Western Europe Slides Further Toward Pro-Death Culture

Our friends at the Rockford Institute report the following disturbing development in Luxembourg as that tiny nation takes a further step toward euthanasia.  The erosion of faith and an ethic of life in public life leads to such "utilitarian" views and votes as societies lose their way and elevate the expedient over the eternal.

WORLD CONGRESS OF FAMILIES SHOCKED BY VOTE TO LEGALIZE EUTHANASIA IN LUXEMBOURG

World Congress of Families Global Coordinator Larry Jacobs expressed “shock and dismay” over Tuesday’s (Feb. 18, 2008) vote to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Luxembourg. Euthanasia is currently legal only in the Netherlands and Belgium.

“Europe is quickly slipping into a new Dark Age, in the words of Winston Churchill, ‘made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science,’” Jacobs observed.

The Luxembourg parliament voted 30 to 28 to allow so-called consensual euthanasia, over the objections of Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker and his Christian Social Party.

Proponents are in the process of establishing “guidelines” for euthanasia in Luxembourg. While news sources have reported that the law would apply to the terminally ill, Alex Schadenberg of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition says the bill would also allow individuals with “grave and incurable” conditions to be euthanized.

Obviously, a person can have a condition that’s “grave and incurable,” but not life-threatening.

“Euthanasia proponents always assure us that the act will be voluntary,” Jacobs observed.  “But the devil is in the details. Frequently, if a patient is unable to indicate consent, this life-or-death decision is made for them by a relative or a physician.”

A 2005 report by the Dutch government concluded that in 2004 there were an estimated 550 killings of individuals who were comatose or otherwise unresponsive in the country.

The Luxembourg bill has gone through first reading. A final vote will come after procedures to implement the measure are devised.

“We hope parliamentarians will have second thoughts about unleashing this lethal measure on the people they serve,” Jacobs declared.

And so does Veritas Rex.

Comments

[Chris Douglas]

Curt, I'm interested in this post. I come from a strain of thinking that says there are many things more important than life.

The Founding Fathers, whom we all have cited in various ways in the last few posts here, pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to pursue a separation from England and political independence. Should they not have? Were their priorities out of whack? Should they have instead remained cocooned, preserving life against every possible threat?

Christopher Columbus took off across the seas in contravention to prevailing belief that the earth was flat, risking his life and the lives of his crew, many of whom did indeed lose theirs, to find a cheaper route to India. Should he not have?

Our space program has involved the loss of life after life, each of which was sacrificed in a calculated gamble, but an intent to expand our horizons beyond this globe. Should these astronauts have been restrained, consigned to their chairs at home lest they inadvertently lose their lives?

My forebears trekked across the Cumberland Gap into Kentucky to break the bonds of a confined coastal economy and seek their fortune in dangerous wilds. Should they not have? Should they have remained cooped up on the coasts, carefully preserving their lives against risk?

When I joined the military, I did so in the understanding that I might one day give my life in a conflagration in which American liberty was set against communist expansion. Should I not have? Should we all have disarmed, turned the other cheek, and submitted our fate and fortune to Soviet Commissars in exchange for a guarantee of life (however meaningless that guarantee, granted, might have been)?

Should we not prescribe a 20 mile an hour speed limit? Ban flight? Insist that no one on a building or in a tree climb higher than, say, 6 feet? Prohibit scuba diving, hang gliding, and road racing?

[Chris Douglas]

These are serious questions, Curt, not designed to be cute. The majority of the population at present tends to believe that whatever their views of the value of life, they are secondary to the freedom of the mother to make a determination about the value of the life in the womb.

Those who oppose allowing women that freedom must contend with the fact that the majority of the population seems to believe there may be things more important than life itself.

This is a website that is theological in intent, so a conversation on this point is worthy. The examples above are intended to draw you out on this topic... do you believe that in none of them exists the possibility that something is more important than life? In any? which and why?

