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By Jim Coggins
“EVERY CHILD a wanted child!” This was a
popular slogan a generation ago.
New medical technology and social arrangements, we were
told, would ensure that those who didn’t want children would not have
to have them. Thus, the children who were born would be wanted, loved and
cared for.
The philosophy behind that slogan held out to us the
golden promise of a society in which child abuse, child poverty and child
neglect would no longer exist.
Over the past 40 years, that philosophy has been put
into practice. Birth control is readily available. More than 100,000
unborn, unwanted children are quietly and legally disposed of in Canada
every year.
Are the children who remain more wanted, loved and
cared for? It would not appear so.
Rates of child sexual and physical abuse have
increased. Government child welfare agencies are unable to keep up with the
flood of family problems. There is an abundance of ‘problem
children,’ removed from abusive or neglectful parents; and there is a
shortage of safe foster homes to place them in.
Over a million children live in poverty in Canada, many
with single mothers. Perhaps millions more suffer neglect, passed off to
electronic babysitters or institutions by parents preoccupied with other
matters.
Why didn’t the philosophy behind the
‘wanted child’ slogan succeed?
The phrasing expressed only the positive half of the
underlying philosophy – and left the other, more sinister half
unspoken.
What was not said was that if some children could be
labeled ‘wanted,’ then others could be labeled
‘unwanted.’
There was no room in the philosophy for unwanted
children; so children who were not wanted had to be gotten rid of. This
logically led to the current situation, where mass abortion is
‘acceptable.’
If unborn children could be labeled unwanted and
disposed of, why not unwanted children who were already born?
If it was permissible to kill children before birth,
then why wouldn’t it be permissible to abuse, neglect or abandon
children after birth? The practice of abortion has taught our society a
fearsome lesson. Society has come to see children as an unnecessary burden.
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The new philosophy placed the focus on the
‘wants’ of parents, rather than on the needs or inherent worth
of children; this dependence on the wants of adults made children very
vulnerable.
Children have inherent value because they are created
in the image of God, and valued by him – not because some other
human chooses to give them value. We have an obligation to care for
children – whether we feel like doing so or not.
What ties together many current trends in our society
is an onslaught of selfishness. Many people want to act on their sexual
desires and take no responsibility for the consequences. They don’t
want unborn babies.
Some get married and produce children and then abandon
both spouse and children, because they have decided they want something
else. Some adults abuse children to satisfy their own desires for sex or
power. Others neglect their offspring because the kids get in the way of
their own self-fulfillment.
Amid this epidemic of selfishness, Christians are
called to follow a different path the path of self-sacrificing love
that Jesus showed when he died for our sins.
They are called to love their spouse, their children
and others – even when it is inconvenient, even when it means
sacrificing their own desires and pleasures.
May 2009
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