Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society—A Danger.
Since writing in these columns recently regarding the supposed “mercy killing” case in America, much has appeared in the press and periodicals of this country to show that there is strong propaganda at work in support of legal sanction to allow those apparently dying of an incurable and painful disease to request and obtain a quick and painless death (voluntary euthanasia). The Voluntary Euthanasia Legalisation Society, whose Hon. Secretary is a Mr. C. Killick Millard, Leicester, England, is working steadily at present to gain support for a Bill, which the Society hopes to get re-introduced into Parliament at an early date, to legalise this unscriptural and most wicked method of interference with human life. To the true Christian, this would be legalised murder and suicide under the cloak of a spurious and satanic argument for the exercise of human sympathy on behalf of the suffering. The afflicted themselves, who must obviously be cases totally ignorant of Scriptural doctrine and Christian spiritual experience, are to be, by implication, encouraged to avail themselves of this un-Christian, immoral and inhuman mode of bringing to a close their physical sufferings here. There is no recognition in all this of the needs of the soul afflicted with the dread disease of sin, of the strong consolations which are in the Lord Jesus Christ and His redeeming blood and abounding grace, nor of the solemn facts revealed in the Word of God as to the eternal misery of all who leave the world and enter eternity without God, without Christ, and without hope. Pain and suffering here in body or mind, is but a drop out of the ocean in comparison to the weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth awaiting the unbelieving and Christless in perdition, after death. But this, no doubt, is an an aspect of the question to be laughed out of court by the promoters of such an iniquitous Bill. They may laugh, so to speak, now, yet the Lord Jesus declares that such shall weep hereafter. His Word, of course, will not fall to the ground.
Unsound and unfaithful teaching on the part of professed Christian Churches has contributed its own measure of influence in bringing about the rise to prominence in this country of this dreadful idea of voluntary euthanasia. The widespread, erroneous teaching upon man’s relation to God, whereby the masses who attend Church to-day, and others, are informed that God is the Father of all men and that all are His children, and that thus they will participate in the blessedness of heaven when they die, irrespective of the Biblical doctrines of the fall, sin, redemption and the new birth, etc., has emptied the already dark minds of multitudes of any proper concern, or solemn thought over against dying and the eternal world. And the frequent use, by the most of professed Gospel ministers to-day, of the words, “Our heavenly Father,” while leading in prayer, where probably the majority, if not all present, are unconverted, worldly persons, has done and is doing an evil, subtle work in the minds of sinners. The ungodly and uninformed may well conclude, as they do: God is our Father, and it doesn’t much matter by what means or method we die; and surely voluntary euthanasia is a very Christian and charitable procedure to encourage. And so, if space permitted, we might continue this line of exposure of the part unsound and vague teaching plays in the rise of horrible evils. Dr. W. R. Matthews, Dean of St. Paul’s, London, is a notorious example of how supposed followers of Truth encourage evil. He addressed, on Tuesday, the 2nd of May, 1950, the annual meeting of the Voluntary Euthanasia Legislation Society, in London, and said, inter alia: “I have come to the conclusion that the Society’s proposal is quite right in accordance with the Christian conception of human right and duty.”
Furthermore, this Society proposes a wider application of voluntary euthanasia should their Bill come into force as an Act of Parliament, which God forbid. The Secretary, writing to the Spectator of April 21st, 1950, states: It may be that it will then be thought desirable to extend its scope to include persons who have reached a certain age and are suffering from incipient senility, and who may wish to pass on.” Here we have visualised for us a state of affairs approximating to the treatment meted out by pagan German Nazis to victims in their “horror” camps. In our opinion, the end in view appears to be the killing off of the aged and incapacitated, with the present qualifying clause, “Who may wish to pass on.” What a pass we have arrived at as a nation when such views are voiced, listened to, and allowed to be propagated without a surge of public indignation and horror! The Secretary of this Society has the temerity to enter the field of religion and to observe that “it seems utterly unreasonable that worthy people who think that their religious scruples would never permit them to take advantage of such an Act, should strive to prevent others, sincerely religious but who have no such scruples, from obtaining this right.”
What type of religion can the promoters of voluntary euthanasia possibly possess? A religion which utterly disregards the Word of God, which is totally ignorant of the consolations of the Gospel of the crucified and risen Redeemer, and which casts to the four winds the divine law, “Thou shalt not kill,” is certainly capable of including in its cursed creed the matter of voluntary euthanasia. Let God arise and scatter those who would desile the Statute Book of the nation with such a vile Bill as is proposed, and that in the name of religion.
Embodied in God’s commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” there are many fundamental truths relative to the divine requirement of the second table of the Law of God, viz., “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” And there comes to mind the admirable case and conduct of the Good Samaritan, who poured in oil and wine into the wounds of the man left half-dead by the roadside. Jesus says, “Go thou and do likewise.” This is the teaching of the sympathetic and divine High Priest. This is the true religion in practice. The high and noble aim of the medical profession in their own sphere has also been to preserve and extend the lives of their fellow men and to alleviate their sufferings; but not to take the responsibility of ending the life of the sufferer. Of course, we live in strange times, and doctors, like others, are liable to imbibe unhallowed ideas. O! how much we need in this modern age, the pure and undefiled truths of the Bible, upon the questions of sin, suffering, the soul, and salvation.
Let our readers in this country call upon their Members of Parliament to resist firmly any attempt to bring forward the aforesaid Bill in the House of Commons; and may evil men be frustrated by the hand of the Most High, who ruleth in the Kingdom of Men, and may He so act in His mercy and kindness toward the nation as a whole.