It would be easy to dismiss the case of the Chinese doctor selling newborns to human traffickers as just one money-hungry criminal doing what those kinds of people do. That is true: Bad people will always be bad.

But we also need to look at the context — the “why” that led to the “how.” From the Daily News story:

A Chinese doctor has admitted in court that she stole babies from the hospital where she worked and sold them to human traffickers, state media and a court said. Zhang Shuxia, a locally respected and soon-to-retire obstetrician, stood trial on Monday in northern Shaanxi province’s Fuping county, according to online postings from the court.

Zhang told parents their newborns had congenital problems and persuaded them to “sign and give the babies up,” the court postings said . . . The case exposed the operations of a baby trafficking ring that operated across several provinces centering on Zhang, who delivered babies at the Fuping County Maternal and Child Hospital.

First, how in the world could Shuxia ever convince parents give up their baby? Because they thought the child would have serious health and/or disability issues.

I assume the parents thought the child would be euthanized or put in an orphanage. Why could they agree to that? Because that was the only baby they would be allowed to have under China’s tyrannical “one child” law. That created the atmosphere allowing the avaricious doctor to obtain her wares.

The one child policy has led to a society in which there are not only eugenics laws on the books, but in which people get steeped with eugenics attitudes. In other words, if parents can only have one child, some will not want one seen as a potential burden.

This is the same attitude and impetus that leads to female infanticide in China. Not coincidentally, the bought babies were boys.

Digging deeper — and to thump on my ever-pounded tub — the entire debacle flows directly from the rejection of human exceptionalism.

Human exceptionalism insists on the equal intrinsic moral worth of every human being. Once rejected, tyranny follows.

Indeed, look at nearly every human-caused horror in history and you will see through the smoke and stench of death, a rejection of human exceptionalism. Also smaller-in-scale, but profoundly evil crimes against humanity such as here, a doctor who sold her tiny patients like they were so many iPhones.

The Chinese government comes down hard on traffickers. But its anti human exceptionalism tyranny is the ultimate cause.

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Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC
Wesley J. Smith, J.D., Special Consultant to the CBC