In our college biology class, one of our assignments was to follow the development of the chicken from its first day until it hatched on day 21. The chicken embryo develops from a single cell to a fully formed chick over three weeks of incubation at a temperature of approximately 99.5 F. The heart begins to beat at day two, limb formation occurs three days later, and feathers appear by day ten. On day 20, the chick absorbs the remaining yolk, moves into the air cell, and begins “pipping” the shell.

On day 21, the chick to which I was assigned was getting ready to break out of its shell. As the day came to a close, I decided to take it home with me and oversee its emergence from its no longer useful container. My problem was that I did not have a car and my home was 30 miles away. Luckily a car stopped for me and provided my soon to be visible chick with the requisite temperature from his car heater. When I arrived home I placed the shell under a heat lamp and measured the temperature. Soon the chick broke out of its confinement and stumbled forward. I felt like a mother hen. The little chicken survived, to my awe and the amazement of family members. Unfortunately, absent the presence of a member of its own species, the lab chicks did not live very long. But it was life! And, though its life was all too brief, it felt astonishing that I had helped to bring it into the world.

My choice was for life, though it would have been far easier for me to leave the egg in the lab and let it perish on its own. We speak of the miracle of life. I was fortunate to witness the struggle for life and its momentary victory.

The False Promise of “Choice”

The paradigm of “choose life” has, in recent years, been significantly supplanted by the new paradigm: “choose choice.” This is not a step forward but a regress of catastrophic proportions. When we choose life we prepare ourselves to do many things to support it. Choosing the life of a fetus in the womb sets a long trail of things we must do. It opens the door to responsibility, care, and numerous difficulties yet unknown. Life is the most precious thing we have. To serve life, then, is to choose that which is most important to us.

In our culture today, too often we fear this choice for life might clash with what we think we really want. Choosing life is to step into the dark unknown. Would it not be better to choose choice? Then, we would be clear-eyed about what we are choosing. It’s a line of reasoning that has been endorsed by many. It has given a certain acceptability to sex apart from marriage, abortion, and euthanasia. If this is what people choose, then it will be given to them. But what will also be given to them that they did not bargain for? Nearly every choice brings about unintended ripple effects, as choice is rarely an isolated act with singular consequences.

Accepting life means accepting a journey into the unknown. Death awaits us all; we cannot choose to not die. Choice has severe limitations that are generally ignored by those who buy into the “choose choice” philosophy. In addition, the power to choose is not our highest faculty. It falls far short of the power to love.

What’s more, to love is believed by many to be divinely ordained. God commands us to love, not to choose. We do not need any encouragement from God in order to choose. Our choosing is inevitable. The reason that love is higher than choice is because love directs us to choose well, that is, to choose what is good. Choice itself is indifferent to good and evil. And so, as the historical record plainly shows, human beings have often and disastrously chosen evil. To choose choice is to grant permission to choose anything. To choose anything, however, is a failure to include our capacity to reason. And since we are rational creatures by nature, to abandon reason and choose just anything, is to choose not to be human.

This limitation of choice becomes even clearer when we view it through a theological lens. The “choose choice” paradigm is essentially atheistic. God commands us to love. He also commands us not to kill. Therefore, one might say He commands us to love life. Our fundamental choice is between choosing God or choosing ourselves without God in mind. The late author and columnist William Murchison remarked that “The abortion culture is of course the clearest instance of the new mode of choosing. To choose abortion is to choose ‘me’. . . to choose ‘me’ over thee.”

Choosing choice may give the appearance of freedom, but we should not want choice to be unfettered. We should not want the choice to be free to choose death or to war against love, or to choose the self over the creator. Life is not of our own making; it is a gift from God. We should be sufficiently grateful for that gift not to disparage it by turning against it. We are not sufficiently wise or prescient to be the sovereign directors of our lives; often, we see what is immediately before us and choose what is convenient. In choosing choice, however, we fail to see the negative consequences of our choices or our true future destiny. In the final analysis, to choose choice, no matter how appealing it may be, is to choose death. To choose life, then, is our only viable option.