Euthanasia and Abortion
FRD
Euthanasia is advocated regularly in the United Kingdom, and emotive cases are highlighted to support the campaigns for its legalisation. One fears that it is a matter of time before those in favour of “mercy killing”, as it is sometimes called, will gain a majority in the legislatures of our country. By looking at the history of euthanasia elsewhere, one can see that, however sincere its proponents may appear, the legalisation of euthanasia would be the start of a sinful slippery slope calling further judgements from the Most High upon us.
Euthanasia was legalised in Belgium in 2002. In 2014 the law was expanded to permit the euthanasia of “emancipated minors” (emancipated children are allowed legally to make decisions on their own behalf). Following this change, two children, aged 9 and 11, were at their own request, killed by doctors. In January 2020 two doctors and a psychiatrist were alleged to have poisoned a 38-year-old woman. She had persuaded them that she was suffering unbearably and incurably from Asperger’s syndrome. Her sisters argued that she did not suffer from this condition and had never received treatment for it, and therefore it was impossible for the doctors to have established whether it was unbearable and incurable. The sisters claimed the woman was simply upset about the breakdown of a relationship. The jury found the doctors had not broken the law and they were acquitted of murder.
Official figures have revealed that euthanasia deaths in Belgium have more than doubled in the past decade. Benoit Beuslinck, a consultant oncologist, has reported that an increasing number of nurses and social workers, specialists in the treatment of dying patients, are leaving the profession because hospital palliative care units are being turned into “houses of euthanasia”.
A survey carried out in Belgium by a medical journal (Acta Obstetricia et Gynecologica Scandinavica) found that health care professionals practising late terminations of pregnancies were 95.6% in favour of late abortions for serious (but not lethal) foetal conditions. Even more disturbing is the fact that 90% of those surveyed agreed that in neonatal cases where new-borns up to 4 weeks old are suffering from a serious (non-lethal) condition, it would be acceptable to administer drugs with the explicit intention of ending life.
This potential practice of infanticide is a progression from accepting the “right” to abort a child in the womb right up until the moment of birth. Those who support and practise euthanasia probably regard the extinction of a “damaged” baby as the next logical step. Euthanasia and abortion are gruesome and wicked twins.
How low we have sunk! Scripture reminds us: “Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is His reward” (Ps 127:3). And the Sixth Commandment tells us, “Thou shalt not kill”.
Genetic Entropy
DWBS
The idea of entropy (or disorder) is that things in physics and nature have a natural tendency to become disordered. The glass falls to the ground and breaks into fragments. The milk spills and is lost. The old book crumbles to dust. The processes do not naturally move in the opposite direction. In the words of the famous Second Law of Thermodynamics, “entropy (or disorder) tends to increase”.
The idea of genetic entropy is that a similar phenomenon can be observed in cells and organisms (living creatures). When a cell or a creature reproduces, there are a small number of errors or mutations in the genetic code on each occasion. Possibly these mutations may sometimes have a positive effect in the new cell or creature, but almost always they are neutral or mildly negative, and occasionally very severely negative. Where they are severely negative, the cell or the creature may die, and that is the end of the mutation. If they are positive, the cell or creature may have an advantage over rival cells or creatures, and may survive or reproduce more successfully than they do. To what extent this has contributed to the present diversity of life on earth is a moot point, but certainly vastly less than evolutionists imagine.
If the mutations are neutral or mildly negative, they are simply preserved and passed on, and the idea of genetic entropy is that this introduces a degenerative tendency among living things. One mutation may have little effect at the time, but it may prepare the ground for a later mutation to be seriously harmful. If every edition of a book has a few new typos that are never corrected, the cumulative effect makes the book harder to read, and potentially incomprehensible in places (“Miller” may become “Bailer”, to give an example just encountered). Viruses reproduce very frequently, and this “genetic entropy” is one reason why they often lose their virulence over time. The coronavirus has a genome of about 30 000 “letters”, and on average this accumulates about two changes a month. Different “editions” of the virus are found in different parts of the world, and the effect of these changes, for good or bad, is a matter of intense interest at present.
The same process in the human genome has probably caused a gradual decline in human physical and mental capacity since the Fall, which has been compensated more recently by improved diet, medicine and accumulation of knowledge. Goliath was more than a match for any strong man of today, and Socrates possibly for any living genius. Genetic entropy adds to the problems faced by evolutionary theory. The steady tendency of nature is towards deterioration rather than advance. The work of the Divine Spirit is needed to reverse this. “Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled: Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. Thou sendest forth Thy spirit, they are created: and Thou renewest the face of the earth” (Ps 104:29-30).
Two Murderers
DWBS
The first murderer (Rhys Hancock) has just been sentenced to 31 years in jail for killing his wife and a man with whom she was committing adultery. His wife had left him a few months earlier and was now friendly with another man (who was also estranged from his wife). Hearing about this new relationship, the murderer went round to his former marital home in the middle of the night, got in through the back door, found the couple in bed, and stabbed them to death in a terrible bloodbath. He then rang the police and confessed to the crime. He had already declared his intention of committing the murders to his mother, with whom he was staying, saying that he would “get 25 or 30 years in prison”.
Murder is somewhat more understandable when it is done in avenging a wrong, but it remains one of the worst of all sins. In this case the sympathy of the media has been entirely with the murdered couple and not in the least degree with the murderer. In a former generation it would have been different. Charles Hodge said that in his day in the US it was “practically impossible to convict a husband of murder who kills the man who has committed adultery with his wife”.
The jealousy of a wronged husband is recognised, but not condoned, in Scripture: “For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance. He will not regard any ransom; neither will he rest content, though thou givest many gifts” (Prov 6:34-35). But this is “an evil and adulterous generation” and many a public figure would tremble were every wronged spouse to act as the murderer did in this case. Job says that adultery is “an iniquity to be punished by the judges” (31:11), and the failure of rulers to punish adultery contributes to incidents like this one. The Hancocks’ three young children now have one parent murdered and the other jailed for 31 years.
The second murderer (Mark Chapman) killed John Lennon in 1980. He is mentally disturbed, though not greatly so, and has given various reasons for his conduct, one of which was that he wished to be famous. He has a history of Evangelical involvement and would now claim to be a Christian. His application for parole (his eleventh application) was recently refused, being opposed by the elderly Yoko Ono, Lennon’s wife. Chapman believes that he should have been executed for the murder, and that he has no right to parole. “When you knowingly plot someone’s murder and know it’s wrong and you do it for yourself, that’s a death penalty right there in my opinion. . . . I deserve zero, nothing. If the law and you choose to leave me in here for the rest of my life, I have no complaint whatsoever.”
Murder is a most fearful sin, often precipitating a soul directly into hell for ever. It deserves the death penalty, according to Scripture; and the awakened conscience acknowledges this. Rhys Hancock’s statement to his mother shows that the known absence of the penalty in Britain is contributing to the number of murders. We must continue to pray that the death penalty for murder will be restored.