erected satanic images where the original statues once stood. As citizens of the United States, we have the authority to participate in our government. As Christians, we are morally obligated to exercise this authority. When Christians refuse their moral duty to participate in our government, Satan quickly steps up, literally and figuratively.
The truth is that all future generations must live in the world created by previous generations. The first United States Civil War happened in no small part because of the unresolved problems that were obvious and well known to the signers of the United States Constitution. Over 620,000 men died to decide the matter of slavery in the United States. But even this epic sacrifice did not solve every problem. The failure to properly integrate the estimated 3.9 million suddenly freed slaves into society after the Civil War led to ongoing problems for almost 100 years, until Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who gave his own life in the effort, managed to abolish the so-called "Jim Crow laws" in the 1960s.
The current generation still has matters to work out, but the humility and self-sacrifice expressed by the Founding Fathers, Abraham Lincoln and Dr. King seem to be missing today. The current generation, no matter how noble its ideals might be, will leave some evil behind just as previous generations did. The current generation is no less human (and therefore no less evil) than the generations that came before it. But, perhaps, there will be a new kind of evil. There are many examples I could pull from, and new ones seem to come to light every day. Fortunately, many seem to have the characteristics of a fad, and I suspect they will quietly go away once the general public becomes bored with their absurdities. But there is one of a particularly heinous nature that has withstood the test of time, with its adherents only wanting more. The evil of past generations was the repression of people, but for the last 50 years we have seen a movement to destroy people. The evil the current generation is doing now will be passed on to whomever of the next generation is fortunate enough to see it. And the single greatest argument made in support of this evil (fetuses are not human) is essentially the same argument once made in support of slavery (blacks are not human). Amazingly (or perhaps, predictably is the correct word?), a large number of those who show no mercy to our founding fathers over slavery are fanatically defending their own right to brutally murder unborn babies.
According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), over 61,600,000 abortions have taken place in the United States between 1973 and 2019 (2020 statistics were not yet posted at the time of this writing). The world's largest and most respected "pro-abortion" organization, the Guttmacker Institute, does its own tracking of abortions, and they joyfully suggest that the actual number is 25% greater (over 75 million!). This is from a country with a population of about 330 million. We are currently recovering from a world-wide panic involving a disease that directly killed only about six in 10,000 people, yet one out of seven people are being killed in the womb by the willful choice of the would-be mother. And while many people with painful and even life-threatening afflictions had to wait months to reschedule surgeries or other treatment due to Covid-19 restrictions, the abortion clinics did not have any such restrictions placed on them. This absurdity was based on the idea that they provided an "essential" service. Apparently, systematically destroying over 15% of the population is essential.
In 2005, the Guttmacher Institute performed a study in 39 clinics and interviewed almost 2000 women as they were waiting to get an abortion. We are given the following summary:
Nothing is mentioned here about women being afraid of dying while giving birth (which does happen for about one in 50,000 pregnancies that are carried to term in the United States), and nothing about medical conditions or fear of baby abnormalities. Except for pressure from parents (which was less than 1% ), every reason given was an economic and/or quality of life matter for the would-be mother. Is not slavery a matter of economics and/or quality of life as well? We might address the issue of the inherent cruelty the practice of slavery entails, but abortion is inherently cruel as well. To put it bluntly, there is simply no good way to kill someone. Some ways may be worse than others, but none are good. The preferred method of abortion is to use a vacuum that pulls the baby apart piece by piece. The personnel performing the operation get to watch this play out on ultrasound, and it is clear that the baby is in distress as it is being killed. When done, medical personnel have to reassemble the body as the macabre jigsaw puzzle it is to ensure nothing remained in the woman to cause gangrene.
When dealing with moral issues, we must also consider the impact of unintended consequences. There are those today that greatly favor stem cell research, which promises much in the way of genetic engineering. Indeed, we already are seeing the fruits of such work. Parents can know the gender, eye color, hair color and more at a very early stage in pre-natal development. A popular (but not statistically relevant) argument in favor of abortion is based on knowing the child will be born with a horrible, painful disease. But this is a seed that I think ought not be given a chance to grow. Claiming quality of life in defense of abortion is a smokescreen as the Guttmacher Institute was so proud to demonstrate in the above report. But the smokescreen hides horrors perhaps even worse than mere murder.
