Better off Dead?

“Do we really want to rescue babies from abortion, only to have them grow up in broken or abusive homes?  What if the child gets adopted into a drug-infested family?  What if the child is born with Down syndrome or some other deformity? We could save the child’s life only to condemn the child to a life of struggle and pain.”

You might be surprised how many times I get these questions from people who consider themselves to be pro-life.  They aren’t necessarily phrased as blatantly as what I wrote, but the underlying question is the same: “Would the child be better off dead than alive?”

The fact that the question is asked at all indicates that there are probably far more people on the fence about the sanctity of life than we might think.

For years I assumed that people were in one of two camps, pro-abortion or pro-life.  But I’ve discovered that many, many people don’t hold to either position with any commitment or passion.  This is true for people inside and outside the Church.

There are many who hold to a pro-abortion position because it is popular and sounds American (who wants to be against choice?).  And there are those who claim to be pro-life because they feel some sort of pressure from their peer group, Sunday school, or family. But if you press members of either group to define and articulate their position, chances are they cannot do so with any clarity.  The “ambiguous middle” could potentially be a very large group of Americans and could hold the key to how abortion is treated in the next generation.

And so the question “Would the child be better off dead than alive?” is often asked by people in both camps.  It is an honest inquiry that deserves our careful response.

I first heard this argument from a friend of mine who had worked in social services for years in the inner city.  I doubt she would label herself pro-life, but I suspect she wouldn’t be comfortable with pro-abortion, either (although that is really the position she holds).  She would be in the ambiguous middle, with a bent towards giving women the right to choose life or death for her child.  She would probably take the position that so many do: “I certainly wouldn’t have an abortion, but I wouldn’t force my choice on another woman.  It should be her choice.”

For years, she lived and breathed the underbelly of social services, seeing the neglect, apathy, and horror that sometimes come with social work.  Her experiences led her to conclude that children in these families would have been better off had they not been born.  Their lives of abuse, squalor, and little opportunity were not lives worth living.  These children, most of who were born out of wedlock and had no father figure, were doomed to a miserable existence.  They would have been better off dead.

This position might shock some of us but it really shouldn’t.  Society’s perceived value of human life has decreased steadily over the last hundred years or so.  We are, in the mind of society, producers of limited value, not divinely created beings with infinite value.

So how do we address the question in its variety of forms, “Would the child be better off dead than alive?” Here are a few suggestions:

1.  The question presumes that we know the future of the child before he or she is even born. And we cannot predict what that future will be, just as we can’t predict our own futures.  To ask this question about an unborn child is to make presumptions that we cannot even make about ourselves.  I could lose my job, get cancer, and my wife and kids could leave me.  Those things could all happen and would be a terrible set of events. But does it mean I shouldn’t have been born in the first place because those things MIGHT happen?  And even if they did happen, do those things make my life less valuable?

Most people would agree that we cannot predict the weather with any degree of certainty.  If we agree on that, we should agree that we cannot predict any person’s future (whether born or pre-born) with any accuracy, and thus to make a life and death decision on a prediction is foolishness.

2.  The question also presumes that a difficult childhood devalues the life of the child.  I certainly do not wish that any child be born into adverse circumstances.  Abuse, addiction, neglect, and disease are terrible challenges.  However, last time I checked I couldn’t find a friend, co-worker, family member, or stranger who didn’t have challenges in their lives – some of them severe.  I certainly wouldn’t advocate ending their lives because they are having a difficult time.

My social worker friend would argue that a family faced with an unplanned pregnancy might have a higher probability of birthing a child into difficult circumstances.  And the statistics might show that children born into those circumstances are more prone to perpetuate those to the next generation.  Perhaps.  But America is full of children who beat difficult family circumstances and rise to positions of influence.  Our current President is one of them.

So to end the life of an unborn child because we believe she might face hardship and challenge is to presume she will not be able to overcome those challenges, or will not be shaped and formed by them.  That is an arrogant position to take and one that history has time and again proven false.

3.  The question also presumes that death is superior to life.  Our society appears very comfortable killing an unborn child, assuming that the afterlife is better than the current life.  I’ve never been dead so I can’t address this experientially.  However to presume that death is superior to life is to assume we know everything there is to know about death.  And since we have no one to interview who can verify that, I’d take my chances with life.

Additionally, to presume that death is better than life for a pre-born child logically leads us to believe it would be better for us as well.  If that is the case, we should all be committing suicide to join all of those babies who have it better than we do.

The logic in asking the question, “Would the child be better off dead than alive?” is rarely asked in that form.  But it is the underlying question of a society that devalues human life. And it also leads to an inevitable conclusion – man has the power to take the life of man at will.  And that is exactly what abortion is.

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