Dr. C. Everett Koop, surgeon general under President Reagan, passed away on February 25. In 1989 I wrote an opinion piece on Dr. Koop’s influence as a Christian public figure.
Dr. Koop: A Christian Who Makes a Difference
By Donald P. Shoemaker
Long Beach Press-Telegram
January 21, 1989
Later this year the term of Surgeon General C. Everett Koop will end. Since Sunday is the 16th anniversary of the tragic and infamous U.S. Supreme Court Roe v. Wade abortion decision, it is appropriate to recall the service Dr. Koop has rendered as a Christian servant to society.
Prior to becoming surgeon general, Dr. Koop had already established himself as a national figure. He was well known for his skills in corrective surgery for birth defects. He was also well known for his strong viewpoints against abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. These were expressed in his book The Right to Live, The Right to Die. Dr. Koop believed that the ethical climate of permissive abortion would lead to a climate diminishing the value of the medically dependent newborn and elderly.
By the late 1970s, Dr. Koop was working increasingly with the “Right to Life” movement. He accepted my invitation for him to serve on the Board of Reference for the Christian right-to-life ministry “Crusade for Life.” In 1979 I had the privilege of dining with him and his wife when he delivered a keynote address to the National Right to life Convention.
Also in 1979 Dr. Koop co-authored, with the late Christian apologist Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, the pro-life Christian book Whatever Happened to the Human Race? Drs. Koop and Schaeffer produced a film series on the book’s themes and lectured nationwide.
When President Reagan nominated Dr. Koop to be surgeon general, the doctor’s anti-abortion views led to a stormy confirmation struggle with the Senate which dragged on for months. Once confirmed, Dr. Koop worked for regulations to provide lifesaving treatment for severely handicapped infants and launched a strong anti-smoking campaign.
Then came the AIDS crisis and Dr. Koop sailed into the center of controversy once again. He called for early sex education and for condom use as a means (though less desirous than abstinence or monogamous relationships) to stem the spread of the AIDS virus. Suddenly, Dr. Koop found himself appreciated by former enemies and deplored by former supporters among the “religious right.”
His critics saw his actions, typified in his AIDS report mailed nationwide, as moral compromise or even capitulation. In my opinion, the critics failed to grapple adequately with the problem of communicating values into a world that often rejects the better solutions. An “all or nothing” attitude toward ethical engagement will probably result in “nothing” and will have little social impact.
Dr. Koop saw himself as the nation’s chief health officer, not as a “chaplain,” and said, “My message is a perfectly moral one. But everybody isn’t moral and everybody isn’t Christian. I cannot let those people go down the drain because they do not agree with me.”
As this term of service enters its final year, he has started a new crusade against domestic violence.
I look back over his years of service in and out of government and see Dr. Koop as an outstanding model of Christian commitment to public life. He reflects on his public service this way: “My thrust has been…that you really can’t separate your practice from your faith. And I’m serving the Lord for these eight years as the surgeon general. I do it with personal honesty and integrity to the best of my ability. And my personal honesty and integrity are based upon my Christian beliefs.”
The world needs thousand more like Dr. Koop.