This was originally posted just before the 2013 March for Life.

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)

Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 in Little Rock and that is why I posted this today. This film really did fire up the pro-life movement worldwide.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

By Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D.

(Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979)

Reviewed by Jean Garton

Editor’s note. 1998 is the 25th anniversary of the dreadful Roe v. Wade decision. In each issue NRL News is presenting either a revealing portrait of the abortion mentality written by a pro- abortionist, or a thoughtful critique of the abortion mindset composed by a pro-life champion.

Almost 20 years have passed since I sat in the balcony of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and viewed the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? It was the premiere showing of a stunning visual experience that eventually toured 20 major cities.

The text and narration of the five-episode seminar were by Francis Schaeffer, an internationally acclaimed theologian, philosopher, and author, and C. Everett Koop, then surgeon-in- chief at Philadelphia’s Childrens Hospital. They combined their individual expertise and experience to expose the subtle but rapid loss of human rights in America.

They elaborated on those concerns in a textbook of the same name in which they explored in documented detail the growing acceptance of the once-unthinkable practices of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

The film series attracted nationwide attention during its three-month tour in 1979, and the book quickly became a teaching tool for professionals and lay people alike. As a result, there was a dramatic change in the abortion landscape. The powerful message of both the screen and printed versions of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? educated and energized an up-till-then largely uninvolved constituency – – the Evangelicals.

Within weeks of the unveiling of the filmed series and its companion book, Dr. Schaeffer noted their impact in a personal letter dated March 29, 1980. “The Protestants, and especially the evangelicals,” he wrote, “have been so sluggish on this issue of human life, and Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is causing real waves, among church people and governmental people too.”

Those “real waves” continued to ripple out across America, and what had been seen largely as “a Catholic issue” soon became an ” Evangelical issue” as well.

So stunning were the book and its predictions of disaster that had it not been for the sterling reputations of both Koop and Schaeffer as professionals in their own fields, they would have been dismissed as alarmists and scaremongers.

The intervening 20 years, however, proved their warnings to have been prophetic. Yet even they could hardly have anticipated the rapidity with which America would embrace destructive policies and barbaric procedures.

Although the filmed version of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is seldom shown these days, the book continues to be a dependable resource for those seeking the historical basis for human dignity, value, and rights.

The authors viewed the struggle for the sanctity of life as two- fold, and they divided their 265-page book into two distinct but related parts. The first section provided information, facts, and case studies related to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

Koop and Schaeffer repeatedly made clear that their goal was not simply to educate but to challenge and encourage their readers to respond with decisive and sacrificial action. To that end, their arguments were logical as well as moral.

The second part of the book focused on differing philosophical positions which deny or give uniqueness and dignity to human life. The authors rooted their views in historic Christianity and, fundamentally, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is a defense of the Judeo-Christian ethic as the foundation of Western civilization. It is a polemic based on the principle that human beings derive their value from having been created in the image of God.

The challenge of the book was directed primarily at Protestants (Evangelicals in particular), but at Christians in general, many of whom the authors believed had neglected to recognize the ” unbreakable link between the existence of the infinite personal God and the uniqueness of human life.” The continued silence and lack of involvement of this group were serving to fuel the decline of human significance.

As the authors led readers to explore the basis for the dignity of human life, they contrasted the views of the East and the West. They walked the reader through the Old and New Testaments, the Enlightenment, mysticism, and, with a detour into archeology, through the Dead Sea Scrolls. All this was for the purpose of examining the historical basis for man’s dignity so that Americans would see the present time as a crucial turning point.

Several powerful visuals from the film were reproduced in the book. One is the scene of a thousand dolls scattered at the shoreline of the Dead Sea in Israel. It is the site where Sodom once stood and was designed to serve as a symbol of moral degradation. It was a reminder to American society of the depravity that has led to the legal destruction of millions of our children and the destruction that awaits the culture as a result.

