Children should be seen and not heard
I don’t know if anyone uses this old English proverb today, but I certainly remember being told this as a child; I have no idea why! Seeing and hearing young children is one of the wonderful experiences in life. There is an instinctive joy that bubbles up when we watch the unrehearsed and unexpected but most natural interactions of little children. Whether it is the smiles and giggles of a one-year-old baby, or the unsteady steps of a 15-month-old, or contented sleep of a newborn child, such pictures bring us smiles and delight and awe.
There is an instinctive joy that bubbles up when we watch the unrehearsed and unexpected but most natural interactions of little children.
Stories about children make us laugh and cry, they give us great joy and excitement, and also tremendous sorrow.
Last month the newly married Duke and Duchess of Sussex visited our shores during an official royal tour. While meeting school children at the NSW town of Dubbo, a young boy ignored protocol, by giving both Royal Highnesses a hug. The boy was transfixed by Prince Harry’s facial hair and he began stroking the ginger beard. This five-year-old boy with Down Syndrome captured the hearts of millions of Aussies as they saw the footage of this beautiful scene of innocence meeting royalty, and of the kindness the Prince showed in return.
Royal Favour, Medical Erasure
It was hard to avoid the jarring juxtaposition that this encounter presented. While we adored this royal exchange, the fact is, fewer children with Down Syndrome are now being born, and in countries like Iceland, the number has been reduced to zero. In many Western nations, Down Syndrome is being eradicated as the overwhelming majority of children with the condition are aborted prior to birth. A recent Western Australia study found that now 93% of babies with Down Syndrome are being killed in the womb.
Last week I read a story of a young Australian couple who have adopted a five-year-old boy from Taiwan. He has spent his first 5 years of life in an orphanage. Now, he has been adopted into a new family, to be loved and nurtured and raised.
Disposable Commodities
Over the weekend a video was shared across social media. The scene depicts an adorable young baby girl, only a few months old. The camera gives us a close-up shot of her face and her big blue eyes. One of her tiny arms is outstretched, as though she is trying to touch the camera, and us as we watch through the lens.
These words then appear on the screen,
“She deserves to be loved.”
Who would challenge this indisputable fact?
The camera then returns to the girl who is now laughing with all possible cuteness. A second statement appears,
“She deserves to be wanted.”
Everyone is now drawn in with unanimous agreement. And then comes a final statement which represents the punch line,
“She deserves to be a choice.”
This is an advertisement for Planned Parenthood. This little girl who is recognised as deserving love is the new poster child for abortion. While the video is 3 years old, it has received over 2 million views over the past weekend.
No Cutoff
Long gone are the days where people justify abortion on the grounds that the child is not yet human, but is a mere clump of cells. As our scientific knowledge expands, we discover even more beauty and wonder of children inside the womb. Their bodies are forming and their minds interacting earlier than was previously understood, and children as early as 22 weeks have now survived outside the womb. There is no cutoff point whereby a baby is not fully human; from conception, a new life is created. This new promotional video by Planned Parenthood demonstrates this shift in thinking. Here is a child, a real human being, and yet they have no inherent right to live and the mother has the right to take this life away.
Does anyone truly believe that it is morally acceptable and right to kill that little girl, should she have been a little younger and still in her mum’s womb?
Does anyone truly believe that it is morally acceptable and right to kill that little girl, should she have been a little younger and still in her mum’s womb?
The assumed answer in the video is, “yes”.
Instead of believing that every human life has inherent worth and dignity, life is now measured by the opinions of others. What value do I attach to this person or to that group in the community? Is a person’s life now defined by what they can offer me or by the measure of happiness they can bring to my situation? Apparently, so.
The video is sickening, and it exposes the sheer evil behind abortion. Here is a beautiful baby girl who deserves love, and yet we are told that her life only has value so long as the mum determines. This kind of utilitarianism has been the ethic behind many of the most egregious societies in history. It has been (and remains in use) the moral framework used to exterminate different races and tribes, to kill gays and lesbians, the disabled, the elderly, and infants. We are proficient at justifying ending the life of those whom we believe will interfere with our dreams and ambitions in life.
Perhaps the video will become an effective testimony against abortion, for again, how can anyone see this baby girl and conclude that there should be a choice to extinguish her life? The responses will be revealing.
Australian Barbarism
With all our sophistry and genius and moral outrage for ‘equality’ and ‘love’, we are bloody and we are responsible for the killing of innocents. The State of Queensland recently legalised abortion of babies up to 22 weeks. Victoria permits abortion up until 36 weeks. A private members bill was introduced by MP Rachel Carling-Jenkins in 2016, to limit abortions to 24 weeks, but this gained little traction in the Parliament. White Ribbon, a nationwide movement that speaks to preventing men’s violence against women, recently removed their support of abortion. The immediate and vicious outcry by Australian feminists bullied the White Ribbon Council into once again ‘fighting’ for women’s reproductive rights.
Of these three stories, which are truly loving and good? Which story disturbs, even if we are in principle supportive of ‘pro-choice’?
The words of the Psalmist resonate because they are true,
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
How precious to me are your thoughts, God!
How vast is the sum of them!
Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.”
(Psalm 139)
As I think of those 3 children, the boy in Dubbo, the orphan in Taiwan, and the baby girl on the video, I am reminded of another child. He came into the world and was honoured and loved by a few, and he was despised by many. In fact, the local government sent out a detachment of police to find this child, and to have him not only removed from society but to have him killed. He wasn’t the kind of child that the government thought would benefit society. If anything they thought he might create a disturbance, such was the uniqueness of the description given to this boy. The little boy lived, with his family fleeing the country and taking refuge in Egypt. Remaining in their hometown were other young boys, and the State had every single one put to the sword.
“A voice is heard in Ramah,
weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
and refusing to be comforted,
because they are no more.”
(Matthew 2:18)
“He was despised and rejected by humankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.”
(Isaiah 53:3)
This child, the Lord Jesus, came into the world to love those who did not love him, to serve those who did not want him, and to die for those who rejected him. God so loved the world. The creator of life made himself the object of derision, to redeem not moral do-gooders, but those who have denied God and the imago dei.
This is one of great the truths of Christianity which is sometimes lost in these moral debates: Christianity is about life, and it is about new life, but it is a life offered to those who have, in a multitude of ways, messed up life—both for themselves and for others.
As we express anger at those who produced this video, and as we note with sorrow the increasing and ugly dehumanisation project that is sweeping our society, let us keep the good news of Jesus Christ front and centre:
“Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.”
(Isaiah 53:4-6)
First published at murraycampbell.net
