Killing the Unwanted

My thesis is this: Whether or not the present war on the weak blossoms into a full-blown, irreversible culture of death has more to do with the ethics and character of the Church of Jesus Christ than it does with the rise of humanism, post-modernism, or any other ism. The Church is the centerpiece of history, the salt of the earth, and the primary means for restraining evil and blessing nations. When the people of God are faithful, focused, and unified, nations prosper — because we are not, chaos reigns. (“Righteousness exalteth a nation: but sin is a reproach to any people,” Proverbs 14:34.)

There are few significant statistical variances between the behavior of professing Christians and non-Christians on issues of family and life. A recent Barna report indicates that there are no fundamental differences in the training of children between Christians and non-Christians within our society.[iii] In the thirty-two-year wake of Roe v. Wade, we have witnessed the widespread acceptance by Christians of the belief that children are a burden, as well as the related acceptance of the use of abortifacient contraceptives. (No one knows the millions of souls that have been aborted by Christians simply through their use of the Pill.) Not surprisingly, TIME Magazine now reports that a majority of evangelicals support the forced dehydration and starvation of Terri Schiavo.[iv]

How this generation of pastors and parents respond to the murder of Terri may be one of the most important legacies we leave to our posterity. We must confront these issues head on, or we will risk searing the collective conscience of American Christians regarding the sanctity of life, thus opening a philosophical and legal floodgate of euthanasia, assisted suicide, and privatized eugenics in the form of ruthless killing of the disabled, the handicapped, the elderly, and the unwanted members of our society. -- Doug Phillips at
Vision Forum