A Question for the Candidates

           This year the citizens of the United States will cast their ballots for the office of President.  As I sit and write in this election year the prospective candidates of the challenging party have been through their first primary vote and have gone through a number of debates.  Following the final choice of contender and running mate, another series of debates and advertisements of both challenger and incumbent will take place en route to the November elections.  Amid all the advertisements and debates, I would contend that the single most important question to be asked of every candidate is never directly raised.

            Is human life sacred?  I have noticed that this question is never directly asked.  Perhaps that is because the answer is seen to be rhetorical: yes.  Which candidate if faced with the question would stumble around with a diatribe of double-talk or an outright response in the negative?  We testify to the truth of a positive response with our very behavior.  Do we not celebrate a stranger charging into a burning building to drag out another that is incapable of escape?  Do we not honor one who sacrifices her own life for that of another?  Does not our own Declaration of Independence clearly state the inalienable right of life to every individual?

            All other topics in a debate depend on the answer to this question.  Economic issues concern goods and services exchanged between people.  Domestic and foreign policy issues concern the interaction between citizens of the same, or of different nations, respectively.  Any issue relative to governance involves people.  If human life is trivial then the issues concerning how people treat or interact with each other must also be trivial.  If human life is sacred, then in issues of governance the primary concern ought to be that the sacredness of every human life is preserved.

            I stated previously that the question is never asked directly, and that is because it is routinely asked indirectly; something like, “Would you say your position on abortion is pro-choice or pro-life, and why?”  Responses vary based on the stated platform of each candidate.  I contend that those holding the pro-choice position, as it is most commonly held, does not hold all human life to be sacred.  This is because the choice being made is to kill a unique unborn human.  From conception a unique human life is growing in the mother’s womb; not a mass of benign cells akin to a tumor, not a parasite like a tapeworm, but a unique human life.  Other than size, location, environment and level of development that unique unborn human life is no different than a four-year old toddler, and we do not determine rights of life based on such differences.  To be six feet four inches tall does not make one more deserving of life than another only five feet four inches tall.  Similarly, we do not designate one to be less deserving to live because they take up residence East of the Mississippi River, or because they are underwater.  We cannot choose to kill an eight year old because they have not developed enough to drive an automobile.  If we cannot choose to kill a four year old toddler for these reasons then we cannot kill a unique unborn human for those reasons either.  One might ask about cases of extreme violation like rape or incest.  As horrible and vile as those acts are, the violators themselves are not killed for the crime nor would we advocate killing a four-year old toddler because they are reminders of a horrible violation once endured.  Only in cases of tubal pregnancies would termination be warranted as in that case if the dreadful act of killing one human life is not carried out two human lives will be lost.  If all human life is sacred then we must fight to preserve all human life possible.

            An acute observer will note that the reasons presented above not to kill an unborn human life do not provide a reason why life is sacred.  Why does our Declaration of Independence state in the clearest of written word that all human life is sacred?  If we are here as a result of some combination of undirected natural causes, random chance, evolution by natural selection, genetic drift and the like then human life is remarkable and highly improbable but not sacred.  No, our Declaration makes clear that all human life is sacred because we are created and are endowed by our Creator with those inalienable rights.  The Christian worldview is the only one that could provide for such a statement and in Genesis 1:27 we read, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”  All human life is sacred because all human life is created by the God of the Bible in His image and we all at least act as if it were true.

            January 22 is the 38^th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision giving legal rights for the killing of unique human lives and this is an election year.  In my opinion, we should think soberly of the question of the sacredness of human life and put each candidate under great scrutiny as all other issues of governance hinge on the answer to that question.