The assembly-line scene in a toy factory features a procession of dolls in which those missing a limb or having an imperfection are snatched by an impersonal hand and tossed into the garbage. The picture graphically portrays the casual and cruel disregard for the lives of those judged to be less than perfect.

However, it is the cage sequence that is perhaps the most gripping photo in the book, for it portrays real people and real events. In one cage are slaves in chains; in another are German Jews wearing the Star of David. Peering out of other cages are elderly men and women, a crippled child, and a newborn baby.

Each cage is a visual reminder that classifying people as non- persons has its historical precedence. Our generation, through Roe v. Wade, also has declared a segment of the human family outside the protection of the law. Some view legal abortion as a sign of liberation. It is actually an imitation of injustices of the past.

Almost two decades ago Whatever Happened to the Human Race? provided a glimpse into the abyss of horrors that would result from abandoning the fundamental right to life. Today we have the legalization of the barbaric partial-birth abortion. Today children can be “manufactured” from a mother who was an aborted baby and a father who was a cadaver. Today, the Kevorkian machine continues to rumble along the highway of death, picking up support for the national acceptance of “assisted suicide.” Today we are confronted with surveys in which fifty percent of the respondents agree that “abortion is murder” but thirty-nine percent of them say that abortion should be legal anyway. Today is yesterday’s nightmare come true.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is a classic whose fundamental arguments need to be revisited on a regular basis. Its clarity of thought is complemented by its analysis of the future of Western culture and its chilling prophecy of what awaits us as the destruction of human life is increasingly sanctioned by the medical profession and the courts, by science and legislators, by parents and silent citizens.

The authors had set out to convince people that at some point we, as a nation, will be held accountable for our disregard of human value because history does not forgive or forget. The question, “Whatever happened to the human race?” serves to reveal the human propensity for exaggerated pride and supreme self- confidence that leads us to shake our fists in the face of God and think we can get away with it. The book Whatever Happened to the Human Race? says we can’t.

Related posts:

I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Abortion is probably the most often debated subject and I have noticed that many pro-life individuals are now surfacing on the Arkansas Times Blog.  Here are some examples. Arhogfan501 asserted: This is the beginning of the end for recreational abortion in Arkansas. Songbird777 noted: Babies have a right to live and not be chopped up for someone else’s convenience. The person using the username “baker” commented: Planned Parenthood (PPA) does not nor cannot provide mammograms, indeed no affiliate has the necessary license. PPA is an abortion provider and at some 900 plus killings a day rather prolific.

Here is another debate I got into recently on the Arkansas Times Blog and I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

____________

On March 25, 2013 I asserted on the Arkansas Times Blog:

A popular sign at the pro-choice march in Little Rock on Saturday: “If you don’t like abortion, don’t have one.”

Frank Pavone responded to that statement:

How many would say, “If you don’t like child abuse, don’t abuse your child, but if someone else wants to do it, let them?” This slogan ignores the victim.

If we’re going to think this way about abortion, then we ask why the reasoning is not applied to the unborn child. Each time the woman has an abortion, so does her baby – and it seems quite unlikely that the baby likes abortion. So if the mother is given the option of not having an abortion, why not give that same option to the child?

This also raises the question of what abortion advocates would think about choice if they were the ones being chosen. Every abortion advocate, after all, is someone who’s already been born.
_____________
Ironically Jesse Jackson back in his pro-life days used to use this same argument that abortion advocates have already been born. However, when Jesse decided to run for the Democratic Nomination he quickly adopted the prochoice view.

The person using the username “Arkie” replied:

SalineRepublican.

Your reasoning only works if one believes that the fetus is a child. For those of us for don’t, and who value the life and well being of the woman, your example is meaningless.

And your belief about the personhood of the fetus, is just that a belief. And, I assume, a religious belief. My religious beliefs are different. Why should your religious beliefs be imposed on my family?

