Divorce reforms setback in Parliament
ABOUT a third of the Conservative Party in Westminster opposed the Family Law Bill on 24th April by voting for the amendment to retain the concept of “fault”. The Lord Chancellor argues that the Bill, which removes the element of “fault” from divorce law, will put an end to so-called “quickie divorces”. Apart from the removing of “fault” being completely contrary to Scripture teaching, this proposed legislation, like all other previous reforms to divorce law, will increase the divorce rate.
CARE organisation is right when it says that “the effect of the Lord Chancellor’s proposals is to treat marriage as little more than living together on a short term contract, the sort of agreement we may move in and out of at will. A partner will be able to simply announce that he/she no longer wishes to be married, without being required to give any reason why.”
It is high time that the Government implemented substantial measures to
reinforce the institution of marriage, rather than undermine it. As former trade minister Edward Leigh said, in opposing the Bill, “What is needed is not a Bill for easier or slicker divorce, but a campaign for marriage.”
Growing pressure for euthanasia legislation
THE pro-euthanasia lobby has received a boost in recent days from the statement by Scotland’s Lord Advocate, that no criminal charges would be brought against hospital staff if they stop treatment of a patient who has no apparent chance of recovery, provided it is done in good faith and had authority under civil law. Another boost has been the support voiced for Derek Rowbottom who last month gave a lethal dose of morphine to his mother who was dying from cancer. Again, they take encouragement from the historic decision of Lord Cameron, in the Court of Session, Edinburgh, on 24th April, that Law Hospital, Carluke, be allowed to withdraw treatment from Mrs Janet Johnstone who has been in a coma for more than four years. Finally, they are boosted by the decision of the Government of Northern Territory state in Australia to permit euthanasia.
The pressure to legalise euthanasia in this country is growing steadily. While the movement for euthanasia presents many arguments of an apparently humanitarian nature we believe that there is not so much a desire to alleviate suffering as a reluctance to use scarce medical resources for the seriously ill who do not have any hope of recovering. This is all the more culpable when the hospice system is working well and when so much progress has been made in the field of palliative care.
Apart from all that, there is God’s command that we take all lawful steps to preserve human life. How brutal our society has become when we are close to the point, if we are not already at it, when some old people will be afraid to go to hospital lest they should be killed rather than cured.
BSE and “mad cow” disease
BSE in cattle and its link with Creutzfeldt-Jacob disease (CJD) or “mad cow” disease in humans, has dealt a devastating blow to our country’s beef trade. Already, our Agriculture Minister has promised the beef industry £200 million in compensation for recent market disturbances. Should there be the slaughtering of cattle herds to control BSE, the cost will be astronomical.
We see the hand of God in these severe economic setbacks. It is God who enables a nation to get wealth (Deu 8:18). It is God who sees fit in His perfect wisdom to withdraw that wealth, and He does so because of the sins of the nation. We are wilfully blind if we shut our eyes to the fact that God not only
constantly governs all his creatures but also intervenes in the affairs of nations in a sometimes striking and solemn manner.
During the epidemic of foot-and-mouth disease in this country some years ago, the tract by Bishop J.C. Ryle of Liverpool about the 1865 outbreak of foot-and-mouth was timeously republished. In it he asks, “Whence does the cattle plague come? I answer, unhesitatingly, that it comes from God…. The finger of God is in it… Why has the cattle plague come? It has come upon us for our national sins… What does the cattle plague summon everyone to do?… Let us all humble ourselves before God… Let us each resolve to offer special prayer to God for the removal of this judgement upon us.” His words are most applicable to us today.