Are All Lives Worth Living? A Dangerous Idea Moves Front and Center
Albert Mohler
Monday, March 13, 2006

In 1967, the New Jersey Supreme Court rejected a "wrongful birth" claim and framed its decision in an eloquent affirmation of human dignity:

"The right to life is inalienable in our society. A court cannot say what defects should prevent an embryo from being allowed life such that the denial at the opportunity to terminate the existence of a defective child in embryo can support a cause of action . . . A child need not be perfect to have a worthwhile life . . . . The sanctity of the single human life is the decisive factor in this issue in tort. Eugenic considerations are not controlling. We are not talking here about the breeding of prize cattle. It may have been easier for the mother and less expensive for the father to have terminated the life of their child while he was an embryo, but these alleged detriments cannot stand against the preciousness of the single human life to support a remedy in tort."

In other words, the New Jersey Court affirmed that every single human life, whatever its circumstances or genetic condition, is worthy of existence, and that existence is to be prized over nonexistence as a matter of principle. The rest