The person using the username “Norma Bates” responded:

The stunning illogic and stupidity of the troll named for contact lens solution rolls on (as does his citation of the equally absurd and idiotic Frank Pavone).

Yet it’s illustrative of the all-too-successful appeal to other unthinking idiots on the matter of abortion.

A fetus is not a child, not a baby, no matter how misogynist religious bigots conflate them.

Abortion and child abuse are entirely separate and unrelated issues, no matter how misogynist religious bigots, etc.

Ignored, as usual, is that “God” (read nature) spontaneously “aborts” some 60% of all pregnancies; many before the woman is even aware she’s pregnant.

The attempt to link child abuse (there are laws requiring reporting of known child abuse) with abortion is a cheap appeal to false sentiment, because neither medical science nor reason nor logic supports patriarchal religionists’ objections to abortions, nor their determination to legislate control over women’s choices.

Were they honest, that would be one thing. Then they’d simply say, “We oppose abortion for religious reasons,” and that would be that. Those who agree wouldn’t have abortions. Those who disagree would be free to choose (as would physicians).

Of course, that’s not their agenda. Which is why they have to lie and concoct false equivalencies. Their agenda, like all fascists, is to dictate laws based on their dogma, founded on falsehoods though it is.

I replied:

Ron Paul’s book ABORTION AND LIBERTY says on pages 34 and 35:

Senator Jesse Helms [1921-2008] has written and introduced a Human Life Amendment. He contends that: “A constitutional amendment must be worded, like the Constitution itself, in terms of general principles.”

Conforming to this, the amendment he wrote is brief and general in nature:

“The paramount right to life is vested in each human being from the moment of fertilization without regard to age, health, or condition of dependency.”
_________________

I wish Ron Paul’s supporters were pro-life but I am told that a majority of them were prochoice….

Arkie stated, “And your belief about the personhood of the fetus, is just that a belief. And, I assume, a religious belief. My religious beliefs are different. Why should your religious beliefs be imposed on my family?”

My friend Dr. Kevin Henke is an atheist and a scientist (btw he is an evolutionist too). Interestingly enough he told me that he was pro-life because the unborn baby has all the genetic code at the time of conception that they will have for the rest of their life. Below are some other comments by other scientists:

Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.”

Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at conception.”

Dr. Alfred Bongioanni (University of Pennsylvania): “I have learned from my earliest medical education that human life begins at the time of conception.”

Dr. Jerome LeJeune, “the Father of Modern Genetics” (University of Descartes, Paris): “To accept the fact that after fertilization has taken place a new human has come into being is no longer a matter of taste or opinion . . . it is plain experimental evidence.”…

Norma Bates asserts, “A fetus is not a child, not a baby, no matter how misogynist religious bigots conflate them.”
_______

There have been some one on this blog that have admitted that the unborn child exists at conception but they think that we should have our rights trump theirs. Some have said that life begins at 3 months and some have said life begins at breathing. I am glad that you have not avoided taking a stand Norma. Let me share a story with you.

Back on April 27, 2009 Fox News ran a story by Hollie McKay(“Supermodel Kathy Ireland Lashes Out Against Pro Choice,”) on Jill Ireland.

It’s no secret that the majority of Hollywood stars are strong advocates for a woman’s right to choose whether or not she wants to terminate a pregnancy, however former “Sports Illustrated” supermodel-turned-entrepreneur-turned-author Kathy Ireland has gone against the grain of the glitterati and spoken out against abortion.

“My entire life I was pro-choice — who was I to tell another woman what she could or couldn’t do with her body? But when I was 18, I became a Christian and I dove into the medical books, I dove into science,” Ireland told Tarts while promoting her insightful new book “Real Solutions for Busy Mom: Your Guide to Success and Sanity.”

“What I read was astounding and I learned that at the moment of conception a new life comes into being. The complete genetic blueprint is there, the DNA is determined, the blood type is determined, the sex is determined, the unique set of fingerprints that nobody has had or ever will have is already there.”

