Always Choose Life
By Geoffrey Biddulph
Florida, where I live, has been in the news a lot lately, and it hasn’t only been for hurricanes and election problems.
First, there was the issue of Terri Schiavo, the woman in a vegetative state whose husband allowed her to die by starvation earlier this year. And recently, we have heard about a 13-year-old foster child whom a judge allowed to have an abortion in early May.
These issues have something in common: what is the state’s role in preserving life?
By state, I mean government, by which I mean you and me. One of the roles of the state is to protect life. That’s why we have a Defense Department and a police force and laws against murder. When we agree to be governed by the state, we are saying that we support the state’s role in preserving life.
There are two sacred documents that are instructive in the correct role of the state. One is the Declaration of Independence, which you can read in its entirety here. Here is what the document says about life:
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 other sacred document is D&C 134, which says in verse 1-2:
We believe that governments were instituted of God for the benefit of man; and that he holds men accountable for their acts in relation to them, both in making laws and administering them, for the good and safety of society. We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.
From these documents we learn that one of the primary purposes of government is to protect life, which has been given to us by God. Life, therefore, is precious.
So, the question becomes: are our governments preserving life, fulfilling their purpose, or not? And if they are not, then why not?
The primary problem with our laws regarding abortion today is that the Supreme Court in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision never allowed a democratic and scientific consensus to develop on the issue of abortion. The court decided by judicial fiat that abortion should be legal nationwide, and then all challenges to abortion were shut down. The result was the macabre scene of lawmakers and judges arguing that it is legal to kill a baby a minute before it is about to be born, because it is still in the womb.
We must ask ourselves: is the government fulfilling its duty to protect life or not? And the answer is no.
So, when the government makes a value judgment on whether or not a 13-year-old foster child should be allowed to have an abortion, it often makes the incorrect decision. The girl, called L.G. to protect her privacy, ran away from a state-licensed group home sometime in January. While on the run, she became pregnant. She was told in mid-April that she was pregnant and given different options. She chose an abortion. A judge at first prevented the abortion and then reversed his opinion. In early May, L.G. had an abortion.
The Florida state government briefly considered intervening and preventing the abortion, but, in the end, allowed the abortion to take place.
This is not an easy case. On the one hand, you have a 13-year-old girl who is probably incapable of raising a baby. Is it right for the state to force her to have a child that she doesn’t want?
Well, one way to decide to is to look at the emotional consequences of a decision in favor of abortion. For many women, abortion is a cruel choice that they regret. Look at this article. Here the author tells us:
Far from a god-send, the post-Roe v. Wade world has not been kind to women. “The freedom of choice has twisted into something that is hurting women, instead of helping them,” one girl recovering from an abortion told me recently in an Internet chat room. In 1994, the unabashedly pro-choice Glamour magazine surveyed some 3,000 women who had undergone abortions. Overwhelmingly, respondents said that if prior to the procedure they’d had any idea of how deeply they would come to regret it, they would have never gone through with it. For many of these women who are often left alone to suffer the pain of abortion, cyberspace has become a safe haven to share, remember, and grieve – in the days, weeks, months, and in some cases, twenty or more years after they exercise their ‘reproductive rights.'”
Consider this article that deals with Post Abortion Syndrome (PAS), a real illness that is affecting thousands of women who have had abortions.
So, would L.G. have been better off to have had the baby and given it up for adoption – or had the baby and kept it? And what about the rights of the baby? Doesn’t government have an obligation to protect innocent life? Is a 13-year-old girl who ran away from a state facility and immediately had sex in any position to decide what is best for herself or her baby in the long run?
Again, these are difficult questions, but they are now moot because L.G. already had the abortion. It seems our government today errs on the side of death rather than on the side of life.
Which brings us to the Terri Schiavo case. Again, this is an extremely difficult case. Her husband said that Terri expressed the desire to be euthanized if she were ever in a vegetative state. Yet, for the first few years of Terri’s sickness he never acted on those wishes. Only after she continued in a vegetative state did he pursue the right to stop feeding her. In addition, he had no written proof, and her parents said Terri would have wished to be kept alive. At the same time, Terri’s husband had taken up with another women and had two children with her. He had an apparent motive for wanting Terri to be removed from the scene.
I have no desire to re-hash all of the arguments regarding the Terri Schiavo case, nor to criticize Michael Schiavo. I am mostly interested here in the correct role of government. Was the state government of Florida right in interfering to keep her alive, which it did for years? And were the legislative and executive branches of the federal government right in trying to pursue the same course?
Given the primary role of government, which is to protect life, the answer has to be yes. Yet the state government of Florida, Congress and President Bush have been demonized for trying to fulfill their role. I couldn’t disagree more.
In fact, the one branch of government that has consistently shown contempt for life is the judicial branch. In the three cases mentioned in this article, Roe v. Wade, the Terri Schiavo case and in the case of L.G., judges have ruled in favor of death when given a choice. Given that judges are often appointed for life and are above the wishes of the populace, these decisions seem noteworthy for their contempt of popular opinion as well.
On May 3, we saw another reason why governments should be involved in preserving life. A firefighter – who had been severely brain damaged for 10 years – revived and asked to talk to his wife. Donald Herbert’s medical condition was different than Terri Schiavo’s, but they nevertheless shared something in common: they had been in facilities for many years where they could not communicate with their families. See more about Herbert here.
Herbert is married and has four children. What if they had given up on him and asked for him to be killed years ago? Shouldn’t government be involved in protecting innocent people like Herbert and Terri Schiavo?
As in many things, the ultimate answer comes from the Savior and His example. What would Jesus have done? Clearly, Jesus is above earthly governments, yet His example speaks volumes on just government.
I have observed Latter-day Saints comment that we should have a different concept of life than evangelicals and Catholics because we understand that this life is only a small part of our eternal experience. The argument is that Terri Schiavo is now in a better place and probably would prefer to be there.
But there is no scriptural basis to support this. I have not been able to find a single case in the scriptures of Jesus devaluing life or indicating that he is in favor of a “mercy killing.” Instead, Jesus brought at least three people back to life. If he devalued life on this earth He would have told his followers that it was not right to resuscitate them – He would have pointed out they are in a better place and left it at that.
For the Savior, life was so precious that He came to earth to live a mortal life. Our lives here are crucial to our eternal progression, and one of the tests I believe we have is to learn to appreciate the precious nature of our lives here. Perhaps we can only appreciate the gift of eternal life if we appreciate the importance of our own lives on Earth. There is only one time when we should lessen the value of life: when we are given a choice between following God’s will and dying. Matthew 16:25: “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”
None of the prophets or apostles or saints who lost their lives for Jesus’ sake were celebrated for devaluing life in general – instead they are used as examples because of their great faith in God that gave them to strength to choose His way rather than the worldly way.
The moral of the story for me is that the proper role of government is to preserve and protect life. Would that we did it better.
Geoffrey Biddulph is the author of a new novel called “Island of the Innocent,” an adventure story that describes one man’s conversion to the fullness of the gospel. More information can be found here.
2005 Meridian Magazine. All Rights Reserved.
