For a Christian, a human person is a sacred thing, the pinnacle of God’s creative work. God Himself became a human being. He didn’t become an angel, but a human person. All creation is designed by God to support human life, and human beings themselves are specifically commanded by God to support it. The most elemental role of government is the protection of human life and the advancement of human welfare in this world. The first obligation of mothers and fathers is to protect the lives of their own children. The mission of the Church is to save human life from sin and death and hell, to save it not only for service to God here in time, but for eternity with God in the world to come. Christ died so that human beings may live and not die. The theological basis for the sanctity of life is clear enough!
Furthermore, a child is a human person both before and after birth. There is simply no theological or rational reason to believe that human life begins at any other point than at conception, and it should be held as sacred and it should be protected from that moment onward. A human person is sacred no matter how old, how young, how sick, how enfeebled, how expensive, how limited, how “unviable”, how inconvenient, how unwanted—need I go on? A human life is sacred.
Therefore, for a Christian, the willful taking of a human life is not a matter to be decided between a woman and her doctor. It is not a matter of privacy, or individual autonomy, or self-determination, or women’s rights, or equality. All those things, and much more, are implicated by a pregnancy, to be sure. But old age and illness limits our rights and freedoms as well, and yet do not justify the taking of any life, including our own. Pregnancy isn’t the only thing that forces hard choices on people. But none of these attempted justifications for the taking of life change the fundamental truth at the core here, that human life is sacred, that it’s not ours to take. And it’s not just that these attempted justifications of abortion, or suicide, or euthanasia, do not quite succeed. If life is sacred—and it is—they are irrelevant.
Christians don’t often disagree with any of this, at least if they thought about it. It’s pretty basic stuff. Obviously, for the Christian, life is sacred. “But,” someone may ask, “does that mean that Christians should demand that others, who are not Christians, hold to this same view of life?”
Absolutely it does. Demanding that non-Christians protect human life is not about being Christian particularly, it’s about being human. One might say the same thing about feeding the hungry. Christian or not, it’s monstrous—inhuman—to let the poor starve to death if starvation can be prevented! If anyone is not aware of that, it is the duty of a Christian—and the non-Christian—to enlighten them, and to do what can be done to make sure the starving get fed!
We Christians should be pro-life, but not for ourselves only. We should unashamedly demand a pro-life culture for others also—not because we are Christian, but because we are human, because our fellow citizens, whatever their faith, are human, and because the unborn and the elderly and the sick are all human. You don’t have to be Christian to see that, but if you are a Christian you’d have to blind not to!
James D. Burns
Pastor, First Lutheran Church
Benton, Arkansas
First Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) 