Unborn, Handicapped, Elderly: Life Unworthy of Life?
ASHBURN, Va. – "Life unworthy of life" is a doctrine the Nazis used to kill millions of Jews, among others. But rather than dying with Nazism, that very idea continues to live on today, except this time it is being used against the unborn.
"Today, the idea of Lebensunwertes Leben (life unworthy of life) is not dressed in the language of German racism or creating a master race or improving the gene pool; it comes in a different garb," said Dr. Robert George, McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University.
"The new language that dresses up eugenics is a language of choice, autonomy, liberty, personal fulfillment, controlling my own body."
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The inherent and equal dignity of each and every member of the human family is the most foundational principle in western civilization, George laid out while speaking at the launch of the "Doing the Right Thing" movement in Ashburn, Va., on Saturday.
Yet nearly 40 years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, America is suffering "a profound erosion of faith when it comes to this most basic of principles."
Abortion has been made more palatable and more reasonable with such terms as "choice" but it's simply new language "dressing up old evil," George asserted.
The Supreme Court's decision in the 1973 case of Roe v. Wade to allow abortion was essentially a "profound intellectual and moral error ... written into law," the prominent conservative Christian described.
There have been more than 52 million abortions since 1973, according to the National Right to Life.
Del Tackett of The Truth Project noted during Saturday's event that though it is now law, it doesn't make killing the unborn right.
But it's not only the unborn who are being deemed unworthy of life. The handicapped and the elderly are victims as well, George pointed out.
"There are those who believe 'well, not everyone was created equal. We can treat people as more or less equal on the basis of age or size or stage of development or condition of dependency,'" he explained.
He reminded the thousands who were watching live via webcast that the idea of life unworthy of life began in a democracy, not under a Nazi dictatorship.
He also highlighted that Nazis began their life unworthy of life campaign with the handicapped.
"It began with the killing of the handicapped. Let that be a lesson to us," he warned as America witnesses a majority of children with Down syndrome being aborted and many handicapped and dependent persons being euthanized.
"So few people raised their voices," George said, challenging Americans not to let silence rule again in the 21st century.
"It's time for the silence to end," he underscored. "It's our responsibility ... to remind people that it's the same evil dressed in a new language."
The sanctity of human life is an issue that needs to be given priority, he stressed.
"If we fail on that one, we’re going to have no intelligible justification for being concerned about anything else, whether it’s the environment, whether it’s poverty ...," George told The Christian Post.
The Doing the Right Thing movement is being spearheaded by Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship. The grassroots movement was launched Saturday with the hope of igniting an ethical revolution amid what Colson described as a complete moral breakdown in America.
