We, The Barbarians.
It is a luxury that Americans today enjoy, where the practice of slavery is seen as a vestige of some dark and angry time. We can’t imagine even wanting the power to force a person to grovel at our feet, their lives meaningless by law and nature. Slowly, a movement that began with our founders and spread through our religious leaders grew so strong that they were willing risk their lives challenging an institution that has existed for thousands of years. In their hearts they knew that every life, black as well as white, deserved the dignity all of God’s creatures do. Slavery was an abomination, and it’s existence mocked our claims that all mankind are created equal. North fought South, 620,000 died and the gulf between our ideals and our reality were brought a degree closer. Today, this generation of Americans look upon the many years of slavery in America as a nation stumbling in moral immaturity. We know better now – we’re more mature than our quaint and stunted ancestors.
On the day some celebrate the Roe v. Wade decision handed down in 1973 legalizing abortion, I ponder what Americans a hundred years from now are going to think of us. Medical advancement by then will be light years ahead of what we can even imagine now, and many of the mysteries today will be dispelled. When science discovers how to protect lives only days after conception, the political cover for the killing of a child within the artificial construction of the first trimester will be gone. Even as science works to remove the wonder of incipient life, it foists upon us a moral duty to justify an act we know to be wrong. Our answer to that challenge will decide how future Americans judge us.
In the novel 1984, written by George Orwell, a man employed by the totalitarian State to write propaganda rebels when he begins to wonder what it would be like to be free. Many see the dystopian novel as an argument against control – government ownership, surveillance, regulation and re-education. But it’s also about dehumanization. To dilute the value of life because either it is cheap or it is costly, and prioritize order over freedom, means empowering government to ‘enervate, extinguish and stupefy’ a people. If the nature of life is understood to be one of curiosity and passion, then systems created to control will abhor the inconveniences of freedom and so naturally hold life in contempt, but for what it can be made to sacrifice so others can thrive. The system we choose to live under is a reflection of our moral choices. When we decide that the dignity of a human life is only as valuable as what it can produce, sacrifice or consume, then science will make us monsters. The buffer of bureaucrats between us and our narcissism can’t protect us from becoming the victims of a utilitarian, eugenicist system that feeds on itself.
But what if we came to understand that life, miraculous as it may be, deserves protection not just because within every one of us lies the possibility of greatness or innovation, but because how we value life will decide how much freedom we are willing to allow in pursuit of our curiosities and out passions. When life becomes expendable and replaceable, human beings live in fear. Fear invites control. Control demands submission, and the human spirit suffocates. We hold more than another’s life in our hands, we decide to what extent they’ll be allowed to experience all that life has to offer.
We can’t escape the disgust future generations of Americans might have after reading about how we lived so long in a culture that explains away infanticide like slave owners explained away slavery. We will be the barbarians they read about, those hypocrites who celebrated abortion even as we lectured other countries about human rights or life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The pro-choice left and their sacred right to an abortion might be seen in the future like the progressives of the 1920′s with their eugenics theories are viewed today; as moral relativists stripping names from the faces of those who could not persuade those in power why they deserved the respect all God’s creatures do. In the future they may ridicule the political right for engaging military might in service of some confused notion that we were spreading freedom. But for those who killed out of personal convenience? Who killed without a cause to claim but the legal right to extinguish life? Who argued for euthanasia for the elderly or sterilzation of the poor?
Individual liberty doesn’t stop at the end of the umbilical cord. If we are to get a degree closer to the ideals we champion, we have to end elective abortion. Even a cave man should be able to agree with that.
Possibly Related Posts:
- Shock: Half Of All Patients Euthanized In Belgium Hospitals Are So Without Consent!
- Inside the Abortion Industry
- Bart Stupak Betrays Pro Life Cause, Gets Called ‘Baby Killer’ On The House Floor
- Vatican: Population Growth Opens Opportunity To Overcome Poverty
- Insurance Companies To Cut Costs By Offering Abortions Services
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One Response to “We, The Barbarians.”
January 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
[...] It is a luxury that Americans today enjoy, where the practice of slavery is seen as a vestige of some dark and angry time. We can’t imagine even wanting the power to force a person to grovel at our feet, their lives meaningless by law and nature. Slowly, a movement that began with our founders and spread through our religious leaders grew so strong that they were willing risk their lives challenging an institution that has existed for thousands of years. In their hearts they knew that every life, black as well as white, deserved the dignity all of God’s creatures do. Slavery was an abomination, and it’s existence mocked our claims that all mankind are created equal. North fought South, 620,000 died and the gulf between our ideals and our reality were brought a degree closer. Today, this generation of Americans look upon the many years of slavery in America as a nation stumbling in moral immaturity. We know better now – we’re more mature than our quaint and stunted ancestors. Read the full post here… [...]
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