Killing Babies In the Netherlands
Some years ago doctors in the Netherlands began killing terminally ill elderly patients (some with, some without, their consent) even though it was against the law. They were never prosecuted. Instead, the law was changed to make what they had been doing legal.
Now, doctors in the Netherlands are killing newborn babies...Not a lot of them...Only a few...So they tell us...And of course we believe them. As history repeats itself we find that killing babies is against the law in the Netherlands. But, once again, rather than prosecuting the doctors the parliament is debating whether to make this "procedure" legal as well.
The doctors have recommended a process of selection they call "the Groningen Protocol." This would involve a "committee" that would be given the authority to give a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" on whether a baby with a terminal or painful condition should live or die. This "protocol" would also extend to any person, child or adult, who is unable to make such a decision for him/herself...such as elderly with dementia, those in comas, uncommunicative persons on life-support, etc.
This reminds me of the jury in California that today began deliberation of whether convicted murderer Scott Peterson should receive the death penalty or not. The difference is that in the Netherlands you don't have to be guilty of anything except the natural effects of age, illness or disability to be put on "trial" for your life by a jury of your peers. It is ironic that the Netherlands takes pride in their high moral position of not allowing the death penalty in criminal cases.
It appears that, in the Netherlands, you can ritually slaughter a movie maker on the street because he has offended your religious sensibilities and not worry about receiving a death sentence. The government will protect your "right to life."
But woe to you who have committed no crime at all except to face a terminal illness with a muddled mind. It appears that, under such circumstances, you have offended society to such a degree that you have been deemed to have forfeited that right. How dare you keep on living! Like Jesus and Barabbas, the innocent dies and the guilty goes free.
If this is what post-Christian European morality leads us to then I think we should think long and hard before we allow this type of thinking to become socially "acceptable and respectable " in America. The "slippery slope" arguement has now been proven true over and over again. Each one of us should challenge, confront and refute this idea whenever and wherever we hear it being suggested or presented in a positive manner.
The one positive note in all this is that some in the Netherlands, apparently, still have enough of a moral compass to have gathered in mass protest against their goverment's consideration of this new policy. Perhaps some of them are old enough to remember when Hitler instituted his own "protocol" for determining who was worth keeping alive and who wasn't.
No true follower of Jesus would ever support the legitimization of anyone determining whether another person, soley for reasons of the status of their health, should live or die. When we submit the value of human life to a tribunal's interpretation of a "protocol" then we have taken the final step in abandoning our God-given, unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Dutch are feasting on "forbidden fruit" and, to their surprise, will wonder why the Garden of Eden has moved so far away. They will probably not even realize that the cherubim with the flaming swords are God's judgment upon their rejection of the very rights and freedoms their deluded minds and corrupted consciences sincerely believe they are defending.
Jewish/Christian tradition claims that Adam and Eve wept as they were cast out of the garden. There will be no hope for the Netherlands until there is a national weeping, mourning and repentence for what they have done. Until then, we will have to do their weeping for them.
Now, doctors in the Netherlands are killing newborn babies...Not a lot of them...Only a few...So they tell us...And of course we believe them. As history repeats itself we find that killing babies is against the law in the Netherlands. But, once again, rather than prosecuting the doctors the parliament is debating whether to make this "procedure" legal as well.
The doctors have recommended a process of selection they call "the Groningen Protocol." This would involve a "committee" that would be given the authority to give a "thumbs up" or a "thumbs down" on whether a baby with a terminal or painful condition should live or die. This "protocol" would also extend to any person, child or adult, who is unable to make such a decision for him/herself...such as elderly with dementia, those in comas, uncommunicative persons on life-support, etc.
This reminds me of the jury in California that today began deliberation of whether convicted murderer Scott Peterson should receive the death penalty or not. The difference is that in the Netherlands you don't have to be guilty of anything except the natural effects of age, illness or disability to be put on "trial" for your life by a jury of your peers. It is ironic that the Netherlands takes pride in their high moral position of not allowing the death penalty in criminal cases.
It appears that, in the Netherlands, you can ritually slaughter a movie maker on the street because he has offended your religious sensibilities and not worry about receiving a death sentence. The government will protect your "right to life."
But woe to you who have committed no crime at all except to face a terminal illness with a muddled mind. It appears that, under such circumstances, you have offended society to such a degree that you have been deemed to have forfeited that right. How dare you keep on living! Like Jesus and Barabbas, the innocent dies and the guilty goes free.
If this is what post-Christian European morality leads us to then I think we should think long and hard before we allow this type of thinking to become socially "acceptable and respectable " in America. The "slippery slope" arguement has now been proven true over and over again. Each one of us should challenge, confront and refute this idea whenever and wherever we hear it being suggested or presented in a positive manner.
The one positive note in all this is that some in the Netherlands, apparently, still have enough of a moral compass to have gathered in mass protest against their goverment's consideration of this new policy. Perhaps some of them are old enough to remember when Hitler instituted his own "protocol" for determining who was worth keeping alive and who wasn't.
No true follower of Jesus would ever support the legitimization of anyone determining whether another person, soley for reasons of the status of their health, should live or die. When we submit the value of human life to a tribunal's interpretation of a "protocol" then we have taken the final step in abandoning our God-given, unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
The Dutch are feasting on "forbidden fruit" and, to their surprise, will wonder why the Garden of Eden has moved so far away. They will probably not even realize that the cherubim with the flaming swords are God's judgment upon their rejection of the very rights and freedoms their deluded minds and corrupted consciences sincerely believe they are defending.
Jewish/Christian tradition claims that Adam and Eve wept as they were cast out of the garden. There will be no hope for the Netherlands until there is a national weeping, mourning and repentence for what they have done. Until then, we will have to do their weeping for them.
posted by Bird of Paradise at 9:53 PM
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