Canada
Wesley Smith, special consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture and a bioethics attorney, has reported that the College of Physicians and Surgeons of British Columbia has rendered an opinion that one can qualify to be killed legally by a doctor by “starving oneself into an irremediable medical condition,” or VSED (voluntary stop eating and drinking). In order to hasten the procedure along, a doctor could simply “palliate the symptoms of starvation and dehydration to assist the patient in destroying their own vitality,” at which time they would be ready for MAID (Medical assistance in dying), the Canadian euphemism for doctor-assisted suicide. As Smith points out, the VSED “way station” is just a temporary measure. It will quickly be ascertained by the courts and public opinion that “forcing” people to starve themselves in order to qualify for medical assisted suicide would be “cruel;” at that point, VSED will be done away with, and “death-on-demand” will ensue.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel (Calgary Nose Hill) received the second annual LGBTory Outreach Award last month. The organization of LGBQT Conservative and Progressive Conservatives said on its website that Rempel is being honoured for “her outreach to Canada’s LGBT community and her important works of advocacy on behalf of disadvantaged and threatened minorities around the world.” At the Vancouver policy convention in 2016, Rempel was one of the leading advocates to remove the traditional definition of marriage from the Conservative party’s policy book.
An assisted-killing clinic, MAID House, is lobbying the Ontario government to bankroll its death house, using cozy, comforting words and economical claptrap to ensure the taxpayers that it is in the best interest of everyone. Those being put to death will be in a “safe space” where their death is assisted by those who care; overcrowding in hospitals will be alleviated; and the taxpayer will find satisfaction in a government that is serious about debt.
United States
The U.S. records almost 45,000 deaths by suicide each year, seven out of ten by white males. This does not include the so-called “slow suicides” from prescription-drug overdose, alcohol-related alcohol liver failure, and road accidents linked to alcohol abuse, again prevalent among American white males. In contrast, Germany, the U.K., France and Sweden show holding steady or declining statistics. Princeton researchers call these “deaths of despair,” and trace the causes to various social problems, especially unemployment. They go further and suggest that the suicide rates, in many cases, stem from breakdown of the family, instability in finding work, and lack of extended family support. But Fr. Dwight Longnecker takes a theological approach. In the online publication The Imaginative Conservativehe writes that “despair is a lack of hope.” Many people survive divorce, unemployment and instability; they don’t despair and commit suicide. Rather he points to atheism: “not an intellectual rejection of religion, but real, terrible existential isolation: the loneliness of existence without anyone else and especially without God… Despair can only turn to hope when enough people turn to God and turn to one another in love and concern … by rebuilding, brick by brick, faith, the family, the church and the community.”
LifeSiteNewsposted a video on April 6 in which Abby Johnson, a former abortion worker before founding the pro-life ministry And Then There Was None, dedicated to helping abortion workers leave the industry, talks about her life as an abortion worker and subsequent conversion to pro-life. She maintains that those who work in the abortion industry, whom she calls victimizers, are in need of our prayers and help to leave that death environment. She also introduces Adrienne Moton, who was arrested and imprisoned for assisting in the atrocities at the Gosnell abortuary. Adrienne is now out of prison and working for pro-life, declaring that the best day of her life was when she was arrested. As Moton says, “I just felt peaceful. I don’t have to hide anymore.”
International
Australian euthanasia advocate Philip Nitschke has created a suicide machine that can be manufactured on so-called 3D printers. The “Sarco” – short for sarcophagus – is a detachable coffin with a nitrogen container and it is designed to “provide people with a death when they wish to die” the euthanasia doctor told the Agence-France Presse. Nitschke said he has provided safeguards including having a psychological test to ensure purchasers were sane and then they would be sent an access code for blueprint designs that could be downloaded to an additive manufacturing printer within 24 hours. If all works as planned, the person will pass out within a minute and die shortly afterward. Nitschke told Newsweekthat the design of the contraption resembles a spaceship because it is intended to give users the feeling they are traveling to the “great beyond.” The Sarco was on display at the Amsterdam Funeral Fair on April 14. Critics worry that the machine will be used in jurisdictions where euthanasia is not legal because it is designed to be built on demand.
The Buckinghamshire Healthcare National Health System Trust in the United Kingdom has appointed Lindsay van Dijk, a humanist, as its lead chaplain. The 28-year-old will oversee a team of three Christian chaplains. Guardiancolumnist Andrew Brown praised the decision saying that it reflects a change in religion, which he says is “not really about belief at all,” but rather “identity, morality, and myths.” Brown argues that chaplains in multifaith societies are merely counsellors who play no spiritual role and therefore van Dijk’s humanism is not only not an impediment but beneficial. But perhaps there is something more to Brown’s analysis of the situation. He clearly dislikes organized religion. He complains that “much of the story of religion” in the past half century is “about the rise of fundamentalism” and their obstinate opposition to the revolutionary changes in “gender roles” including a reluctance to embrace women clergy. It’s strange to make that observation in the United Kingdom. The Church of England began ordaining women ministers in 1994 and female bishops in 2014.
Marcha por la vida2018 took place in hundreds of towns and cities across Argentina on March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation. The march for life was attended by hundreds of thousands of Argentinians, as the government of President Mauricio Maci began debate on a proposal for “legal, free, and safe abortions, despite Macri’s insistence that he is against abortion. There is a number of videos on YouTube showing the massive turnout singing and waving flags and balloons in celebration of life.
The United Kingdom government is temporarily ruling Northern Ireland directly, since N.I.’s two main parties — the unionist DUP and the nationalist Sinn Fein — have not reached an agreement on forming a government. This hiatus is giving U.K. Members of Parliament the opportunity to overturn some of Northern Ireland’s more conservative laws. British Labour MP Conor McGinn says he is “living the message of the Gospel” by introducing a bill to legalize same-sex “marriage” while other MPs want to liberalize the region’s restrictive abortion law. Northern Ireland is the only part of the British Isles not to allow SSM or abortion-on-demand.
Following the creation of anti-free speech bubble zones in several cities in the United Kingdom, the Catholic Herald reports Philip Egan, Catholic bishop of Portsmouth, England, is calling on the pro-life movement to “change tack” in the wake of government attempts to ban pro-life vigils outside abortion clinics. He is asking the priests of his diocese to wear penitential purple vestments each October 23, the day the UK Abortion Actwas passed. He said that British society is entering a “frightening new Dark age” as people abandon faith. “No wonder a death-wish is arising for assisted suicide and euthanasia. We must ask Jesus to help us to reach out in love to those around us, (and) to assist people to develop a personal relationship with God.”
“The future of the pro-life movement is in Africa,” is the title of an article in The Public Discoursewhere Stefano Gennarini discusses how Africans must fight against the neo-colonialist mindset of the West, which pushes its ideology of abortion, sex and contraception on family-friendly Africa. Political and economic influences — including NGOs, the UN, Planned Parenthood and do-gooders like Bill and Melinda Gates—are hitting hard at African society and industry to force Africans to “bring their fertility in line with the rest of the world, through indoctrinating children on sexuality in pre-school, legalizing prostitution, promoting social acceptance of homosexuality, lowering the age of consent to sex, and enabling access to abortion and contraception for children without parental consent.” In other words African children will be “freed” from the guidance of their parents and sex will be detached from marriage and the family.