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Is every human life worth living? That’s the question asked by two German professors in their 1920 book, Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens. The book title roughly translates, “Permitting the Destruction of Life Unworthy of Life.”

Lebensunwerten Lebens—life unworthy of life—eventually became a philosophy among the German medical elites. Was it right to waste limited and expensive medical resources on those whose lives weren’t worth living? The brain damaged, the intellectually disabled, and the psychiatrically ill were considered "mentally dead" and "empty shells of human beings." Surely killing such people would be useful, both for the good of the individual and the good of society as a whole. Some lives were only worthy of death.

Within two decades, this philosophy moved from academic papers in the German academy to political realities in Berlin. Lebensunwerten Lebens—life unworthy of life—would become a rallying cry for Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany.

First came the forced sterilization of those considered ''hereditarily sick.” No one knows for sure how many were sterilized, but estimates range from 200K to 350K people. [1]

Then came the mandatory registration of any child aged 3 and under suffering from a handicap or serious medical condition. Those children whose lives were considered “unworthy of life” were taken to killing centers called ''Children's Specialty Institutions'' or ''Therapeutic Convalescent Institutions.'' [2] Yes, the prince of death often appears as an angel of light.

Eventually the program was expanded to include the extermination of youths considered juvenile delinquents. Then, came the Sanitariums and nursing homes. Doctors of long-term patients would fill out a form listing a patient’s various medical conditions. That form would be sent to a Nazi administrator who would mark the form with a red “x”—meaning this was another life unworthy of life—or a blue dash, meaning the patient should be permitted to live. [3] The “Common Welfare Ambulance Service” would then pick up those lives considered unworthy of life, and transport them to one of six killing centers.

It was only matter of time until the slow and secret extermination of the mentally handicapped and physically disabled paved way for “The Final Solution,” the Nazi plan to exterminate an entire ethnic group. Lebensunwerten Lebens was the justification for the systemic murder of millions of people whose lives were not considered worthy of life, from the mentally and physically handicapped, to political opponents and the so-called ethnically inferior.

But why is Lebensunwerten Lebens wrong? I don’t know of a single person alive who would rationally argue for the mass extermination of human life on the same scale as Nazi Germany. But why not on a smaller scale?

Why is it wrong to encourage the sterilization of young people, so they don’t bring new life into a weary world? Why is it wrong to encourage a pregnant mother to exterminate the unborn life within her based on the results of an amniocentesis test? Why is it wrong to take the life of a human being whose so-called “quality of life” does not meet our standards? Why is it wrong to allow people to choose death with dignity?

Without an objective standard of good and evil, you cannot call anything wrong. And without a clear understanding of the distinction between life and death, there’s no clear and consistent reason why Lebensunwerten Lebens should not be the law of the land.

That’s why the first two chapters of Genesis are so incredibly important. They present us with massive building blocks for a firm foundation in a biblical worldview. They teach us divine distinctions between the Creator and the creation, between humans and all other creatures, between male and female, and between life and death. This week on the blog we’ll examine that fourth distinction and why all human life is worthy of life.    

[1]Robert Jay Lifton, “German Doctors and the Final Solution,” The New York Times Magazine, September 21, 1986, 64.

[2]Ibid.

[3]Ibid.