7. A Film Series by Francis Schaeffer Spread the Word About Abortion
In 1978, Schaeffer and his son, along with Dr. Koop, the surgeon-in-chief at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, produced the film series “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” The film series directly attributed abortion to the replacement of Christian values with humanistic ones, which created a disregard for human life. In the first episode, Schaeffer pointed out that behind the legitimization of abortion and humanism was the pervasive idea that humanity is no more than a machine; without Judeo-Christian values, the dignity of human life has been severely depleted. Dr. Koop graphically detailed how abortions are performed and cited examples of when a baby who is born live is left to die.
According to the producers, these examples of infanticide are allowed to happen only because of society’s embrace of humanistic values rather than Christian ones. The production was intended to shock viewers into the realization that the Christian moral basis and human dignity that once upheld Western civilization have eroded, and the visible effect of that erosion is the murderous legalization of abortion. The production and distribution of the film series and book of the same title were perhaps the most significant events in turning conservative Christian opinion unequivocally against abortion and launching fundamentalist Protestants into the public sphere and political discourse.