Every so often, a cultural moment exposes something far deeper than a policy disagreement. That happened again recently when comments from Stranger Things actress Maya Hawke resurfaced online — remarks she made several years ago but which gained renewed attention amid the show's continued popularity.
Appearing on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon in 2022, Hawke reflected on her parents' decision to abort a sibling earlier in their lives. She expressed gratitude for that choice, explaining that without it she "wouldn't exist," wouldn't have become who she is, and wouldn't have enjoyed the career she now has. Abortion access, she said, "shapes futures, saves lives, and protects our ability to decide who we get to be."
Hawke's comments may sound reflective, even humane. But they rest on a moral vision that does not remain abstract. When that logic is lived out consistently, it produces moments like this.
What we are witnessing is not a policy dispute, but a culture learning to celebrate death in the name of self-determination.
What unites them is not a legal argument or a political slogan. It is something far deeper and far more tragic. It's a vision of the self as sovereign, the child as an obstacle, and death as a legitimate means of preserving the life we want.
Scripture has a word for this condition. Idolatry.
It is the replacement of the Creator with the self, the reordering of reality around our own desires. And Scripture is unambiguous about where that path leads:
There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death.(Proverbs 14:12)
What makes these testimonies so unsettling is not simply their conclusions, but how normal they sound in a culture that has lost its moral bearings. Exterminating "unwanted" children is no longer described as tragic or desperate. It is narrated as liberation, health care, as an act of self-love.
And in some cases, it is even toasted with champagne.
This is what happens when we depart from the truth God has revealed and turn inward as the final authority.
From the opening chapters of Genesis, Scripture insists that life is not ours to define or discard. Human beings are not self-created projects but image-bearers, knit together by God Himself (Psalm 139:13 - 16). Children are not interruptions to meaning; they are gifts entrusted by the Creator (Psalm 127:3). And our lives do not belong to us alone.
But when God is pushed out of the moral universe, Satan rushes in to fill the vacuum with something far more appealing to us: Ourselves.
The serpent's ancient lie, "You will be like God" (Genesis 3:5) still works because it flatters our desire for control. Who do I get to be? What future do I want? What must be removed, silenced, or eliminated to protect my autonomy?
Notice how consistently the language turns inward. My career. My goals. My body. My readiness. Even something as timelessly sacred as motherhood is framed not as a calling or blessing, but as a project valuable only because it was optional.
This is not freedom. It is captivity disguised as choice.
Jesus warned that when we seek to save our lives on our own terms, we end up losing them (Luke 9:24). A culture that trains people to see inconvenient life as expendable eventually loses the ability to recognize life as sacred at all. Death, once sanitized and sentimentalized, no longer horrifies us. It becomes routine.
And this is where Satan always leads. Cunning enough not to display his wares in the form of obvious cruelty, he is the master of moral inversion - calling evil good and good evil (Isaiah 5:20).
He does not need us to hate children, just simply to love ourselves more.
God offers a better approach.
He does not promise a life free from cost, inconvenience, or suffering. He promises something better. Truth. Redemption. A kingdom where the weak are protected, the unseen are known, and every life is received as the divine gift it is.
When a society learns to celebrate death, it is not progressing. It is unraveling.
Only God's wisdom can rescue us from the lie that is pulling the string. The lie that says we are God.
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Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Not the Bee or any of its affiliates.
