A Less Humane Society

For a long time I’ve critically considered America’s obsession with pets, especially dogs. I’ve seen people refer to them as children, as in, “We’ve got three children, two humans and one fur baby.” In light of that, some legislation from a few years ago protecting dogs (and all animals) against human cruelty caught my attention.

It's true enough that laws against animal cruelty are necessary and good. People should be punished for dealing harshly with domestic animals. God made Adam in his image, and as an image-bearer of God, he would “have dominion over” all the creatures walking on God’s green earth. Something in that Godly dominion implies that we act toward animals as God acts toward his creation—with love and kindness and discretionary preservation. God expressly says, “A righteous man has regard for the life of his beast” (Proverbs 12:10). So, principally, legislation protecting animals is good.

Concerning the climate of American morality, however, I’m not sure these kinds of legislations actually speak to a renewed softness or compassion in the hearts of men. Such laws, given current and more pressing matters, actually speak to the upside-down value Americans have put on animal life.

In the Genesis creation account, man is the only uniquely created being who bears the image of God. His status as a creation, therefore, stands above all other forms of life. This is why God forbade murder but encouraged hunting. This is why American laws punish homicide but issue tags for deer, bears, bobcats, fish, and the list goes on. However, something of the inherent hierarchical value of man over beast is beginning to disappear.

Before addressing the more pointed concern I have, let me simply illustrate the presence of a trend elevating dogs above people. DreamWorks Animation, perhaps unwittingly, made this very point in their 2017 film The Boss Baby, which involves the villainous plot to replace all human babies with adorable puppies. The film was exceptionally relevant, though I’m not sure DreamWorks had a moral slant in mind. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a slew of articles addressing the millennial disposition to have pets instead of kids. Here are a few titles from reputable sources: “Millennials are Picking Pets over People;” “Why are so Many Millennials Opting for Pets, not Parenthood?” “Americans are Having Dogs Instead of Babies.”

A while back, The Public Discourse published an article with the subtitle, “How the Rhetoric of Family Planning Hurts Children.” Susan Martin, the author, had a different purpose than I, but she shared a related underlying issue. Coming from a sociological perspective, she argued against what she called “the gospel of public health,” which educates and encourages families to have fewer and fewer children. As she noted, American agencies were expressly involved in pursuits of population control even outside of America. She wrote, “Public health continuously projected the image of reproductive progress: a perfectible male and a perfectible female to go along with a perfectible human family, shorn of excesses to fit into a modern world.”1

Her last statement is telling and poignant—“shorn of excesses.” The notion that a plurality of children is excess is a popular one. It tells of the collapse of an ancient sentiment, that “blessed is the man whose quiver is full of [children]” (Psalm 127:5). As our society is further secularized, the family is being reordered and children are seen more as a burden than a blessing. Family is replaced with individualism. At the center of Planned Parenthood’s purpose, there is the promise of career pursuits without obstacle and personal liberty without infringement. Sexuality is utterly free, and the historic consequence of sexuality (children) is obliterated.

As American society grows farther from God into the secular abyss, the virtue of selflessness seen in historic motherhood is erased and replaced with the modern woman who maintains no ties to a home nor the warmth of its hearth. Public health and the whole of secular society have painted the picture that children are cumbersome and should be erased should an individual have made prior plans without them in mind.

Very few Americans have remained unaffected by this rhetoric. Why dog ownership is on the rise and childbearing is on the decline is directly connected. Dogs are infinitely easier to manage than children. Dogs can be left at home all day while careers are pursued. Dogs can be boarded in kennels during worry-free vacations. Dogs don’t demand undivided attention. Dogs don’t play sports. Dogs eat food on the floor made by Purina. Dogs don’t ask questions. Dogs can be brought to the Humane Society should they not work out. Children, on the other hand, change everything.

My wife and I have three young children. Each of them are gifts of the richest kind. They are beautiful and pure and innocent and good. Their smiles and laughter are infectious. From the moment of each conception, there was a real bond. From the first sight of their tiny faces, we were in love. They bear God’s image, and we love them deeply. But I’d be lying if I failed to mention how profoundly children reorder our lives. The responsibility of parenting is a heavy one—and a selfless one.

There is no erasing a child (what kind of person would want to?). Children cannot be left unattended. They require meal-planning and painstaking patience through meals when they’d rather be playing. At least while they’re little, you can forget about sleep. They need constant activity and attention. They make travel extra difficult. They change career decisions. They are expensive. The are emotionally more demanding than any other kind of relationship. When they are sick, the feeling is horrible, and you’d wish to take it from them but must instead tend to them. But it is all worth it. Truly glorious things are never easy.

As public health encourages smaller families, and as the warmth of Christian society is giving way to secularism, is it surprising that young men and women have less room for the true, unconditional love a child demands? Isn’t it a frightening image of humanity to know that right now babies can be cut limb from limb and disposed of in garbage cans with the full support of the law, while simultaneously we are writing laws to protect animals? So long as children can be murdered in utero, legislation protecting animals is not moral progress. It only indicates further how far we’ve drifted from Christian values.

[Anticipating a rebuttal, I’m not arguing that these things are mutually exclusive. Read again my opening statements about the Biblical precedent for protecting beasts. But the primary duty of protecting babies made in God’s image has been successfully thwarted by leftist America. The fact that animal protection is met without obstacle further proves my point. Nobody is fighting to allow for animal cruelty to continue. Nobody from either the right or the left would do that. So the fight against pro-life legislation speaks to an upside-down value on animals over humans.]

When our first son was born into the world, I can’t remember ever loving someone so deeply and so instantly. He quickly became the center of our world. And with so great a love, I questioned if my heart could hold as much room as for him were we to have another. I think this may be a natural question, for I’ve heard many other young parents express similar sentiments. And the answer is unequivocally, yes. As our second son and daughter were brought into the world, the connection was as deep and as immediate. Society suggests that each man and woman should pursue self interests to find joy and happiness. But in reality, self interests are vain, shallow, and ultimately quite disappointing and vapid. Sharing in the love of a child is difficult but greatly fulfilling. God has given each set of parents the means to maintain a continual fount of love for each child he gives. He, the Father of love, has placed his image within us, and by that image we do, in small part, as he does.

Will society’s rhetoric against children continue to progress the decline of parenthood? If so, I hope it only goes long enough to prove that the human bond of mother, father, and child can be replaced by nothing.