However Ireland admitted that she did everything she could to avoid becoming a believer in pro-life.

“I called Planned Parenthood and begged them to give me their best argument and all they could come up with that it is really just a clump of cells and if you get it early enough it doesn’t even look like a baby. Well, we’re all clumps of cells and the unborn does not look like a baby the same way the baby does not look like a teenager, a teenager does not look like a senior citizen. That unborn baby looks exactly the way human beings are supposed to look at that stage of development. It doesn’t suddenly become a human being at a certain point in time,” Ireland argued. “I’ve also asked leading scientists across our country to please show me some shred of evidence that the unborn is not a human being. I didn’t want to be pro-life, but this is not a woman’s rights issue but a human rights issue.”

The person using the username “Steven E” asserted:

So, Norma, is there any point before birth where this fetus is alive? Your lies and ignorance of science is as stunning as your defense of child rape.

Is there not some acknowledgement, among the pro choice, that even inside the womb, the fetus is a living being deserving of consideration before having a scalpel shoved in its spine and its life ended?

This shows the dichotomy of the abortion debate. You have the religious wingnuts who claim life begins at conception, and the other idiots on the far left spectrum who would make the claim that a fetus is not a bay, or a life until it is out of the womb. Both are stupendously wrong.

Does the Roe v. Wade ruling not make noted of viability? I know it would be anethem to some of your folks, but there is quite a time when that fetus is a baby, it is a living thing, and all the lies and mewling will not change that simply scientific fact.

So we are left with the hypocrisy of the left that will excoriate the religious taliban for ignoring science for religious sake, and the left will do the same for dogma’s sake

_________________

I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

___________

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)

Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

Dr. C. Everett Koop pictured above.

Great  quotes from “Whatever happened to the human race?”  by Francis Schaeffer and Dr. C. Everett Koop (from the shelter website):.

Summary

Francis Schaeffer and, former Surgeon General, C. Everette Koop deal directly with the devaluing of human life and its results in our society. It did not take place in a vacuum. It is a direct result of a worldview that has rejected the doctrine of man being created in the image of God. Man as a product of the impersonal, plus time and chance has no sufficient basis for worth.

Quotes From The Book

The thinkables of the eighties and nineties will certainly include things which most people today find unthinkable and immoral, even unimaginable and too extreme to suggest. Yet — since they do not have some overriding principle that takes them beyond relativistic thinking — when these become thinkable and acceptable in the eighties and nineties, most people will not even remember that they were unthinkable in the seventies. They will slide into each new thinkable without a jolt.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

In our time, humanism has replaced Christianity as the consensus of the west. This has had many results, not the least of which is to change people’s view of themselves and their attitudes toward other human beings. Here is how the change came about. Having rejected God, humanistic scientists, philosophers and professors began to teach that only what can be mathematically measured is real and that all reality is like a machine. Man is only one part of the larger cosmic machine. Man is more complicated than the machines people make, but is still a machine, nevertheless.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

For a while, Western culture — from sheer inertia — continued to live by the old Christian ethics while increasingly embracing the mechanistic, time-plus-chance view of people. People came more and more to hold that the universe is intrinsically and originally impersonal — as a stone is impersonal. Thus, by chance, life began on the earth and then, through long, long periods of time, by chance, life became more complex, until man with his special brain came into existence. By “chance” is meant that there was no reason for these things to occur; they just happened that way. No matter how loftily it is phrased, this view drastically reduces our view of self-worth as well as our estimation of the worth of others, for we are viewing ourselves as mere accidents of the universe.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

The Bible teaches that man is made in the image of God and therefore is unique. Remove that teaching, as humanism has done on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and there is no adequate basis for treating people well.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

