163 million dead: Who says it's wrong? Or right?

I just read that sex-selective abortion in Asia has killed 163 million females during the last 30 years. They don’t like girls in countries like China and India. Grasp the enormity: This is the equivalent of killing every female in the whole USA right now. Not one female left in any home, school, church or mall: none on any street! Look any direction: only males. For another comparison: the total number of people killed worldwide in WWII was 72 million.

One new doctor in India, on his first night working the obstetrics ward, was looking forward to bringing new life into the world. As he entered the operating room, a cat darted between his legs with a bloody something dangling from its mouth. The grisly truth: That night he witnessed more abortions than births, all performed on women who were at least four months pregnant. Finally asking the reason, the terse answer came: “Because they are girls.”

The last 30 years: 163 million. In the last 50 years, “...more girls have been aborted than all the men [who have died] in all the wars of the 20th century.” (Christianity Today, Dec. 2012, p. 33, quoting from “Half the Sky,” by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn.)

Who determines anything is right... or wrong?

This became a huge problem in the mind of an atheist. He was content and articulate in his atheism until he noticed, really noticed, that we keep saying to one another singly or in groups: “Hey, what you are doing is WRONG!” The Englishman then deduced that anyone who cries “Wrong!” is expecting an absolute authority “out there somewhere” to back up the charge. The people complained to will agree usually that there is “something out there” to which we all do finally answer, even as they defend themselves.

Or is there really nothing “out there,” beyond the reach of our five senses, as many academics and atheists insist? Are we simply in a closed evolutionary system as various sub-species in nature? Is the rock-bottom moral code also in evolution? Is “wrong” or “right” only based on opinions held (personally or collectively)? Is it up to the most powerful group or person? Is it a political issue or only a matter for Supreme Courts? Are right and wrong determined by polls, bigger voting blocs, or contemporary community standards?

C.S. Lewis suddenly said “NO!” If there’s no firm, bottom-line morality, why do we keep insisting Hitler’s genocide “solution” was wrong? Why do authorities in Seattle cry foul when a couple of police commanders commit adultery (just recently), and then fire them? Why do we mourn and cry “gun control” or “a guard in every school” if that basic authority out there wouldn’t label Sandy Hook wrong? Without that backup, what would be the foundation of law and justice (or even mercy and forgiveness)?  

It was this issue that forced Lewis from atheism through deism to theism. For him there had to be some absolute authority that wouldn’t get reversed casually by new political administrations... something that wouldn’t change over civilizations, centuries, nations or religions. Lewis accepted a “something,” and labeled its consistent and cosmic rules “The Tao,” collating some of them. For instance, he demonstrated how the “Golden Rule” did precede the Judeo-Christian expression, and is found in other codes.

Later came a bigger shock: “Hey, it’s not a very big step from saying there’s some THING out there to saying there is some ONE out there.” He felt he had to decide personally just who this One out there might be. Very carefully he decided... the “out there” person... was... Christ! If not He, then... WHO? Would this supreme judge be found in China? India? At the UN?

Aborting 163 million girls since 1982 is... right? Is OK? Did seven of nine justices in 1973 America buy this? More importantly: Does the WHO out there buy it?

Might it not be a good idea to take a deep breath... and turn around?

(Book suggestion: “The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex. and the Meaning of Life” by Dr. Armand M. Nicholi Jr., professor at Harvard University)

Miles Finch is a resident of Polson.