Displaying items by tag: Euthanasia

The NSW Parliament considers granting a right to assisted dying.  To the old and infirm.  We are killing them off already.

The coming of age of identity politics in Australia and other Western nations, seen in particular during and after debates over abortion, euthanasia and same sex marriage, has ushered in a new era of selective bigotry, demonisation, the "othering" of opponents and censorship.  Not to mention a new prejudice based upon class.  All this has occurred in societies that pride themselves on their liberalism.

The first and principal duty of government is to protect the nation's citizenry.  Political philosophers back as far as Thomas Hobbes have understood this.  When governments embrace the culture of death, epitomised by abortion and euthanasia, they abrogate their most basic responsibility.  Worse, they abandon the most vulnerable in society.  No amount of post-modernist sophistry will ever change this.

A wave of anti-life legislation has been sweeping across the states and territories of Australia.  South Australia, fresh from its political assault on the unborn, and perhaps further emboldened by it, is now setting its sights, again, on the frail aged.  Based on dodgy poll findings.  As is now the norm, the Liberal Party cannot be relied upon to protect life.

The Christian churches, their beliefs, their sacred practices and their pastors are under attack.  From new atheists, secularists, progressives - and from the state itself.  The state's assumption of extraordinary and dictatorial powers during the year of Covid has not been without impact on the Church.  The Covid state has imposed all sorts of restrictions on the faithful.  Caesar has taken more than his due.

2020 was the very worst of times.  A year not to savour but to regret.  What was thought inconceivable a mere twelve months ago is now real.  It can never be inconceivable again.  Barring a miracle or concerted political action by those who resent our loss of freedom, a dystopian future surely awaits us all.

The Covid episode has brought forth many ironies.  One relates to the way we (don't) look after our aged, especially the frail aged.  Many governments have implemented a euthanasia regime, yet pretend to care now for the health of the aged.  But governments have actually abandoned the aged for whom they claim to care in their efforts to place the rest of us under house arrest.  No dignity - anywhere.  It is almost a soft euthanasia program by another name.

French authorities have ignored the UN Disability Committee and have euthanised a French man. Starting more than a week ago, and culminating on Wednesday with his death, doctors decided deliberately to kill Vincent Lambert.

Branka van der Linden writes on Victoria's dystopian assisted-suicide law. This article first appeared on the HOPE: No Euthanasia website and is reproduced here with permission. The architects of Victoria’s euthanasia and assisted suicide legislation have joined together to write a playbook for other states wanting to push through euthanasia and other “social change” laws. The seven “experts” appointed by the Victorian Health Minister to advise on the implementation of euthanasia and assisted suicide are now using that “expertise” to show others how to get public support for “changes to dominant policy and community practices.”

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. (Philippians 2: 3-4)   How has our society arrived the point where wide-spread abortion is not only tolerated but promoted, and a beneficial view of euthanasia is endorsed in parliamentary bills? Why was a romantic view of same-sex marriage given media endorsement and such a prominent focus in the marriage plebiscite and in politics? Why is sexual experimentation promoted, often in the context of unwittingly promoting violence against women through the implicit endorsement of pornography?