The Right to Life

Salem Sojourners has identified several issues of importance to ourselves as Christians and as members of the U.S. electorate. These issues, based upon the Holy Scriptures, provide the spiritual and moral criteria for living our daily lives and for evaluating candidates for office. In a comment posted to Bryan's "Issues List Refined" post, I suggested we prioritize the issues list, based upon those things which must exist before others have relevance:

1. Sanctity of Life
2. Family Values
3. School Choice
4. Compassion for the Poor
5. Social Justice in Taxation
6. Fiscal Responsibility
7. Land Use Planning, etc.
8. Willingness to Build Bridges

While this list may seem arbitrary, there is a rationale behind it. The right to life is antecedent to all others. If we do not have life, we can do nothing. If our right to life is not recognized by our government, any of our other rights can be infringed upon or abrogated altogether. The Founders recognized this principle when they placed these words in the Declaration of Independence , "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness - That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the Consent of the Governed..." The right to life is placed before the right to liberty, which is placed before the right to happiness because we must have life before we can have liberty and we must have liberty in order to pursue happiness. More importantly, the right to life is not conferred upon us by governments, but governments are established by us to secure our right to life.

It is not surprising that the right to life which was deemed to be "self-evident" by the writers of the Declaration of Independence is being debated by secular humanists today. What is surprising is that the right to life is not self-evident to many professing Christians. The Bible teaches us that all life, including human life, comes from God (Gen 1). It further teaches us that human life is of particular and special significance because humans are created in the image of God (Gen 1:26-27). Our lives are a gift from God (Job 33:4) and have intrinsic value, regardless of stage of development in the womb, condition of health, disability, injury, infirmity, or age. Government officials who do not accept, appreciate, undertand, or abide by this basic principle are dangerous. If human life is not considered sacred, it can be taken away at any time - through abortion, "mercy" killing, eugenics, or even state-sponsored murder. If human life is not valued by our representatives in government, we cannot rely upon them to sponsor policies that support the family, have compassion for the poor, administer social justice in taxation, use our money in a fiscally reponsible manner, or plan land usage for our benefit. Moreover, we cannot count on them to set aside partisan and other differences to work toward our common good.

If we as Christians will support only candidates who believe that human life is sacred from conception until natural death, certain peripheral "right to life" issues will automatically be resolved; e.g., embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, "futile" care laws and human cloning. We have an opportunity and a duty as members of the electorate in our democratic republic, to elect only those individuals who honor and respect human life.