Because it seems to me that until you address this issue head on, you are bound to discover that Americans nod about being "pro-life" but in the privacy of their own thoughts find exceptions which they are unwilling to verbalize for fear of being attacked as "pro-death". So the field is clear for you politically, but not so much in the thoughts of your fellow citizens.

This is an opportunity for you to shed light on the question of the priority of life over the priorities that mankind has forever been asserting in its stead.

[Kenn Gividen]

Once, while listening to a gospel music station, I was impressed with the evangelical emphasis on death. It seemed every song was about longing for heaven.

Odd, then, that evangelicals are concerned for lives of innocents but wish for themselves to cross the chilly Jordan.

Odder still is the atheist perspective.

Upon death we revert to the state of preconsiousness -- or nothingness. Not only does the universe cease to exist but there is no memory of it ever having existed. All is erased. With that gloom perspective one would think that atheists would be the most adament supporters of life.

[Chris Douglas]

Kenn, mankind seems to find meaning in life through through billions of personal variations on millions(?) of informal sects of thousands of formal religious divisions of a hundreds of minor religions and a few major ones.

I know many good people who seem to find meaning in their lives regardless of their view either of what preceded or what follows.

The impact of religious (including Christian) philosophy regarding life after death is often unpredictable. The very belief that impels many to an evangelical perspective -- personal salvation exclusive to those who adopt Christian faith and to no one else -- I observe repels others who think it would be the sign of a God so unjust as to be incomprehensible.

It seems to me that we can fully understand only our own personal outlook on meaning, informed only by our own faith and our own view of eternity. As to what other good people truly require for meaning, we can because of our own faith assume or impose, but in the end only speculate and, hopefully, respect.

[Curt Smith]

Chris -- This post is about the legalization of so-called mercy killings. If given final approval, Lexembourg would join Belgium and the Netherlands as the third nation in the world where someone made in the image and likeness of God could be put to death for being an inconvenience or a drain on society. I find that troubling as a human being, let alone as a Christian.

But regarding all these different ethical,philosophical and religious viewpoints, how do you sort them all out? I mean -- they can't all be true? There are competing truth claims. Christianity AND Islam cannot both be true. Hindiusm and Christian Science cannot both be true.

It is the name as well as the spirit of this blog to pursue truth. I do agree some things are worth dying for. I also believe with all my heart, mind, soul and strength that upon my death, I am going to a better place where Jesus Christ is glorified and God the Father is visibile and radiant always. That is my ultimate truth, and because I believe that I value all life, not just "productive and vibrant" life.

[Chris Douglas]

But Curt, I suspect the drive in those countries is not at all about being an inconvenience or drain on society; I suspect it is about a loss of quality and dignity of life so far as to render it possibly far, far distant from the image and likeness of God.

To say that we are made in the image and likeness of God, then, what do you mean? Do you mean that God actually looks like us... or we like Him? I don't think that's what you mean....

[kevin f]

Curt,
based on your above statement, is it safe to assume you are against the death penalty?

[Chris Douglas]

Curt, regarding how you sort them all out, that's an excellent question to which no answer is readily apparent.

I think the teachings of Jesus Christ are compelling, but His most adamant followers so frequently seem to me be the least in touch with His teachings. It seems often to me that those who have the humility to doubt and to question their faith, and therefore seek constantly to understand, are sometimes the most Christ-like in bearing and compassion for others.

Either they are all true (how can they be?), or the diversity and intensity of faiths all over the Globe reveal that mankind is capable of grasping fervently to falsehood. There are Christians, in my opinion, who are earnest and open minded in their faith, and arrive at it sometimes with difficulty.

There are others who seem to me to have grasped Christianity with the same certainty and fervor with which I in my travels have witnessed some utter falsehoods grasped, and that these personalities then are most inclined to impose their certainties upon all. In my opinion, they are often little different than cultists, having the nature merely of strong magnets that have been drawn to the nearest steel.

[Kenn Gividen]

Chris,

Chrisianity has been described as history's most successful cult.

[kevin f]

No answer on my death penalty question. Thought so.