Do You See This Woman?

The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution seems straightforward, that a State “shall not deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” But in the world of law, the simple becomes grounds for legal wrangling. Just as the lawyer in Jesus’ day demanded a definition of “neighbor” (as in “Who is my neighbor?), the lawyers and social engineers of our day demand to know, “Who is a person?”

The courts have accommodated those demands with an arbitrary decision that a person is not a person until the courts say it is a person, which in the case of abortion, is defined as complete separation from the womb. I say “currently” defined as such because certain social engineers wish to move that line even farther to the left. Princeton professor and social ethicist Peter Singer believes a baby shouldn’t be considered a person for purposes of the Constitution until 30mdays from birth. Senator Barbara Boxer of California believes the line should be drawn when the “baby” comes home from the hospital (with frightening implications, if you think about it).

Others have postulated that “personhood” does not begin until the “baby” begins to have “self-awareness”, which would fast-forward “personhood” to some indeterminate time, before which the parents (or whoever the courts determine to be in loco parentis) could return the child to its Maker for a refund.

These social engineers are walking in the footsteps of the tyrants of the Twentieth Century. Adolph Hitler could rationalize exterminating Jews and Gypsies because his warped thinking rendered them less than human (non-persons) and therefore expendable. Stalin once famously remarked that a single death is a tragedy, but a million deaths is a statistic.

Even in our own insular world, ten thousand Chinese can die in an earthquake, and it merits a story on page ten, but three thousand Americans die and we mourn for a year. That’s because we subconsciously ascribe “personhood” to our own, but those dying half a world away, while tragic in reality, do not rise to “personhood” except on an abstract level.

The point is, if we dehumanize people, it is easier to deal with them as unviable tissue mass or expendable non-persons who can be starved to death in service to the greater good, which “good” in too many cases turns out to be personal convenience. In a more practical sense, dehumanized persons are easier to ignore or be treated as objects of scorn as opposed to children made in the image of God.

Once a Pharisee had Jesus as a dinner guest, and in the middle of the meal a woman of ill repute approached Jesus. She wept at his presence and out of humility and remorse washed and anointed his feet, which in those days was the task relegated to the lowest of servants.

The Pharisee reacted as many religious people would. “Doesn’t he know what manner of woman this is who touches him?” He couldn’t see this woman as a child of God in need of redemption. He could only see her as a sinner and worthy of no respect. Jesus asked him, “Do you see this woman?” Obviously, the Pharisee saw her, but he failed to perceive her. He saw a wretch who was little better than a dog. Jesus saw a person with hurts, hopes, and dreams who was willing to change her life and follow her Savior wherever he would lead. The alabaster box of ointment that she poured on his feet was a precious heirloom usually intended as a dowry, and by this act she revealed her intent to give up her life for Christ.

I think of the question, “Do you see this woman?” when confronted with cases such as Terri Schiavo. The courts saw her as expendable because somewhere her status as a person had been undermined. From a utilitarian point of view she would cost society more than she could contribute, and apparently that was enough justification to condemn her to a slow, painful death by dehydration, a treatment that the courts would not tolerate for a condemned criminal or even the family dog.

Where others saw a sinner, Jesus saw a daughter of Abraham. Where others saw a stereotype, Jesus saw a life in need of redemption. Where others saw pesky children encumbering the Master, Jesus saw “persons” to whom belonged the kingdom of God. And where some see tissue mass, Jesus sees a precious life.