What Happens When Life Is Not Valued?

Something happened recently that I consider a huge tragedy. Indi Gregory was born in the United Kingdom with a degenerative mitochondrial disease that was life threatening. This is a rare metabolic disorder that affects cell function, and it caused Indi brain damage. As a result, this little girl was on a ventilator to keep her alive.

The United Kingdom’s medical establishment is a socialist system that is paid for by the government with its citizen’s taxes. The result is that the government bureaucracy determines which medical procedures are permissible and which are not. In this case, they determined that Indi was not going to get better, and that keeping her alive on life support was not a good use of taxpayer funds. As a result, they ruled that life support must be removed.

When this decree came down, Indi’s parents sought a way to keep her alive and continue trying to help her. After making appropriate contacts, they were able to make emergency arrangements, with the help of the Vatican, to transport her to a Catholic pediatric hospital in Rome to continue treatments. To help ensure that they would be able to take this step, they were even able to secure Italian citizenship for the baby – directly from the Italian prime minister, himself.

However, the U.K. government was determined that they were going to keep total control. With the help of the courts, the option to take the baby to Italy for treatment was denied. Their rationale was that continuing treatment would not be in the child’s best interest. On top of that, they also ruled that moving her to Italy would be “too dangerous.” In fact, they would not even let the family take her home. With all possible avenues exhausted, the hospital was commanded by the government to terminate life support. So, at eight months of age, when life support was terminated, Indi died in her mother’s arms.

Honestly, how sick is this? And it is sick on multiple levels.

1. Why does the government have such control that they can prevent parents from trying to help their child live?
2. Why have finances been allowed to dictate who can live and who can die?
3. Why does the government care if parents seek further care for their child if it is not even having to foot the bill?
4. Why has the British citizenry allowed their government to take medical decisions completely out of the hands of the citizens?
5. How can the government consider any action be “too dangerous” when they have already deemed the child terminal?
6. How can a government be so heartless that they will not even allow parents to take their dying child home to die?
7. How is killing the child “in the child’s best interests?”

Western societies in general have almost completely moved away from the biblical values that are their historical root, and moved to values based on naturalistic worldview beliefs. Naturalism is the belief that the natural universe, operating by natural laws, is all that exists. So, when it comes to creating morals and values, there is no objective foundation available to designate what is right and wrong, good and bad. People have to make it up for themselves. And the people who get to make the rules are those who manage to put themselves into positions of power. What you end up with is the law of the jungle based on the opinion of the powerful.

So, when it comes to what is going on in the British medical establishment, those in power have made it so that the thing that determines the value of a human life is the government’s medical budget. If a life gets too “expensive,” its value drops to zero.

But the truth is, the value of a human life is not established by any government. They can extinguish a person’s life, but they have no say over persons themselves. God sets that value, and He has determined that human life is of ultimate worth. In fact, in Scripture, He has decreed that no one is to kill innocent human life. Beyond that, He sent Christ, the second person of the Trinity, to provide the possibility of eternal life for those who will receive it. And to secure that eternal life, Christ gave His own life.

What has happened in Great Britain is being pushed in the U.S., where the value of human life is also under attack by those who hold a naturalistic worldview. When life is not valued, people will do despicable things – as was done to Indi. Every Christian should be speaking up for the value of human life. That is what represents God’s values.

Freddy Davis is the president of MarketFaith Ministries. He is the author of numerous books entitled The Truth Mirage, Rules for Christians Radicals, Liberalism vs. Conservatism, and his latest book Shattering the Truth Mirage and has a background as an international missionary, pastor, radio host, worldview trainer, and entrepreneur. Freddy is a graduate of Florida State University with a BS in Communication, and holds MDiv and DMin degrees from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is a popular speaker, particularly on the topic of worldview and its practical implications for the Christian life. He lives in Tallahassee, FL, with his wife Deborah.

You may also contact Freddy at Leadership Speakers Bureau to schedule him for speaking or leadership engagements.

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