Life Is Precious

Amara, Sophie, and Celia lay dead on the floor, blood pooling about their lifeless bodies. Aaron Schaflhausen had brutally murdered his three young daughters. The police found the bodies after a frantic call from the girls’ mother, and Aaron turned himself in soon afterward, pleading guilty to the crime.

The people in my little town of River Falls were shocked and appalled at what had happened. The newspapers and radio stations covered the story for weeks with one article simply asking “Why would a father kill his children?” That question, filled with disbelief and horror, reflected the thoughts of most who heard of the crime.

Amara, Sophie, and Celia were loved by all who knew them, and the community came together to show their support for the grieving mother. Over three hundred people attended the short funeral service tat quickly followed the murder; and, when the girls’ mother decided to start raising money to build a playground in memory of her daughters, money poured in. After three years, individuals, families, and small businesses around River Falls had raised $555,000; and teams of volunteers came to help build the playground in Hoffman Park. The Tri-Angels Playground is dedicated to the three girls many described as having died “too soon” and is a testament to a community who loved and gave sacrificially to help a mother’s dream become reality.

After reading many accounts from individuals and families during the time of the tragic
murder, I had a question I couldn’t get out of my head: “How is the murder of these three precious girls different from the killing of babies we call abortion?”

An answer one is likely to hear when asking abortionists or someone in the Pro-Choice movement is “This was the mrder of three innocent and beloved children, while abortion isn’t about killing anything! Abortion is discarding an unwanted clump of cells or a blob of tissue.” That answer is supposed to be convincing, but is it true?

It is not true. What Pro-Choice advocates don’t want people to know is that the “blob of tissue” in the womb is a person! That “clump” is a baby that is fully alive and every bit as precious and worthy of love as the Schaflhausen girls were before their tragic deaths. Science has confirmed what the Bible repeatedly shows. Life begins at conception! What we call abortion today would at any other time be rightly called the murder of a human life. The question that I couldn’t stop thinking about has an answer. There is no difference between the murder of those three girls and the deliberate killing of a baby in the womb.

While there is no difference between abortion and murder, does it matter? After all, if a man or a woman has chosen to kill his or her child, why should we care? Is there a reason that we should value a human life as something more than an animal’s?

In order to answer that question, we have to ask what man’s origins are. The ever-popular view in today’s society is that of Evolution which says that “Man is a species of ape that has evolved over millions and millions of years to reach his current level of intelligence and bodily form.” If Evolution were true, it would mean there would be no real difference between a human and an animal. If Evolution were true, it would mean that there would be no more difference in killing a child than there would be in sending a cow to the slaughterhouse to have some Filet Mignon. Evolution neither offers us a reason to value human life as something special nor is it anything more than a theory.

However, God gives us that reason. When He created us, God separated mankind from all other creatures by creating us “in his own image”. (Genesis 1 :27) In doing so, He created a person capable of reason and of having a relationship with Him. God separated mankind from every other creation by giving a living, eternal soul. (Genesis 2:7) His loving gift of life is the reason we must protect and value human life above the lives of animals.

Because God is the giver of life, only He has the right to take life away. To murder someone-­ to end the gift of life that God has given a human being- is to usurp God’s rightful authority. (Job 30:23, Ecclesiastes 8:8) To protect human life, God instituted capital punishment for those who had killed another person (Genesis 9:6); and God continued to declare that murder was to be punished by death throughout the Old Testament. (Exodus 20:13, 21:12-14, Leviticus 24:20-21, Numbers 35:30, Deuteronomy 5:17) Additionally, God made no distinction between the killing of adults, the elderly, small children, or unborn babies. (Exodus 21:22-25, Deuteronomy 12:31) Murder-all murder-was to be punished equally.

Because mankind is a unique creation and is made after the image of God, we must respect, value, and protect human life. According to a study done by the Guttmacher Institute, over 50 million lives are claimed around the world every year by abortion. This is a tragic loss of precious life! We must help people understand that all life is intrinsically valuable and must be protected. Choose life.

Article submitted by:
Benjamin Holmes
Homeschool Ellsworth, WI
1st place contest winner of 2017 BFLW Essay Contest