Our society has placed much focus on saving lives recently. I believe that many people in positions of power are good, honest individuals who want to do good to all human lives; we should appreciate their service as they strive to do so under enormous stress. However, the tragic reality is that some in positions of power do not recognize all human life on the same plane of importance. How else can a person promote ordinances to protect those whose lives may be threatened by a virus while at the same time denying protection to the lives of babies inside and outside the womb? How else can someone who has taken on the duty to enforce laws that protect the innocent and promote fairness also be unfairly brutal and take the life of an individual when it is obviously unnecessary and before the individual receives a fair trial. By no means am I trying to characterize all people who hold particular positions in our nation as unjust; however, if we all are honest there are instances where the above disparities on honoring human life keep cropping up because—let’s face it—not all human life is regarded the same by some people. In the Warren-Flew Debate on the Existence of God, the then atheist, Antony Flew, said, “About whether I have met anyone who was not unequivocally either human or non-human: yes, I am afraid I have. I have met people who were very senile. I have also met people who were mad. Both cases raise very serious and bitter problems. Can we say that these former people are people any longer?” (p. 65). Atheism provides no definitive basis to determine whether one is really a human with rights, rather there is a gradation where some are less human and not fully people. In fact, the general theory of evolution promotes extermination of certain races on the basis of their closer connection to lower forms of life.[1]

Herein lies the problem for the injustices to human lives in our society. When one considers another human as something other than a person, something other than a precious soul made in the image of God (Gen. 1:26), then the underpinnings have been placed for treating others unjustly. We must return to God as our basis for the importance of all human life, else we will be tempted to view others and their value as inferior to our own. If someone has a different skin color, worldview, religion, etc., then can I characterize them as something other than a person like me in order to treat them unjustly? According to God: No. Can I characterize babies in the womb as masses of tissue, denying them personhood, in order to dispose of them? According to God: No. “Did not he that made me in the womb make him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?” (Job 31:15). Murder assaults God by taking the life of one made in His image (Gen. 9:6). God hates the shedding of innocent blood (Prov. 6:17). Abel’s blood cried out to the Lord from the ground (Gen. 4:10). God cannot ignore it just as you cannot ignore someone screaming in your face. A baby (brephos) inside the womb (Lk. 1:44) was regarded equal to a baby (brephos) outside the womb (Lk. 2:12, 16). Among the loss of human life in Ephraim due to the Assyrian invasion, was loss of human life “from the birth, and from the womb, and from the conception” (Hos. 9:11).

 In the Old Testament, God taught Jonah that people from a different nation were important to Him (Jonah 4:10-11). In the New Testament, God has declared through His inspired apostles that with Him there is no respect of persons (Acts 10:34-35; Rom. 2:11; Eph. 6:9; Col. 3:25; 1 Pet. 1:17).  God has made of one blood all nations of men that dwell on the earth; He wants all men to seek Him and find Him (Acts 17:26-27). Think about Jesus’ response to the question, “Who is my neighbor?” regarding loving your neighbor as yourself (Lk. 10:25-29; cf. Lev. 19:18). Jesus presented the good Samaritan—bitter antagonism existed between Jews and Samaritans in the first century (Jn. 4:9)—to indicate that love for others extends to those we characterize as different than ourselves (Lk. 10:30-37). Instead of shedding innocent blood, Jesus was innocent and died at the hands of bloodthirsty men without receiving a fair trial. He did this sacrificially for us (1 Pet. 3:18). This sacrifice was made out of love for every person in the entire world (Jn. 3:16; Heb. 2:9). May the ethic of Jesus Christ permeate our culture until we regard all human life as important.

-Mark Day

[1]  Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. <http://darwin-online.org.uk/converted/pdf/1889_Descent_F969.pdf> Part I. p. 156.