A CHRISTIAN DECLARATION ON THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE

Excerpt from Chapter 8: THE STATE OF THE CULTURE

I was standing backstage at a conference when I first saw the video clip from CBS evening news being played as part of a different speaker’s presentation.  The clip began with a snowy candlelight vigil being held in the Colorado town of Boulder.  In hushed tones the reporter spoke over the soft voices of residents singing “We Shall Overcome,” as he recounted the loss of one of the community’s dearest members:

“They came to celebrate a friend with candles and song.  Tuesday his life came to an end.”

The video then cut to an older gentleman, a grieving resident of the town, choking back emotion as he shared,

“I cried. Outrage. Um, I lost a very dear friend.”

And then it happened.  The camera cut to a photo of a local police officer posing with a dead elk.  The reporter went on:

“A Boulder police officer shot the Bull Elk, known by many names: Big Boy, George, and Elmo.”

As I was fighting back the urge to laugh, a woman was interviewed in the clip whose words sucked the air right out of the room:

“And I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the shooting of this defenseless Elk and the shooting of schoolchildren in Connecticut.”

A gasp went through the audience.  As the clip came to a close, that same woman was seen holding up a candle, singing the words of “Amazing Grace.”  

Let that sink in.  Let what she said sink in.  She finds moral equivalence between a soulless creature being shot dead and those precious souls of Sandy Hook Elementary School being gunned down in their first grade classrooms.

What can account for that kind of offensive witlessness?  I remember sitting there at that conference dumbfounded after the clip was played.  I can’t even remember anything that the speaker went on to say because I was just fixated on the staggering foolishness embodied in such a perspective. 

But if we’re honest, that is precisely the mentality that increasingly surrounds us.  Many of you may still remember a young woman named Brittany Maynard. Brittany was a 29-year-old newlywed, trying for a child, who was unexpectedly diagnosed with glioblastoma, a very aggressive form of brain cancer.  

After considering the various forms of treatment available to her, as well as their potential side effects and ultimate futility, Maynard decided against seeking conventional care.  She also became overly fearful of the potential ineffectiveness of palliative care at home and decided her best option was suicide.

And so, Maynard spent the last few months of her life relocating to Oregon where she could be prescribed life-ending drugs, and then speaking out as an advocate for legalized suicide.  

There is no doubt that Brittany’s story was tragic, and under normal circumstances most anyone would agree that such extraordinarily personal trauma should not be a matter of public discussion and debate.  

But it became controversial because Maynard chose herself to interject her suffering as a way to publicly promote and advocate suicide as a form of compassionate care, all while bizarrely maintaining her contention that killing herself with drugs was not suicide.

She famously opined for CNN, 

“I've had the medication for weeks. I am not suicidal. If I were, I would have consumed that medication long ago. I do not want to die. But I am dying. And I want to die on my own terms.”  

These self-contradictory, depressing, and ultimately dangerous words became a rallying cry for far too many in our culture.  And what was most alarming had to be the number of supposedly God-fearing believers who championed Maynard as not just a catalyst for change, but a courageous hero.

Why is it so alarming?  Because her entire line of thinking rests in humanist ideology and is an affront to Biblical thinking.  Yet supposed Bible believers were championing it.

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