04/16/2026
“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
John 15:13
Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his work on ethics asks, “whether consideration for the healthy can render necessary the destruction of innocent life?” The question may be answered in the affirmative if it is assumed that every life possesses value. We send men off to war because of the value of human life; soldiers fight so that others might live and to live according to a certain set of values which we deem to make life worth living. Bonhoeffer surmises that it is the man who is ready to die for his country and his neighbors in war that would make him more socially valuable than those who will not, but the man of character would not consider his usefulness to weak people of low character in his resolve to fight. The weak person's needs only motivate the strong to take on new responsibilities which then adds to the strong man's value. The strong man does not see within the weak a devaluing of his strength and character, but an encouragement to loftier achievements. The idea of sacrificing life which someone may deem socially useless comes from weakness, not from strength for the strong person fights for the weak.
Only a weak person would consider sacrificing a life, a life that has more value than their own, that they might continue to live their low value life. For example: the politician who sends men off to war are truly less valuable than the men who fight the war. The man fighting the war is preserving the politician's life. The person who believes abortion is necessary and righteous is also someone of low character and value. The person who is willing to die so that others might live is godly. The person who would kill so that they might live is base and sinful. This idea of abortion being good and right comes from the belief that life is valuable only as it is useful to society. It fails to perceive that life, that is created and preserved by God, possesses inherent value that is independent of its social utility. All life has value, even those who do not value the lives of others. In the sight of God there is no life that is not worth living. Every person God brings into the world has a right to life.
The motivation behind the right to life movement is just this: all lives have value, and to end a life because it is perceived to have no social value, so that the person bringing that life to an end can continue to live a life that is deemed to have greater social value, is wrong. It is not only wrong it is evil and the life that is sacrificed is, in fact, sacrificed for another, making that life more socially valuable. There is however a difference between a man going off to war to fight for others, and a baby being destroyed in the womb, and it is that the man has a choice and the baby does not. This makes me wonder why those who are adamant to kill babies in the womb call themselves pro-choice as they do not allow the baby any choice at all.
The End.
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