During the month of August, two murders sent shockwaves through America, though I’m dumbfounded by the outraged response.
First, Christopher Lane, a 22-year-old college baseball player from Australia, was shot once in the back and killed while jogging in Duncan, Oklahoma. Three teenagers have been charged in the incident. And one of the alleged criminals, a 17-year-old male, apparently told the authorities, “We were bored and didn’t have anything to do, so we decided to kill somebody.”
Five days later, an 88-year-old World War II veteran was beaten to death while sitting in his vehicle and waiting for a friend outside the Eagles Lodge in Spokane, Washington. The two alleged killers—also teenagers—beat Delbert Belton in what police believe was a random act of violence and a robbery attempt gone wrong. They also took money from Mr. Belton’s wallet. An uncle of one of the teens said about his nephew, “He hung around with the wrong people and made the wrong choices. . . . It’s the summer and ain’t nothing to do here.”
Americans and news outlets alike are expressing shock at the senselessness of these two killings. Both victims were randomly targeted, and both motives fall painfully short of explaining such violence.
How do we try to understand the murders of two people who were innocent, defenseless, and unaware of any imminent danger to their lives?
The answer is simple: We live in a culture of death, a culture that views life as a commodity based on the arbitrary assignment of value. Instead of viewing each and every person as infinitely valuable with tremendous potential, vitality, and innate worth, we view people as utilitarian objects. And these objects are allowed to live or die based on whether or not they satisfy our wants or needs.
Consider the practice of abortion in America. One unborn human being is killed every 25 seconds in our country. That means 3,456 unborn members of the human race are killed every day—humans who share the same characteristics as Christopher Lane and Delbert Belton: innocent, defenseless, and unaware of the terminal danger they’re facing.
Our society has become increasingly comfortable with ending lives whenever those lives cause us inconvenience or potential hardship—when they don’t satisfy us.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, the potentially negative impact on one’s lifestyle and finances is the primary reason why families abort unborn children today. And when women are asked why they chose to have an abortion, the two most common responses given are “having a baby would dramatically change my life,” and “I can’t afford a baby now.”
I’m not arguing that the decision to abort isn’t difficult. It certainly is. And the circumstances of an unplanned pregnancy can present substantial challenges to women and families.
What is clear, however, is that the value of the unborn life has dropped precipitously over the last several decades. We no longer value an unborn baby based on her intrinsic status as a human being. We value her based on her potential impact on others. An unborn child is no longer deemed precious because of who she is; she is considered precious only if her life aligns with our wants, needs, or expectations.
It is obvious, then, why we see manifestations of this devaluation of human life throughout our culture. Roughly one-third of all American adults are the parents of aborted children. They have—either willingly or through coercion—taken the life of another human being because that unborn child presented potential challenges the parents didn’t want to face. The child’s life was devalued not to the status of a slave or an indentured servant, but to a dishrag or an old sweater—something to be thrown away when its usefulness has run out.
Our nation tends to value animal life more than it does human life. For instance, the fine for destroying a bald eagle’s egg can be as high as $250,000. Yet our federal government, like China’s, will soon pay the fees to kill unborn humans.
When a society becomes so comfortable with the disposal of an “inconvenient life” in the womb, we should be anything but surprised when a young man is gunned down because some teenagers didn’t have anything better to do. We should nod our heads in understanding and sadness when an 88-year-old man is brutally beaten for his wallet. In the first case, the teenagers saw death as a way to cure their boredom. Life had so little value to them that taking a life was just a means of amusement on a hot summer day. In the second case, the killers valued an old man’s wallet more than they valued his life.
Our nation has embraced the devaluation of human life when it pleases us. We end lives in the womb by the millions. So we shouldn’t be surprised when life is so indiscriminately taken outside of the womb as well.
wow… if more people knew about this site and these articles maybe the amount of killing would stop…