Just let the baby die—it’s Darwinism!

by Gary Bates, Lita Sanders

Originally published in a CMI newsletter, March 2020

We look back at previous generations’ attempts to apply Darwinism to people—eugenics and the Holocaust—with revulsion. Many think that applying ideas like preferential breeding and culling to people is a nasty relic of previous generations, and is unlikely to be repeated. However, modern scientists like Oxford professor Richard Dawkins and ‘bioethicists’ like Peter Singer still stand behind the principles of eugenics. These positions are bad enough when expressed in sterile academic language, but when it filters down to the ‘popular’ level, it reaches new depths of immorality with people suggesting specific children should never have been born or should be left to die. Take this exchange that Dawkins had on Twitter a few years ago.

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IYFNY (questioner): I don’t know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma.

Dawkins: Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you had the choice.

Aiden M:994 human beings with Down’s Syndrome deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in 2012. Is that civilized?

Dawkins: Yes, it is very civilized. They are fetuses diagnosed before they have human feelings.

Of course, try telling that to the millions of parents who have happy and well-adjusted families that include Down’s Syndrome children.

Does it really filter down to a lay level?

In one case, a man saw a 4-year-old child in a wheelchair due to a rare genetic condition, and began screaming at her and her mother that she was a drain on the healthcare system and should not have been born, leaving the child traumatized.¹ In another case, a family was raising money for their ill infant son’s medical treatment only to receive the response, “Stop asking for money. Let the baby die. It’s called Darwinism. Happy Holidays.”²

This sort of reaction to ‘imperfect’ children would have been unthinkable in previous generations. The value society has historically placed on human life has ensured that disabled children were valued and the community would go out of their way to help the child and his or her family. However, there are several modern ideas and trends that have contributed to this, with the promotion of the theory of evolution unquestionably the greatest. Under the guise of ‘science’, this brainwashing has caused many to view fellow human beings as nothing more than evolved animals.

The cost?

The idea of utilitarianism assigns value to individuals based on their usefulness to society. If a disabled child will impose costs on the community with a diminished ability to contribute (and by ‘contribute’, they normally mean economically), then the child is not valuable. And legalized abortion has further reinforced the idea that ending an ‘inconvenient’ life is an acceptable solution. But utilitarians are not content with stopping with killing in the womb, so they are also fighting for acceptance of euthanasia and assisted suicide.³

Biblical creation is the answer

Historically, the truth that we are created in the image of God has been the foundation of assigning worth to every human life, from conception, to caring for the sick and hungry up to natural death. But if we are just evolved animals, it’s no worse to preferentially breed and cull humans than cows—and perhaps it’s irresponsible not to! And if our worth is reducible to how much we can contribute to society, then we begin to wonder how much it is worth keeping people alive who ‘take’ more than they contribute.

It would be easy to despair when reading reports like this, and sometimes it feels like the challenges to reverse this type of thinking are insurmountable. But that is not the case. Maybe it is true that not everyone will be convinced, but that doesn’t matter. It’s about reaching people within our own sphere of influence one at a time. And education, or should we say ‘re-education’, is a key. Most people have only ever heard one side of the story, and the truth does indeed set people free. Our friend Tom De Rosa has written about the filter-down-effects of the Darwinian world view in a book (and DVD that CMI published) called Evolution’s Fatal Fruit: The results of a godless philosophy. In review, the late pastor and apologist Dr D. James Kennedy wrote:

If we want to undermine the pernicious trend to demean the value of human life, we can only do so from the Bible’s foundation of creation. Please remember that CMI exists to make sharing this information easy by providing resources that directly tackle evolutionary ideas and also present the Gospel, which is the only way to transform lives.

One great way to share this information is with Creation magazine. After you and your family read the magazine, consider giving it away so someone else can benefit!