So far we have discussed in Part I that an honest and consistent attribution of value to human life, one that allows for the best functioning society, requires it to hinge both on one's ability to exist mostly independent of external support and to be self-aware.  Now I will attempt to make the case that although many secular people may find these two criteria sufficient, more is needed. To begin with, we need to bring into the calculus not just the actual consciousness of human life, but the potential for same.  Without this addition, the contradictions abound.

First let's start with an illuminating example.  Many people may say it is moral to pull the plug of a human in a persistent vegetative state, because his consciousness or independent existence is no more.  Yet what if you were told, as Judge Bork's wonderfully insightful hypothetical presents, that in 4 months that human will awaken to be a vibrant and fully consciousness human being? Is it still moral to pull the plug?  I hope this hypothetical and the contradictions and inconsistencies it brings to the forefront at least give one pause.

Equally unsettling, however, is another conclusion we must come to if potential for consciousness is not part of the moral equation to affording value to human life.  For those who have even seen a newborn, despite loving them with all your heart, even a parent of one must admit they have less consciousness and self-sufficiency than a 6 year old dog.  So if we end the inquiry where many secular people wish we would, to what extent are we willing  -- or in the long run, able -- to turn a blind eye to what our morals will compel us to value more?  How do we account for our presumed greater valuing of the baby who has less consciousness than that of a dog whose consciousness is, in almost every way, greater and more profound? Is it not the potential consciousness of a baby that gives it more value? These are serious questions that, I think, deserve serious and honest thought.

Nevertheless, even if we include the potential for consciousness in our analysis, we still come up short if creating a functioning society -- one whose principle underpinnings are intellectually consistent and honest -- is our ultimate goal.  Think about this: is the life of severely mentally retarded person, who presumably will never have as much consciousness or self-sufficiency, less valuable?  Hitler thought so.

Still missing, therefore, is the acknowledgment that all human life is valuable, if for no other reasons, because we are all created in God's image.  Only when we take this belief, together with the above criteria, can we drive the final nail into the coffin of those who wish to rid human life the profound and lasting value it deserves.  In addition to the inconsistencies set forth above, two pitfalls await a society that does not subscribe to the belief that human life is sacred because God said so. 

First, all that we put forward prior to the invocation of God is based on what I hope is a collective belief system held by most good human beings.  But bad human beings do exist. And without a divine and thus objective source for human life's value, there is nothing to say the belief of those humans which we label as "bad" is any less moral or right.  Put differently, if human life's value is just a rational human construct, created by humans and for humans, it can be broken down, diluted or even destroyed by those same humans and for those same humans.  Say what you wants of the pitfalls of divine and dogmatic belief, but such belief sure does provide a far stronger foundation to the few beliefs we would like impervious to human manipulation and destruction. I submit that human life is one of those beliefs. 

There is also a second, or at least corollary, pitfall that is averted by invoking God.  If just a construct of man, human life's value can more easily be compromised and may even be viewed as not supreme to anything.  That is to say, even if we meet a person who does in fact subscribe to this rational analysis establishing human life's worth, there is little to stop them from valuing something like the environment or animals just as much, or more.  True, they will need to find new criteria to reason out why those things have value, but nothing in the above analysis says that which is conscious and  self-sufficient is of greater value that all the trees in the world?  For that we need an additional belief, one which is best supplied by faith in a God who lovingly created us in his image.

In the end, my point is not to say that without these three criteria, a person or society is bad -- however one defines that term.  Rather, my point is that without these three foundations, the value of human life is too arbitrary and more easily discarded.  It is surely not as strong as it could be -- or should be.