Straight thoughts 126

December 1, 2004

Today the Globe and Mail (G&M) posted the following poll online: “In your opinion, is the Netherlands on the right track in allowing medical teams and parents to jointly decide to end the lives of terminally ill newborns?”

The significance of this poll is very serious.

It is not because of what is happening in Holland: Holland “slippery slope” of moral judgment is already on a “vertical fall”.

It is not because of the G&M is even asking the question: The media will do anything to foment the destructionist side of society. Their relativistic approach gives more importance to today’s poll than to the commandments of a four thousand year old Judeo-Christian tradition that says: “Do not kill”.

It is not even because over 75% of the respondents are in FAVOUR of killing newborns: The G&M readership is already sold on a culture of death based on a "made in Canada morality".

The significance is that the term “terminally ill” is used to semantically infiltrate the thought of ordinary people. A more complete wording for the proposed Dutch legislation: “ending the life of infants with incurable diseases and extreme deformities when there is no prospect for improvement and parents think it is best” better illustrates the issue.

There is no doubt in my mind that this legislation, if it came to pass in Holland, would eventually be used to kill all infants who are "unwanted." Do not think that I am exaggerating: it has already happened with abortion in Canada: After a legislation was introduced in the seventies to “terminate pregnancies which threatened the life or health of the mother, when a committee of doctors deems the procedure required,” in the eighties Canada was left without any protection for the unborn whatsoever, at any stage of development.

The current issue in Holland is ”whether or not to kill babies born with deformities”. The G&M makes it an even broader issue: Whether a legal license can be issued in Canada to kill anyone if, in the opinion of someone else, his/her life is not worth living because of “terminal illness”.

The advocates for the handicapped against euthanasia know how wide-ranging and adaptable the term “terminally ill” is: It has never been medically defined; Its time frame is open-ended; Its causes include natural causes; It could be interpreted to include all of us, as all of us are destined to die for one reason or another within a certain time frame!

In the abortion and redefinition of marriage issues, common terms, such as “choice” and “gay” became the battleground. Now “terminally” meaning “within a certain time frame” is conveying the image of a negative, unbearable “condition”, not a sickness (the word “condition” itself is now used to mean a health problem).

Babies with deformities, including simple correctable ones, are the current target. Unwanted babies is the next target (Legislation for this purpose has already been advocated in France). Seniors, handicapped and mentally unstable will be following, in the queue to the killing mill.

It is not difficult to imagine Christians, the defenders of a “higher authority", the politically incorrect and the undesirable next, until the “eugenics” secular humanistic philosophy would have prevailed.

The “terminally ill" semantics epitomizes and defines one side of the culture war: the culture of death.

Canadians do not seem able to recognize the terms of engagement, mostly because no-one in the media and in public life can, or has the courage to speak out.

We will.