Last week, one of the champions for the sanctity of human life passed away. I am referring to Eunice Kennedy Shriver, who worked tirelessly to bring all Americans to full acceptance and dignity. This went against the grain of American programs that flourished in the early decades of this century, and these same types of programs are raising their ugly heads now, as we debate the health care reforms proposed by Congress and President Obama. Maybe it’s time to revisit those bad old ideas so that those who believe something different can arm themselves for the fight.
I have just finished reading a heavy duty book on the effects of Darwin in late nineteenth century Germany, but looking around me, it’s déjà vu all over again.
WHAT IS DARWINISM ALL ABOUT?
Charles Darwin produced a couple of books in mid-nineteenth century England. He hesitated to release his first book, “On the Origin of Species” (1859), because he fully understood the ramifications of his work: It provided a new foundation for an atheistic, or quasi-scientific worldview. This simply means that any belief in a spiritual world was now passé, since the material world is the only real one. He knew he would be excoriated by any thinking religious person, but he was impelled to go forward and thrust his theory onto the world stage. Following this bombshell came “The Descent of Man” in 1871, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Up to this time, while the atheists were busy toppling monarchies and supposedly uniting the workers of the world to revolution, there was a problem. While they could point out the corruption of the clergy, and other faults of those professing to believe in God, the rebels couldn’t exactly come up with a compelling alternate worldview. Now Darwin had handed it to them, seemingly, on a silver platter. No one, save a few ardent nihilists, really wants to contemplate living in a chaotic and meaningless world. Darwin, though certainly not scientific in any real way, gave the materialists a plausible theory that they could hang their atheism on. He proposed, with little in the way of actual proof, that the development of all life on earth came by way of the process of evolution. Now, this might sound rather harmless, as crackpot theories go, but the main change in human thinking was created by the fact that men, like animals, had also evolved. Darwin speculated that since men and apes looked similar, they had a common ancestry, and that men, far from being made in the image and likeness of God, were mere animals, and soulless ones at that. Another important corollary to this was that only the fit among animals survive in nature. Death is seen as a good thing, since it provides more room for the fit to live and procreate, thus weaning out the inferior specimens. This is evolutionary theory, and when applied to humans, it has had grave consequences.
Men, who formerly had been considered “a little lower than the angels,” were now just a little higher than the apes. Morality, in Darwin’s scheme, was a hereditary component, passed on through evolution as a mutable trait. Because men evolved into social animals, the trait of altruism, or of putting others’ welfare first, was a desirable trait, and so those who possessed it were fitter, and survived long enough to pass it on, or something like that. Contrast that with the traditional belief that men are given a conscience by God, and when they draw closer to Him, they develop virtues that draw them always closer, leading to ultimate union with Him. One view is entirely mechanistic, the other sublime.
WHY CHOOSE DARWIN’S VIEW?
For those with little affinity to apes, or those who perceive spiritual realities, this desire to believe one is merely a cleverer simian is not very appealing. But what kinds of men would want to pursue this line of thinking? Only those who refuse to submit to a power greater than themselves. As the great psalm states, “The fool has said in his heart, there is no God.” But, being freed from any moral constraints upon one’s behavior is a heady thing, and when someone like Darwin comes along with a minimally plausible worldview that supports ultimate Me-ness, well, lots of people are going to sign up pronto.
There are a few little problems with Darwin, however, which few among us today care to contemplate. Here is a quote from “The Descent of Man:” “At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate and replace throughout the world the savage races.” Oops! What? Do I hear a rationale for genocide here?
Once these ideas started to circulate throughout society, they really took off. One of the first movements to get going was Eugenics, which was the “science” of racial purity. For you feminists out there, it is no big secret that your patron saint, Margaret Sanger, was a rabid eugenist. Of course, her big work, “The Pivot of Civilization” (1922), has been largely suppressed, because it is an embarrassment to those who are trying to polish her halo as a protector of women’s rights. Sorry, though, that just doesn’t fly. She proposed sterilization for sub-standard humans and wanted the inferior types of women to use birth control. By the way, the “inferior” types of women today are the ones she would be proud to see lining up at Planned Parenthood to prevent their having babies. Atheism has so penetrated our culture that women are now self-selecting themselves for eugenic programs.
THE POINT OF EUGENICS
Eugenics actually translates into “good birth,” but I don’t want you to think this means anything other than a birth that “civilized” people think should have happened. That is to say, those judged inferior, by reason of disability, race, moral fitness, or any other criteria, are to be prevented from reproducing. This included, from the Darwinian perspective of late 19th or early 20th century Europe, such groups as the feeble-minded (Margaret Sanger’s personal bete noire), alcoholics, Australian aborigines, Asiatics, gypsies, and a host of others. However, it was found quite difficult to get people to voluntarily agree not to procreate. The next logical step was sterilization of the designated inferiors. To our great shame, America was a leader in the field of eugenics, and thousands of American citizens were involuntarily sterilized right here in America in the early decades of the 20th century.
We know that sterilization didn’t work fast enough for the Germans, however. They began to consider, under the Nazis, the elimination of those whose lives they considered “not worth living.” So, they began a program of killing mental patients, the infirm, and those with limited intelligence. After all, these inferior types were using up vast state resources, which “the fit” could use to create more superior types. We all know where this led: the Holocaust.
Darwin knew what he was talking about. The Germans systematically attempted to exterminate an entire race of people, the Jews, plus many millions of others who were considered unfit. That’s Darwinism for you.
The other arm of eugenics has recently been raising its ugly head here in America: Euthanasia. There has been a great debate about the recent “end of life counseling” that had been a part of the new health care plan. To many, it smacked of euthanasia-planning, which it certainly was. Euthanasia is not about the sick person. It is about getting rid of the sick person, as unfit and unworthy of life, since that life is draining resources away from those who are fit. Since this kind of thinking springs from a materialistic worldview, i.e., atheism, we can see how far Darwin’s grasp has reached. Americans are now being nudged in the direction of taking steps to end their lives. All I can say is: Don’t do it!
All of us who believe that we have souls and are created by God must stand together to fight these atheistic developments in our nation. Euthanasia, which means “good death” is anything but that. It is a dreadful and terrible sin. We cannot control what the atheists do to themselves, but we can refuse to participate in a system of death that flies in the face of our deeply held beliefs about the sanctity of human life.
 
Elizabeth Szlek is the Director of The Door Counseling Center of Utica. Questions and comments can be directed to her at (315) 768-8900 or at info@thedoorcounseling.com.