…because the Christian consensus has been put aside, we are faced today with a flood of personal cruelty. As we have noted, the Christian consensus gave great freedoms without leading to chaos — because society in general functioned within the values given in the Bible, especially the unique value of human life. Now that humanism has taken over, the former freedoms run riot, and individuals, acting on what they are taught, increasingly practice their cruelties without restraint. And why shouldn’t they? If the modern humanistic view of man is correct and man is only a product of chance in a universe that has no ultimate values, why should an individual refrain from being cruel to another person, if that person seems to be standing in his or her way?
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

Modern humanism has an inherent need to manipulate and tinker with the natural processes, including human nature [through genetics], because humanism:

1. Rejects the doctrine of Creation.
2. Therefore rejects the idea that there is anything stable or “given” about human nature.
3. Sees human nature as part of a long, unfolding process of development in which everything is changing.
4. Casts around for some solution to the problem of despair that this determinist-evolutionist vision induces.
5. Can only find a solution in the activity of the human will, which — in opposition to its own system — it hopes can transcend the inexorable flow of nature and act upon nature.
6. Therefore encourages manipulation of nature, including tinkering with people, as the only way of escaping from nature’s bondage. But this manipulation cannot have any certain criteria to guide it because, with God abolished, the only remaining criterion is nature (which is precisely what humanist man wants to escape from) and nature is both noncruel and cruel.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

With nothing higher than human opinion upon which to base judgments and with ethics equaling no ethics, the justification for seeing crime and cruelty as disturbing is destroyed. The very word crime and even the word cruelty lose meaning. There is no final reason on which to forbid anything — “If nothing is forbidden, then anything is possible.”
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

If man is not made in the image of God, nothing then stands in the way of inhumanity. There is no good reason why mankind should be perceived as special. Human life is cheapened. We can see this in many of the major issues being debated in our society today: abortion, infanticide, euthanasia, the increase of child abuse and violence of all kinds, pornography (and its particular kinds of violence as evidenced in sadomasochism), the routine torture of political prisoners in many parts of the world, the crime explosion, and the random violence which surrounds us.
(Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everette Koop, Whatever Happened to the Human Race?, Ch. 1)

 
© 1999 Rational Pi, all rights reserved

Is the unborn baby the woman’s property or not? Take a look at this editorial cartoon.

This was originally posted before the January 2013 March for Life.

Francis Schaeffer Whatever Happened to the Human Race (Episode 1) ABORTION

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)

Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

I was thinking about the March for Life that is coming up on Jan 20, 2013 in Little Rock and that is why I posted this today. This film really did fire up the pro-life movement worldwide.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race?

By Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D.

(Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979)

Reviewed by Jean Garton

Editor’s note. 1998 is the 25th anniversary of the dreadful Roe v. Wade decision. In each issue NRL News is presenting either a revealing portrait of the abortion mentality written by a pro- abortionist, or a thoughtful critique of the abortion mindset composed by a pro-life champion.

Almost 20 years have passed since I sat in the balcony of the Academy of Music in Philadelphia and viewed the film series Whatever Happened to the Human Race? It was the premiere showing of a stunning visual experience that eventually toured 20 major cities.

The text and narration of the five-episode seminar were by Francis Schaeffer, an internationally acclaimed theologian, philosopher, and author, and C. Everett Koop, then surgeon-in- chief at Philadelphia’s Childrens Hospital. They combined their individual expertise and experience to expose the subtle but rapid loss of human rights in America.

They elaborated on those concerns in a textbook of the same name in which they explored in documented detail the growing acceptance of the once-unthinkable practices of abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

The film series attracted nationwide attention during its three-month tour in 1979, and the book quickly became a teaching tool for professionals and lay people alike. As a result, there was a dramatic change in the abortion landscape. The powerful message of both the screen and printed versions of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? educated and energized an up-till-then largely uninvolved constituency – – the Evangelicals.

