Euthanasia creeping in by the back door
A GROUP of MPs, led by pro-life MP, Nicholas Winterton, is challenging government claims that living wills are legally binding and that doctors who refuse to abide by them may be guilty of assault. (A living will or advance directive is the instruction which a person gives to those who will care, or are caring for him in certain circumstances of severe illness, to withhold treatment and let him die.) There is great danger that advance directives will lead to legalised euthanasia.
It was good, of course, that a report of the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics recommended to Parliament last year that there “should be no change in the law to permit euthanasia”, but considerable concern is caused by the Select Committee having commended the use of advance directives. No change in the law is necessary for advance directives, it is argued, because they are already permitted under common law.
Not only so, but the Law Commission and British Medical Association (BMA) are pushing the idea that advance directives or living wills are legally binding. Also, the BMA in a recently released “discussion” document says that living wills can simply be signed cards, notes recorded in patients’ files or even casual statements to the effect that in certain circumstances the speaker would not wish treatment.
Concern is further compounded by the fact that the BMA has changed its view of four years ago, that assisted or artificial intake of food and fluids is part of basic care and should never be withdrawn, to the view that “treatment” includes tube feeding and may be withdrawn. It would appear that the House of Lords judgement, as in the case of Mr Tony Bland, that assisted intake of food and fluid can be stopped (resulting in death by starvation and dehydration) has emboldened the BMA to shift its stance.
When the BMA is trying to foist living wills on the medical profession one cannot help wondering if we are sliding back to the situation of ancient times when people did not know whether the doctor was coming as a healer or a killer. It is to be feared that our nation is rapidly following the same path which Holland followed and which ended there in legalising euthanasia. “The public are being conditioned to look on euthanasia as a compassionate way of dealing with certain very ill patients,” said the late Rev. D. B. MacLeod. “It is a strange compassion which is being promoted by those men — men who have lost sight of eternity, and the God of eternity to whom they must give in their account.”
British government financial support of IPPF
THE International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) presents itself as an organisation that is concerned about family health. It is the umbrella organisation for family planning associations worldwide including the Family Planning Association in this country, and is funded by the industrialised nations including Britain.
Light and Salt — the CARE Review, shows that its philosophy is based on the ideas of the founder of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Margaret Sanger, “a confirmed atheist who was strongly anti-Christian, anti-family, pro-eugenic, pro-abortion, pro-birth control and pro-sexual libertinism.”
The anti-God nature of IPPF is confirmed by its contributing to the funding of the Family Planning Association of China which is implementing brutal methods of population control, including compulsory abortions and sterilisations.
It is high time that the British government ceased to support IPPF in any way whatsoever.