Prominent atheist Richard Dawkins touts some radical views about the value of human life.
An abortion supporter, Dawkins recently claimed that aborting unborn babies with disabilities has do do with suffering, not eugenics. This week, however, Christian young Earth creationist Ken Ham responded by asking Dawkins to consider what those beliefs could lead to, according to The Christian Post.
“Richard Dawkins: ‘Abortion to avoid birth defects … [for] the avoidance of individual human suffering.’ What if someone says Dawkins is getting old, best he die to avoid old age suffering? Dawkins has no fear of God and is applying his evolutionary religion,” Ham wrote Thursday on social media.
He pointed to another recent comment by Dawkins about the emotional trauma of teaching children that there is a Hell.
“Thank goodness, I have never personally experienced what it is like to believe — really and truly and deeply believe — in Hell,” Dawkins wrote on his website. “But I think it can be plausibly argued that such a deeply held belief might cause a child more long-lasting mental trauma than the temporary embarrassment of mild physical abuse.”
His comments had to do with his own personal experience of being abused by a priest.
Ham responded: “And who decides what is suffering and what is not? Richard Dawkins has stated teaching kids Christianity is ‘child abuse’ — what if he decided children should be aborted if they’ll be in a Christian family otherwise they’ll suffer? Who draws the lines and why?”
Ham made an important point. Allowing human beings to be killed because they are suffering sets society on a slippery slope. Some would say unborn babies with fatal disabilities should be aborted so they do not suffer. Others may claim babies with Down syndrome or spina bifida are suffering, too. Still more might expand that suffering to autism, cleft lips and even intelligence levels.
Ultimately, euthanasia dehumanizes every human being because it destroys the person who is suffering rather than the suffering itself.