Within weeks of the unveiling of the filmed series and its companion book, Dr. Schaeffer noted their impact in a personal letter dated March 29, 1980. “The Protestants, and especially the evangelicals,” he wrote, “have been so sluggish on this issue of human life, and Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is causing real waves, among church people and governmental people too.”

Those “real waves” continued to ripple out across America, and what had been seen largely as “a Catholic issue” soon became an ” Evangelical issue” as well.

So stunning were the book and its predictions of disaster that had it not been for the sterling reputations of both Koop and Schaeffer as professionals in their own fields, they would have been dismissed as alarmists and scaremongers.

The intervening 20 years, however, proved their warnings to have been prophetic. Yet even they could hardly have anticipated the rapidity with which America would embrace destructive policies and barbaric procedures.

Although the filmed version of Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is seldom shown these days, the book continues to be a dependable resource for those seeking the historical basis for human dignity, value, and rights.

The authors viewed the struggle for the sanctity of life as two- fold, and they divided their 265-page book into two distinct but related parts. The first section provided information, facts, and case studies related to abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia.

Koop and Schaeffer repeatedly made clear that their goal was not simply to educate but to challenge and encourage their readers to respond with decisive and sacrificial action. To that end, their arguments were logical as well as moral.

The second part of the book focused on differing philosophical positions which deny or give uniqueness and dignity to human life. The authors rooted their views in historic Christianity and, fundamentally, Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is a defense of the Judeo-Christian ethic as the foundation of Western civilization. It is a polemic based on the principle that human beings derive their value from having been created in the image of God.

The challenge of the book was directed primarily at Protestants (Evangelicals in particular), but at Christians in general, many of whom the authors believed had neglected to recognize the ” unbreakable link between the existence of the infinite personal God and the uniqueness of human life.” The continued silence and lack of involvement of this group were serving to fuel the decline of human significance.

As the authors led readers to explore the basis for the dignity of human life, they contrasted the views of the East and the West. They walked the reader through the Old and New Testaments, the Enlightenment, mysticism, and, with a detour into archeology, through the Dead Sea Scrolls. All this was for the purpose of examining the historical basis for man’s dignity so that Americans would see the present time as a crucial turning point.

Several powerful visuals from the film were reproduced in the book. One is the scene of a thousand dolls scattered at the shoreline of the Dead Sea in Israel. It is the site where Sodom once stood and was designed to serve as a symbol of moral degradation. It was a reminder to American society of the depravity that has led to the legal destruction of millions of our children and the destruction that awaits the culture as a result.

The assembly-line scene in a toy factory features a procession of dolls in which those missing a limb or having an imperfection are snatched by an impersonal hand and tossed into the garbage. The picture graphically portrays the casual and cruel disregard for the lives of those judged to be less than perfect.

However, it is the cage sequence that is perhaps the most gripping photo in the book, for it portrays real people and real events. In one cage are slaves in chains; in another are German Jews wearing the Star of David. Peering out of other cages are elderly men and women, a crippled child, and a newborn baby.

Each cage is a visual reminder that classifying people as non- persons has its historical precedence. Our generation, through Roe v. Wade, also has declared a segment of the human family outside the protection of the law. Some view legal abortion as a sign of liberation. It is actually an imitation of injustices of the past.

Almost two decades ago Whatever Happened to the Human Race? provided a glimpse into the abyss of horrors that would result from abandoning the fundamental right to life. Today we have the legalization of the barbaric partial-birth abortion. Today children can be “manufactured” from a mother who was an aborted baby and a father who was a cadaver. Today, the Kevorkian machine continues to rumble along the highway of death, picking up support for the national acceptance of “assisted suicide.” Today we are confronted with surveys in which fifty percent of the respondents agree that “abortion is murder” but thirty-nine percent of them say that abortion should be legal anyway. Today is yesterday’s nightmare come true.