Stem cell research and genetic programming go beyond merely being able to farm organs and identifying genetic diseases. There is no logical reason to suggest that this same technology can't be used to identify children who will be genetically predisposed to obedience, or to have desirable physical and/or intellectual characteristics. There is no logical reason to suggest that we won't be able to one day manipulate these genes to customize the future child. Will the children who are so customized thank their parents for it? Will they even have the ability to form an opinion on the matter? Even without the means to directly manipulate the genes, simply knowing in advance what genetic inclinations the child will have can be used to the same effect. What if those pushing their own ideas of what the "perfect society" looks like begin to encourage parents to consider aborting children that won't fit their views? Will Americans embrace the idea of how wonderful a future society will be if children were better behaved? Or what if those in charge decide that social ills can all be healed if we had the right balance of skills in people, which could be achieved by centralizing control on what genetics were allowed in newborns? I wish this was crazy conspiracy talk, but nothing I've seen concerning how the government managed the Covid-19 outbreak, nor the general population's acceptance of it these last two years, encourages a more optimistic view from me. All that is missing now is the technology to do it -- technology that both the government and the private sectors are racing to create.
Granted, I think parents who would do such a thing are, for now anyway, few and far between (and the Guttmacker Institute's report does seem to support this), but they themselves may not have a choice. In today's culture, what the majority wants is not reflected in the laws being made by certain politicians (and, perversely enough, all done in the name of "democracy"). The only reason those politicians are in office is because the Christian majority is not voting like it is Christian, whereas the deviant minority is voting like it is deviant.
In the end, there are two things all tyrants seek: a population whose numbers are closely controlled and a population which is obedient. So many people are voluntarily giving the tyrants what they want considering population control. There is at least one country whose government actively and openly controls the population through abortion: China. And, hidden in the shadows but rapidly gaining form, is euthanasia. On 29 April, 2022, Christine Largde (president of the European Central Bank) had this to say: "Old people live too long and this is a risk for the global economy." The World Economic Forum is encouraging seniors to commit suicide for the good of the newer generations as can be seen in this Twitter Post dated 30 April 2022.
Euthanasia is not quite yet mandated by any government, but what is legal is not much better. Existing laws are advertised in such a way as to encourage public confidence, yet are worded to encourage suicide by those who might be saved, as well as presenting opportunities to murder someone legally. Belgium is famous for leading the way for euthanasia, and children as young as 12 years can request it without parental knowledge. Although Dutch Law specifically calls for consent, according to the late Dr. William (Center for Clinical Bioethics at Georgetown School of Medicine) in a letter to the editor of the Toronto Sun on 10 September, 2010, this is not always done. Washington State calls for "strict conditions" in doctor-assisted suicide, but according to Attorney Margret Dore (of "Choice is an Illusion") in a letter to the Montreal Gazette, neither the law nor any forms or reports of assisted suicide requires verification that the death was indeed consented to at the time. Specifically, once one formally requests assisted suicide, that person is at the mercy of whoever administers it. More recently (March 1, 2022: "Proposed Connecticut Act: "Maybe You Trust Your Kids, But What About Your Son's New Wife?"), Ms. Dore warns that although the proposed law requires an application to get the lethal drugs, "once the lethal dose is in the house, there is no oversight." It only takes one person to administer the drugs, and this person can be a beneficiary of the alleged suicide's estate. If assisted suicide ever becomes an accepted cultural practice, then there is no logical reason to assume that the government won't get involved to ensure the poor can kill themselves just as easily as the wealthy. Indeed, there is much debate going on in Canada today over this very issue (consider Canada Cases: Right to Die Laws and Trending Politics: Euthanasia, a Socialist Dream to Eliminate Poverty).
We currently have a president willing to sue any state who makes abortions more difficult, and a vice president who has publicly claimed we need even more abortion centers across this country. Killing 15% of the population is not enough for them. And once a government gets to say who gets to be born or not, why not sell the population on the idea of genetic testing and genetic manipulation to ensure only the best are born? There are a growing number of states seeking to restrict abortions, some even to the point of making abortions almost impossible. But they are fighting 50 years of case law, and meanwhile euthanasia laws are being presented and passed with little or no public awareness. I don't think it is coincidence that the first generation to be allowed to kill their children are now increasingly being encouraged to kill themselves. After all, we are our parents’ children.
Original Publication Date: 13 August 2022
Dore's "Choice is an Illusion" Memorandum