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Home » Publications » Free Presbyterian Magazine » 1999 » April 1999 » Notes and Comments

Notes and Comments

Controlled by a corrupt Europe Union
THE headline said it all: “Something rotten at the heart of Europe.” The revelations of fraud in the European Commission, and the conclusions of the report of “independent experts” that it was guilty of nepotism, and mismanagement, confirm once again the danger that our nation is in on account of being entangled in this godless and corrupt confederacy. The signs have been writ large for a long time. Not only should there be no further integration of our nation with Europe but steps should be taken also to disengage from the alarming control which the EU exercises over us.

The English Churchman reports that in a debate at Cambridge on the the EU ‘Corpus Juris’ proposals (the declared aim of which is the formation of a “future European criminal code”), “the speaker Torquil Dick-Erikson warned the meeting that these ideas, now being floated by leading EU figures, could be the ‘thin end of the wedge’ leading the UK back to the legal system which operated under the old Holy Roman Empire, and which led directly to the Inquisition.” He meant the danger of the prosecutors and judges of defendants being, in effect, one and the same. If the Corpus Juris scheme was adopted across Europe, he warned, it would lead to the eventual replacement of the British criminal justice system by an EU wide prosecution system, headed by a European Public Prosecutor, and to trials by “professional judges” and not by juries.

With European Parliament elections due to take place in June, it would be our wisdom to consider what might be done towards disengaging the nation from the EU as well as to prevent further integration. In a letter to the English Churchman, Rev. David Carson says that Christians ought to be aware of “the implications of the European Union and to vote for those whose objective is to disentangle the UK from the tentacles of the Brussels bureaucracy. This time round, there is an opportunity to vote for a party whose sole aim is to get Britain out of the European Union. That party is The United Kingdom Independence Party. They are fielding a full slate of candidates. . . Because the European elections are to be fought on a proportional representation basis there is every expectation that a number of UKIP candidates will be returned. They are pledged to take their seats and expose all the underhand and evil machinations of the Brussels set-up. I trust that your readers will give due consideration to this matter and act through the ballot box to save our land from the Papist dominated European Union.”

Australian television advertisements for euthanasia
Permission has been given in Australia to broadcast television advertisements advocating euthanasia. The adverts feature a 54-year-old woman with bladder cancer who speaks of her wish for a painless and dignified death. “I don’t want to have to kill myself but, if nobody can help me, I’m going to have to,” she says. We have every sympathy for those who suffer, especially those who have to endure severe pain. But none of us has any right to end their own lives or the lives of others. Besides, much can to be done to alleviate suffering. And the word dignified is a totally inappropriate word to describe death by suicide or by euthanasia, when a soul is launched precipitately into eternity. The time of death may safely be left in the hand of God.

Incredibly, the general manager of the Federation of Australian Commercial Television Stations claimed it was an easy decision to allow the adverts to be broadcast. “We took the view,” he claimed, “that it’s not [encouraging suicide]… What it’s encouraging is a change to the law.” Human law can indeed be changed, but God’s law cannot. “Thou shalt not kill,” is a precept of universal validity. And the law of God is good; it is good for us to keep to it. We can be quite certain that if society departs from this law, it will suffer for it. Holland at the present time is experiencing this; because of the increasing prevalence of euthanasia, patients are losing confidence that medical practitioners will do all that is reasonable to keep them alive even in the absence of a request for euthanasia.

In 1996 Australia’s Northern Territory approved a law permitting medically assisted euthanasia. Thankfully the federal parliament in Canberra vetoed the law six months later. And the Australian health minister reacted to news of the adverts by repeating what was described as “the Government’s hard-line stance against euthanasia”. Meanwhile pro-euthanasia bills in three Australian states are foundering because they lack support from major parties. The pity is that anyone in Australia was prepared to present such bills. At one time, however irreligious many people were, the biblical perspective on life and death so influenced the English-speaking world that no one would ever have thought of asking any parliament to legalise murder. There can be no question about the matter: euthanasia is murder.
K.D.M

Return to Table of Contents for The Free Presbyterian Magazine – April 1999

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