Whatever Happened to the Human Race? is a classic whose fundamental arguments need to be revisited on a regular basis. Its clarity of thought is complemented by its analysis of the future of Western culture and its chilling prophecy of what awaits us as the destruction of human life is increasingly sanctioned by the medical profession and the courts, by science and legislators, by parents and silent citizens.

The authors had set out to convince people that at some point we, as a nation, will be held accountable for our disregard of human value because history does not forgive or forget. The question, “Whatever happened to the human race?” serves to reveal the human propensity for exaggerated pride and supreme self- confidence that leads us to shake our fists in the face of God and think we can get away with it. The book Whatever Happened to the Human Race? says we can’t.

Related posts:

I have debated with Ark Times Bloggers many times in the past on many different subjects. Abortion is probably the most often debated subject and I have noticed that many pro-life individuals are now surfacing on the Arkansas Times Blog.  Here are some examples. Arhogfan501 asserted: This is the beginning of the end for recreational abortion in Arkansas. Songbird777 noted: Babies have a right to live and not be chopped up for someone else’s convenience. The person using the username “baker” commented: Planned Parenthood (PPA) does not nor cannot provide mammograms, indeed no affiliate has the necessary license. PPA is an abortion provider and at some 900 plus killings a day rather prolific.

Here is another debate I got into recently on the Arkansas Times Blog and I go by the username “Saline Republican”:

The person using the username “Bluesyoucanuse” asserted:

First protest I’ve been involved in in probably 30 years. Glad to say I was there. Glad to see the huge range of ages. Loved the family with the t-shirts — Mom by Choice, Dad by Choice, Born by Choice. Personal favorite sign — “If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.”

I responded:

Bluesyoucanuse says “Born by Choice.”

This follows the statements “Dad by choice and Mom by choice.”

I can only wish that unborn babies could be born if they chose to be. Unfortunately their parents choose selfishly to end their hopes of being born way too often.

Bluesyoucanuse was born not by her choice. It was not possible, but I am glad her parents made the prolife choice!!!!!!!!!

_________

Bluesyoucanuse says, “If you don’t want an abortion, don’t have one.”

Deanna Gandler responded to this question with this reasoned response:

What if Abraham Lincoln had told the North – ‘Don’t like Slavery? Don’t own slaves.’?”

Slavery was the defining issue of the day during that time period, and there were many citizens in America who truly believed that an African American was not a person, but a belonging, a piece of property to be disposed of as their owners saw fit. The Supreme Court of the United States had even ruled in the Dred Scott case that they were property and not citizens. The Supreme Court chose to uphold slavery, and claimed Constitutional authority in their decision.

Much like the Dred Scott ruling was overturned by the refusal of brave men and women in our country to merely turn a blind eye to the injustice going on all around them- the unconstitutional Roe v Wade can be overturned one day as well. But we must not give up on this fight. We must follow the example of Lincoln, and continue to fight for the rights of our fellow man.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”
Abraham Lincoln, in The Gettysburg Address

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I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the video below. It is very valuable information for Christians to have.  Actually I have included a video below that includes comments from him on this subject.

In the film series “WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE?” the arguments are presented  against abortion (Episode 1),  infanticide (Episode 2),   euthenasia (Episode 3), and then there is a discussion of the Christian versus Humanist worldview concerning the issue of “the basis for human dignity” in Episode 4 and then in the last episode a close look at the truth claims of the Bible.

Many liberals actually truly do argue for abortion rights over human rights. Prochoice advocate Elizabeth Williams came out and said that on 1-23-13 in her article on Salon. We hear reasons for abortion such as poverty,and  child abuse,  but why not consider adoption? Instead, the political left will stop at nothing to push the pro-abortion agenda. Why not stop and take an honest look at when life begins for the unborn child and when she begins to feel pain?

