The Importance of Being Human

http://www.rutherford.org/articles/oldspeak-human.asp
The Importance of Being Human
By Nisha N. Mohammed

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.


--
Atheism teaches that there is no God, hence no God-given rights. That
ideology coupled with a system that believed in the superiority of the state
at the expense of the individual was murderously synergistic.