Thread by rhema.
And these secularist religions have their violent radicals, too. The Earth Liberation Front, a little irony challenged, has burned Hummers in an attempt to save the Earth from air pollution and deadly carbon. And some abortion-stalwarts say they’ll give up their lives to insure the right of every woman to procure violent death within her own womb. Antonia Senior of in the Times of London, who–to her immense credit–is utterly honest about what abortion is and does, visits the Tower of London; after pondering martyrdom, Senior identifies what she will not die for (dolphins, England) and writes:
“I could think of one cause I would stake my life on: a woman’s right to be educated, to have a life beyond the home and to be allowed by law and custom to order her own life as she chooses. And that includes complete control over her own fertility.”
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Any other conclusion is a convenient lie that we on the pro-choice side of the debate tell ourselves to make us feel better about the action of taking a life. That little seahorse shape floating in a willing womb is a growing miracle of life. In a resentful womb it is not a life, but a foetus — and thus killable.
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As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil. The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Two threads by me.
Ludwig Minelli, the head of Dignitas, is 77. A trained lawyer, he founded the assisted suicide organisation 12 years ago.
The organisation, whose slogan is '"live with dignity, die with dignity", has helped over 1,000 people to die.
Many of them are people who have travelled to Switzerland because assisted suicide is not permitted in their own countries.
Dignitas has the status of an association under Swiss law, with two active members, Mr Minelli and one other.
The identity of the other member has not been revealed.
These two active members control the policy and financing of Dignitas.
Question: You have been described as a man on a mission, a man on a crusade...
I wouldn't say a crusade but I am persuaded that we have to struggle in order to implement the last human right in our societies. And the last human right is the right to make a decision on one's own end, and the possibility to have this end without risk and without pain.
Many people would say though that if there are to be organisations which organise assisted suicide that there should be some rules around how they function.
Well there are rules but there are no state laws. We have our own rules and the first rule is that we never precipitate an assisted suicide. Every step must be initiated by the member and not by us. And the third rule is that we are always first looking whether we will be able to help someone to continue with life rather than to end life.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
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July 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A letter written by Aycke Smook, a retired physician from Bergen Am Zee in the Netherlands, was published on the euthanasia lobby listserve to commemorate the death of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, a retired Dutch Prosecutor who had worked to change the euthanasia laws in the Netherlands.
The letter explains how Jitta and Smook worked together to change the Dutch laws by establishing euthanasia protocols in the hospital, by undermining the Dutch euthanasia law and by prosecuting cases that were designed to be struck down by the courts to establish precedents that allowed euthanasia.
Dr. Smook started the article from July 6, 2010 by stating:
I just attended the cremation of Adelbert Josephus Jitta, (Sept 24, 1938 to June 30, 2010).
He was one of the most important protagonists of the Dutch law on euthanasia as a member of D66, a liberal/democratic party.
When he was a prosecutor in Alkmaar, we met each other during a meeting about reporting euthanasia cases in our hospital. Fortunately the board of the hospital was not against euthanasia, because they said that it was a medical decision with legal aspects. This was in the early eighties.
It took us some time and sometimes a keen struggle to get a standard formal procedure, after some prosecutions in one of which he had to prosecute me!
When he informed about that, he said that he had asked one of his colleagues to handle the case and that he already had asked Eugene Sutorius to defend me. After two years of uncertainty and the expense of 40,000 guilders, first paid by the NVVE, later by my insurance company, I was cleared.
And so by trial and error, we succeeded in the end to lay the foundation for our law in the Netherlands in 2002.
It was not an easy period for both of us, working in our totally different disciplines. The good thing of it was that from then on we could openly speak about euthanasia.
Dr. Smook then explains some of the cases Jitta was involved with. Dr. Smook stated:
When I started as a surgeon treating patients with cancer, we, the head nurse of the department and I gave the last medication behind closed doors on explicit demand of the patient. It was tricky but we had a good feeling about it, because in this way we could carry out the last wish of the patient.
After Adelbert and I started working on a new hospital euthanasia protocol, we once had a patient in the hospital who wanted euthanasia. But alas, it was during the weekend and he (Adelbert) and his family were out sailing and since this happened before the mobile telephone era I could not reach him. Half an hour after we had reported, as agreed, the euthanasia to the local coroner, the police came bursting in the department.
I think you can imagine the dreadful shock this created on all the nurses, patients and family around us. Adelbert had not yet informed all his colleagues and other people concerned. I was completely overwhelmed and very angry, but after an ample discussion and a good glass of wine, we could continue and refine the protocol.
The letter then explains his involvement with the euthanasia lobby. Dr. Smook writes:
He also was a speaker at the Maastricht conference in 1990 and at the WF (World Federation) meeting in Melbourne. When he stepped down as a prosecutor, he strengthened the board of NVVE. After his retirement he went on with his activities on euthanasia in the member support group of NVVE.
He was a widower for about two years now, which he found hard to accept. When he fell ill, he could take advantage of his own success for which he fought for years in the end.
Many people wonder what happened in the Netherlands. Why would a country that courageously opposed the Nazis and which refused to institute the T4 euthanasia program institute a wide open system of euthanasia that even accepts the euthanasia of newborn infants with disabilities through the Groningen Protocol, and the euthanasia of people with mental illness and depression?
The answer is that it was planned by a small group of people who were willing to put their professional lives on the line.
Reversing the cultural trend will likely require the same commitment.