Francis Schaeffer: What Ever Happened to the Human Race? (Full-Length Documentary)

Part 1 on abortion runs from 00:00 to 39:50, Part 2 on Infanticide runs from 39:50 to 1:21:30, Part 3 on Youth Euthanasia runs from 1:21:30 to 1:45:40, Part 4 on the basis of human dignity runs from 1:45:40 to 2:24:45 and Part 5 on the basis of truth runs from 2:24:45 to 3:00:04

Francis Schaeffer “BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY” Whatever…HTTHR

Dr. John Russell:

The Devaluing of Life in America

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and Christian apologist Francis A. Schaeffer issue a stern warning concerning the devaluing of life in America. They quote Psychiatrist Leo Alexander, who served with the office of Chief of Counsel for War Crimes in Nuremberg:

It started with the acceptance of the attitude basic in the euthanasia movement, that there is such a thing as life not worthy to be lived….   …. The first direct order for euthanasia was issued by Hitler on Sept. 1, 1939…. All state institutions were required to report on patients who had been ill for five years or more or who were unable to work, by filling out questionnaires giving name, race, marital status, nationality, next of kin, whether regularly visited and by whom, who bore the financial responsibility and so forth. The decision regarding which patients should be killed was made entirely on the basis of this brief information by expert consultants, most of whom were professors of psychiatry in the key universities. These consultants never saw the patients themselves.

The Nazis set up an organization specifically for the killing of children, which they called, “Realm’s Committee for Scientific Approach to Severe Illness Due to Heredity and Constitution.” Children were transported to the killing centers by “The Charitable Transport Company for the Sick.” “The Charitable Foundation for Institutional Care” collected the cost of killing the children from the relatives, who did not know that they were paying to kill their own kinfolk. The cause of death was falsified on the death certificates. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), pp. 103-107].

It hasn’t been too far back in the history of the United States, that black people were sold like cattle in our slave markets. For economic reasons, white society had classified them as “nonhuman.” The U S Supreme Court upheld this lie in its infamous Dred Scott Decision.

Jesse L. Jackson, in 1977, tied the prior treatment of blacks with our present treatment of the preborn:

You could not protest the existence or treatment of slaves on the plantation because that was private and therefore outside your right to be concerned…. The Constitution called us three-fifths human and the whites further dehumanized us by calling us `niggers.’ It was part of the dehumanizing process…. These advocates taking life prior to birth do not call it killing or murder, they call it abortion. They further never talk about aborting a baby because that would imply something human…. Fetus sounds less than human and therefore can be justified…. What happens to the mind of a person, and the moral fabric of a nation, that accepts the aborting of the life of a baby without a pang of conscience? What kind of a person and what kind of a society will we have twenty years hence if life can be taken so casually? It is that question, the question of our attitude, our value system, and our mind set with regard to the nature and the worth of life itself that is the central question confronting mankind. Failure to answer that question affirmatively may leave us with a hell right here on earth. [Francis A. Schaeffer and C. Everett Koop, M.D., Whatever Happened to the Human Race? (Old Tappan, NJ: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1979), p. 209.]

Twenty-five years after Rev. Jackson’s prediction, we have seen 45,000,000 preborn children killed for convenience and money. There is no telling how many newborns have been sedated and deliberately left to die of starvation.

For a former “insider” expose of the brutal and woman-exploiting abortion industry, read Carol Everett’s book, Blood Money (Sisters, OR: Multnomah Press Books, 1992). Her book tore at my heart. It spoke of how degenerate a part of the medical community had become. Carol Everett later found Christ and now ministers hope and healing.

The infamous pathologist Jack Kevorkian has grabbed headlines by murdering sick people. But, secretly in the hospitals, how many old and sick people have been “put to sleep” by other physicians simply by administering an overdose of medication, or by withholding needed medication?

I was touched, influenced and inspired by the ideas of Bill Bennett. See William J. Bennett, The De-Valuing of America—The Fight for Our Culture and Our Children (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992).

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It is a sad fact that so many unborn babies have been aborted in the last 40 years and this editorial cartoon touches on that fact:

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