Dehumanization

Celebrating practices like abortion, assisted suicide, and euthanasia emerge from the conscious choice of dehumanizing what are truly human beings.

Beginnings
Abortion was the first step in the process of dehumanizing unborn babies. At the center of the abortion debate is the question whether the fetus is a human being. When the decisions was made to kill babies in the womb it was because the unborn child was determined to be less than human. The popular linguistic word game goes "we are not killing a baby--we are only terminating a pregnacy." So, first the unborn were less than human.

The Progression
The next step in the process was to say that terminally ill people are no longer humans; because of their illnesses, their lives are open to be murdered. It is because of the burdens that these illnesses place on family members that is used to justify that the terminally ill do not really deserve to live. This means the value of life is measured by what it contributes rather than being measured for what it is. This unacceptable mercenary approach to human appraisel is repugnent.

If you doubt the reality of the scenario I am laying out, you only need to look at the Netherlands. Assisted suicide is legal for the Dutch in cases of terminal illness. In practice, by legalizing assisted suicide it has opened a door to the non-voluntary euthanasia of patients who doctors label unworthy of living. Any who rest in the comfort that the language of a law will protect them from medical murder need to wake from their dream-like state.

Tribalism
The pattern of dehumanizing certain people reminds me of the tribalism and genocide we saw in the twentieth century. In Rwanda, if you were from the wrong tribe you could be murdered and were in essence not considered human. The same practice happened in the Balkans.

The Nazi's dehumanized the Jews, and thereby wrongly eased their consciences of murder of those they no longer considered fellow human beings. Sadly, few of us have bothered to learn about such horrid events, and that makes it impossible to learn the critical lessons of history.