{"id":145773,"date":"2024-12-03T13:08:40","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T13:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/?p=145773"},"modified":"2024-12-03T13:08:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T13:08:40","slug":"an-inspirational-message-for-the-month-of-december-2024-euthanasia-and-the-culture-of-death-by-charles-schokman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/websitedesigns.com.au\/elankanew\/an-inspirational-message-for-the-month-of-december-2024-euthanasia-and-the-culture-of-death-by-charles-schokman\/","title":{"rendered":"An Inspirational Message for the Month of December 2024 – Euthanasia and the Culture of Death \u2013 By Charles Schokman"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Inspirational Message for the Month of December 2024 – Euthanasia and the Culture of Death \u2013 By Charles Schokman<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

Job said, \u201cNaked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart.\u00a0The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away<\/b>; may the name of the Lord be praised.\u201d\u00a0Job 1:21\u00a0NIV.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"PRINCE<\/a><\/p>\n

Image Source :\u00a0eastleighcarehomes<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Letter to A Post Christian Nation \u00a0\u2013 Euthanasia and the Culture of Death<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

We live in a society where governments and most of our establishment elites tell us that the unwanted baby\u2019s life is not worth living and so we should facilitate ending her life. This week we look at the other end of the spectrum. The question of euthanasia. This is the latest issue which \u2018progressives\u2019 are seeking to impose on all of Western society. The UK parliament is about to have yet another attempt to introduce \u2018assisted dying\u2019. All Australian states now permit euthanasia \u2013 and I can personally testify just how devastating it is. The pressure put on elderly people and the disabled, the pressure put on medical staff and care organisations \u2013 is incredible. I remember during covid, the week that Queensland announced it was closing its borders in order to \u2018protect the elderly and the weak\u2019. That same week the State government also announced it was introducing a euthanasia bill which would kill the elderly and the weak! That is the confused state of a society that has lost its moral anchors.<\/span><\/p>\n

Euthanasia is actually a complex question. A few years ago, I was seriously ill in a hospital intensive care unit, and was not expected to live \u2013 or if I did, to have a good quality of life. As I was in and out of a coma my wife suggested to our teenage daughter that she should bring some of her schoolwork in to tell me what she was doing. The nurses were horrified to hear her reading out to her seriously ill dad her latest essay on \u2018mercy killing\u2019!<\/span><\/p>\n

Note again how those who seek to influence us \u2013 seek to change and control the language. Mercy killing gets changed to medically assisted suicide, and then to euthanasia and now it is called \u2018assisted dying\u2019. When I finish writing this, I am going to visit a woman in hospital who has only a short time to live. To put it bluntly \u2013 she is dying. And she knows it. The medical staff, through palliative care, are assisting her in dying. They are not killing her. To ask them to do so would be a cruel and wicked thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Hippocratic Oath, which was the oath for doctors, is still taken today in some form by doctors in many countries. The original oath was strongly against euthanasia \u2013 a doctor should never \u201cgive a deadly drug to anybody if asked for it, nor\u2026make a suggestion to this effect.\u201d This was actually a radical position at the time because in the Greco\/Roman\/Pagan culture it was normal for doctors to take part in euthanasia.<\/span><\/p>\n

As I have pointed out before \u2013 and will continue to point out again and again \u2013 our \u2018progressive\u2019 society is not progressing at all \u2013 it is regressing to the Greco\/Roman\/Pagan view of the world. A world where the life of the sick, elderly and disabled is considered to be worthless \u2013 and an unnecessary burden on the rest of society.<\/span><\/p>\n

The argument for euthanasia is quite simple. The first is compassion. Anyone who has sat with a loved one as they have died a painful death surely longs for them to be put out of their misery. The argument is that you wouldn\u2019t treat a dog that way \u2013 we all want to prevent needless suffering.<\/span>
\nThe other main argument is about autonomy. Surely, we should have control of our own bodies and especially when we die. I once debated a top government official at a University in Scotland over the issue of euthanasia. The motion he wanted, and got, was \u201cthis house believes that a person has the right to die a decent death at the time and place of their own choosing\u201d. Again, it all seems so neat, simple and obvious.<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet it just ain\u2019t that simple.<\/span><\/p>\n

In an ideal world where there were no pressures on the health services because of finances, no pressures on the elderly because of children\u2019s inheritance and where all doctors, relatives and hospital administrators were honest, truthful and without fault, then perhaps a case could be made for euthanasia. But we don\u2019t live in that world.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to this human beings are not dogs to be put down. Human beings are more than animals and we are more than (in the words of Bertrand Russell) \u2018a blob of carbon floating from one meaningless existence to another\u2019. We are animals. But we are more than animals. We are creatures made in the image of God. He gives us life and we do not have the right to take it away \u2013 except in the most extreme of circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n

As regards autonomy \u2013 as I mentioned several years ago, I was in a coma, and I most certainly did not have dominion over my own body. I am thankful that those who did have some degree of control (the medical staff) are still part of a culture where human life is considered sacred and precious and where those who want absolute dominion to have not yet achieved their goal of replacing a Christian view of morality with a pagan one or a materialist view.<\/span><\/p>\n

What about the issue of pain? In my role as a minister, I work with many doctors and health care providers, I spend a great deal of time with the terminally ill and also with the disabled. I remember visiting one dying cancer patient in a hospice, just before I was due to speak on this subject. Although she was in a great deal of pain, she pleaded with me not to let people use her pain as an excuse for killing people. Astonishingly, despite a really bad prognosis, she is still alive today, married and with children. I shudder to think of what might have been if euthanasia had been available then. After I visited her, I spoke at an amazing debate in front of several hundred medical students \u2013 each side of the debate had a doctor, a clergyman, a politician and a philosopher. The doctor in favour of abortion was actually a gynaecologist. Our doctor was a palliative care specialist and because his talk with \u201cI have been at over 7,000 death beds, and in very few instances have I been asked to take life. When I have been asked, I explained how we can provide people with good pain reduction and palliative care, which satisfied nearly all of them\u201d. That is where our emphasis should lie \u2013 on great palliative care.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is another strong argument against euthanasia. It will inevitably just be the first step on a very slippery slope which leads down to Hell. The right to die will soon become a duty to die. And if you doubt that look at what has happened in countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Canada \u2013 and how the Greens in Australia already want to extend our euthanasia laws. Voluntary euthanasia soon leads to involuntary euthanasia. In Belgium and the Netherlands children can be euthanised \u2013 and, as in Canada, people with mental illness can be euthanised as well. Watch this sad story about Margaret whose mother was euthanised without request.<\/span><\/p>\n