The Importance of Being Human
By Nisha N. Mohammed
07/17/03
We must stand equally against the spirit of our age in the breakdown
of morality and the terrible loss of humanness that it has brought.
It will mean especially standing for human life and showing by
our actions that every life is sacred and worthwhile in itself—not
only to us as human beings, but precious also to God. Every person
is worth fighting for, regardless of whether he is young or old,
sick or well, child or adult, born or unborn, or brown, red, yellow,
black, or white.
—Frances A. Schaeffer, The Great Evangelical Disaster(1984)
It is what unites us all—being human. Yet as technology advances
in our culture, it also begins to redefine what it means to be human—and
the debate over the definition of life becomes more pressing. The
discussion touches on all aspects of our culture and on all phases
of our lives from birth to death and everything in between.
Abortion, euthanasia, organ harvesting, cloning, stem cell research
force us to place a monetary value on human life and, in the process,
dehumanize the very thing we once valued highly.
How much is your life worth to you? To your loved ones? Your employer?
Your government? From the moment we emerge from our mothers' wombs
a calculated, quantifiable value is placed upon our lives. Whether
we are measured by our ability to make money for ourselves or others
or by how much it costs to keep us alive, a price is placed on our
heads. One website even allows visitors to calculate the cost involved
in having and raising a child. Tabulating everything from groceries
and medical bills to grandparents' visits and education (excluding
college expenses and inflation), one can raise the average child
for a whopping $177,000.
Yet surely there is more to this ephemeral thing called life than
numbers?
Perhaps in an attempt to gain a better sense of our worth as human
beings, debates over creationism versus evolution have at their
core a fundamental need to understand who we are and where we come
from. In the book of Genesis, it is written that there was a beginning
to the world. And in this beginning God "formed man from the
dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of
life, and the man became a living being." If we concede that
humankind was divinely created with a purpose, surely the way we
treat each other would have to be vastly different than if we considered
life to be simply an accident, a byproduct of chaos and collision?
Yet much of modern thought has tried to refute the idea of man being
divinely created. As Christian theologian Frances A. Schaeffer noted
in his classic book Whatever Happened to the Human Race?
If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands
in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should
be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this
in many of the major issues being debated in our society today:
abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and
violence of all kinds, pornography (and its particular kinds of
violence as evidenced in sadomasochism), the routine torture of
political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion,
and the random violence which surrounds us.
Man's increasing inhumanity to his fellow being is a common theme
that runs through modern fact and fiction. As the world has progressed
technologically, our spiritual understanding of life has failed
to keep pace with new breakthroughs. Thus, even as scientists race
against time to stake their claim as the first to clone a human
being—an inevitability at some point in the future—we
struggle to understand the moral dimensions of such actions. Beyond
the oft-phrased charge that scientists are "playing God,"
there are other questions that must be resolved. For example, does
a cloned human have a soul? Should it be afforded the same protections
given to human beings who come to the world in the "usual way"?
Or will cloned beings represent a sub-species, servants to what
Friedrich Nietzsche, a contemporary of Charles Darwin and an ardent
evolutionist, described as supermen or the master race? Some proponents
of cloning technologies have even presented it as a method of organ
harvesting or a way to replace a deceased loved one.
Human life has become a commodity. In their 1996 report, "The
State of Humanity: Good and Getting Better," writers Julian
L. Simon and Sheldon Richman declared our species better off in
just about every measurable material way, asserting that "[o]nly
one important resource has shown a trend of increasing scarcity
rather than increasing abundance: the most important and valuable
resource of all—human beings. There are more people on earth
now than ever before. But if we measure the scarcity of people the
same way we measure the scarcity of other economic goods—by
how much we must pay to obtain their services—we see that
people are becoming more scarce even though there are more of us."
Not surprisingly, while this supposed scarcity of human beings has fueled
our quest to recreate life in a laboratory environment, it has done little
to stem the tide of abortions. More than 40 million abortions have been
performed in the United States since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade
ruling in 1973. Research shows that abortion is commonly used as a method
of contraception and family planning. In some parts of the world, governments
use forced abortions as a method of population control. One North Carolina
history professor seems to see nothing wrong with that and suggests that
"the state does have the right to legislate the restriction of the
creation of human life as has happened in China" for the sake of
controlling overpopulation.
And it is this idea of a government dictating life or death decisions
to its populace that goes to the heart of the discussion about the
devaluing of human life—namely, its correlation to our freedom
as individuals. Does a society that places little to no value on
human life also place little to no value on freedom? As John W.
Whitehead, president of the The Rutherford Institute, stated, "A
society that will not respect the right to life will, in the end,
protect no rights at all." This loss of freedom is evident
in all areas of life, from the ever-increasing government surveillance
of virtually every area of our lives to the continual battle to
maintain such fundamental freedoms as the right to religious speech.
Ultimately, the dispute over who controls life is essentially a
struggle to conquer death—a struggle most clearly reflected
in the euthanasia debate but equally present in everything from
the way we dole out health care, to our treatment of disabled individuals.
Over the course of the past 50 years, we have extended our life
expectancy by as much as 15 to 20 years. As Simon and Richman note,
"The decrease in the death rate is the root cause of today's
large world population. It represents humanity's victory over death."
This "victory" may be sharply disputed as the 77 million
members of the baby boomer generation move into retirement over
the next 30 years. Already, health care workers and government officials
are bracing for the impact on the economy, work force, Social Security
and Medicare.
Simon and Richman conclude their article with the following statement:
"The ultimate resource is people—especially skilled,
spirited and hopeful young people endowed with liberty—who
will exert their wills and imaginations for their own benefit and
inevitably benefit the rest of us as well."
If we are to proceed as a society that values its humanity, then
we must be able to answer the question posed by Schaeffer in his
book of the same name, How Should We Then Live? Considered by many to have been hugely influential
in shaping the rhetoric of the early pro-life movement, Schaeffer
saw the pro-abortion movement as symbolic of Western Civilization's
rejection of Judeo-Christian moral values, which in turn led to
the devaluing of human life. Working with pediatric surgeon C. Everett
Koop (who became U.S. Surgeon General under President Reagan), Schaeffer
rallied evangelical Christians to become actively involved in the
culture and the pro-life struggle. "If not you, then whom?" they asked. "If not this outrage, then
what? If not now, then when?"
Those questions reverberate today. Yet the one that seems most poignant
is posed by Whitehead in his 2001 book and video series, Grasping for
the Wind: The Search for Meaning in the 20th Century: "Who
are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? And what gives us dignity
and worth?"
The search for those answers brings us to a point in time where
we must make a decision—either to let others shape our sense
of self-worth or to believe that we are divinely created and inherently
worthy. It is also a question of whether we passively allow a price
to be placed on our heads or whether we become a part of that dialogue
over the value of a human being.
Some people have dedicated their lives to fighting for the dignity
and worth of every individual—whether in the courtroom, through
the media or simply by making life-affirming decisions in their
day-to-day existence. Whatever the path you choose to follow, we
must all make a commitment to choose life and be advocates for the
importance of being human.
