The Point: Where Abortion Meets Euthanasia

Progressive author Rachel Held Evans recently tweeted an emotionally charged scenario: “If you know exactly what you would do if a scan revealed your baby was missing his kidneys and much of his brain and doctors said terminating would spare him prolonged suffering in the few hours of life he might get after birth, congratulations. Because I don’t.” To which Theologian Matthew Lee Anderson responded: “And what if the condition were discovered immediately *after* birth, and the suffering might still be avoided?” It’s a great question. Because if killing unborn babies to spare them suffering is okay, why not newly born ones? Or toddlers? Or kids? Arguments for abortion quickly becomes arguments for euthanasia-on-demand. Like so many pro-choice arguments, the moral horror becomes clearer when—to borrow a phrase from Scott Klusendorf—you “trot out the toddler.” If it doesn’t work as a justification for killing outside the womb, it doesn’t work for killing inside the womb either. For more on faith and culture, come to BreakPoint.org.

02/18/19