In this clip from To the Point LIVE, Jon Noyes asks how a civil society should treat innocent human beings who challenge our current way of life and reminds us not to be distracted away from the most important question in the abortion debate: What is the unborn?
Transcript
Shouldn’t compassion be extended to the unborn child regardless of how that human life came into existence? He or she is still just that: an innocent human life. Don’t all humans have the right to life regardless of size, level of development, environment, and degree of dependency? I think so, and I think the argument can be can be convincingly made. Does the fact that a baby was conceived by accident or in a manner that’s unplanned validate the taking of that innocent baby’s life? I don’t think it does. I think maybe these women who are making these decisions should feel anxious about it. What have we come to as a people that these types of ideas have a serious place at the table of popular and political culture? This issue should break our hearts, and we should be more vocal.
What we’re seeing is the result of a culture that’s come to accept as essential the destruction of pre-born babies and to think it’s a right to take the life of an innocent human being in the most precious and safest place she should be: the mother’s womb. We’re talking about the targeting and destroying of a specific people group defined by stage of development.
Even given we agree that the child may be an incredible “inconvenience,” maybe the result of a tragic event or an incredible mistake, how do you think a civil society should treat innocent human beings that challenge our current way of life? Implicit in this question is another: What is the unborn? This is the question that we all need to keep on the front of our minds as we engage in conversation about these issues. What is the unborn?
Modern embryology tells us that the unborn are unique human individual beings, and as such, shouldn’t they be afforded the same opportunities we have? We’ve been given so much. Shouldn’t the unborn be given the basics? The right to life? Of course, they should. This is regardless of how they’re conceived or what somebody thinks of them, even at the earliest stages of development.
Don’t be distracted here by the idea that new restrictions will rush decisions. Instead, focus on what the decision is: the taking of the life of an innocent human being.
Winston Churchill said, “You measure the degree of a civilization of a society by how it treats its weakest members.” Gandhi said a nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members. Herbert Humphrey said, “The moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy, and the handicapped.” Bonhoeffer said that the test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children. And, then, Jesus, of course, says, “I tell you the truth. Whatever you do not do for the least of these, you do not do for me.” Our culture led by our government is failing the most fundamental of all tests: protecting the least of these.