Tasmania euthanasia bill

Website designed by

Australian sites

Bully's Blog

Christian Family Study Centre

CultureWatch

Issacharian

Pilgrim Hill - News & Notes

Latest News

SNOW OFF THE BEN

The Australian Federation for the Family

The Drew Patch

International sites

American Vision

Biblical Horizons

Blog and Mablog

Chalcedon Podcast

Corrigenda Denuo

Doug's Blog

Family Reformation

Home Education Foundation

Kata Iwannhn

Peter J. Leithart

timgallant.org

Tasmania euthanasia bill

Written by Mr. Trev McCallum
Friday, 16 July 2010

Views

197

Favoured

Tasmanian Attorney-General Lara Giddings confirmed her commitment to legislate professional, assisted killing. According to The Mercury she;

"used her parliamentary Budget reply speech to unveil progressive plans for law reform in Tasmania in the next four-year term of the Labor-Greens government.

It included an unexpected decision to reintroduce a voluntary euthanasia proposal to Parliament, long-awaited plans for a Tasmanian Charter of Rights and yet another overhaul of flawed laws regulating the professional sex industry.

New death legislation is expected to come before Parliament mid next year, aided by an extra $300,000 allocation in last week's Budget for assistance in drafting these complicated new sets of laws. All of the law reforms proposed yesterday by Ms Giddings will be open for public consultation before coming before Parliament. She told Parliament yesterday she was committed to helping Tasmanians faced with terminal illness die with dignity, pledging to work co-operatively with Greens leader Nick McKim on new voluntary euthanasia laws."

Rev Iain Smith wrote an insightful article last year, before this Bill was presented in our parliament. I strongly recommend you re-read his article here.

What I was shocked to find out is that there is an organisation called Christians supporting choice for Voluntary Euthanasia. Their statement of belief reads like this;

We are Christians who believe that, as a demonstration of love and compassion, those with a terminal or hopeless illness should have the option of a pain-free, peaceful and dignified death with legal voluntary euthanasia.

These Christians, who support choice for Voluntary Euthanasia quote, amongst others, Methodist Theologian John Cobb to support their case ;

"Theologically, few would now accept the view that one range of actions belongs wholly to the sphere of human free will and another wholly to God. God is at work everywhere, but in a way that does not set aside the decisions of the creatures. Instead God makes such decisions possible and works in and through them". It is his contention that God does not lay exclusive claims to decisions about ending one's life. It is not a special case. In this, as in all things, we may find ourselves having to be in partnership with God.

Their website has a tab for Bible facts and within that page an exegetical case to support their stance is blatantly missing. Some rhetoric and reference to how the Bible can be mis-used is flirted with, but no exegetical study is given. The basis for most of their argumentation is rooted in a perverted view of "love." Biblically, love cannot be divorced from faithful, sanctified obedience to the Law/Word of God ( John 14:15, 1 John 2:4). Jesus calls obedience to the Law of God true love ( John 14:15,21,31; 15:10). So does Paul (Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:14; 1 Timothy 1:5), James ( James 2:8); John ( 1 John. 2:5; 5:2-3; 2 Jn 6), Moses ( Exodus 20:6; Deuteronomy. 5:10; 7:9; 11:1,13,22; 19:9; etc), Joshua ( Joshua 22:5), Nehemiah ( Nehemiah 1:5) and Daniel ( Daniel 9:4), to name a few.

Christians need to scratch below the surface. The major issue in this debate is sovereignty. You can see that in the John Cobb quote. He is a Methodist, who (as a quasi Wesleyan/Arminian) has a lower view of God's absolute sovereignty and claim over every person's life and actions. More than that, on Cobb's operating assumptions the Word/Law of God cannot be the only rule for all of faith and life. This presents some nasty problems. Ultimately when a person, church, state or nation rejects the Law/Word of God as their life standard evil runs rampant. Man does not have the authority or capacity to independently determine good from evil. The One who created the Heavens and the earth does. His Law/Word provides us with a moral compass. When the church disregards what God has to say on any matter she will be judged. Continued disobedience to the Scriptures has brought God's covenantal judgment upon most western nations. Our societies are spiritually crumbling. This does not mean the end is nigh. It means we need to repent and rebuild all of life (individual and corporate) on the Law/Word of God. We must also be mindful that Christ Himself said that He did not come to abolish the Law or the Prophets. Further than that, He asserted that not one of the tiniest pieces of the Law is nullified by Him, the ruler of the kings of the earth ( Matthew 5:17-19 and Revelation 1:5). "Thou shalt not kill/murder" applies at every stage of life, whether the person is in or out of the womb or when considering the most loving way to help a suffering person.

Christians ought to presuppose the authority of the Scriptures. The Bible is our ultimate philosophical starting point, our first premise. From it we should investigate and learn how to bring glory to God. Our world and life view must be built upon the Bible alone. There is still a myth within modern Christendom: the sacred/secular divide. No area of life is or can be religiously/morally neutral ( 1 Corinthians 10:31). As individuals, families, societies and nations we either bring glory to God by sanctified obedience to His Law/Word or we do what is evil in His sight. Morality can and is legislated, the battle is over whose morality is to be codified and the source of that morality. For the secular humanist, and sadly many well meaning Christians, the moral source of a society's codified law system is natural law - aka autonomous man. This has devastating long term affects on a society's culture. The more consistent, with natural law, the codification becomes the more that society crumbles. We cannot find morality in the laws of nature or nature itself. Why? Think of the consequences, think of all the examples of behaviour we find in nature and then think where this type of codification leads to. Our only sure ground is the codified Word of God.

Doug Wilson argues well, that we ought not play God with these sorts of decisions:

Ask Doug: End of life decisions from Canon Wired on Vimeo.

As Christians we ought to understand the source of the debate. Is God sovereign and does His Law/Word apply to both individual and corporate life; or is man sovereign and does his word/law determine right from wrong? The Mercury also ran a warning over this euthanasia bill storyand quoted Wesley Smith, a prominent American bioethicist;

Prominent American bioethicist Wesley Smith said legalising euthanasia in Tasmania would send a global message that death is an acceptable answer to human suffering.He said it would lead to legalised assisted suicide for people who wanted to die because of depression, grief or divorce. Mr Smith visited the state yesterday in a bid to lobby Tasmanians and the State Government against a proposal to become the first Australian state to legalise euthanasia. 'Once you open the door even a small crack to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia you're saying killing is an acceptable answer to human suffering and it's not going to remain long as that tiny crack,' he said. 'Once a society and a medical system accepts that this is a legitimate way to treat suffering people it will, in definition, expand because how can it logically not.'Once you accept the precepts of assisted suicide, that suffering is a just cause for helping someone end their life, it's not going to remain restricted.' 'It's very disingenuous to say we're just going to have a little piece, because when you open that little piece it's the equivalent of the proverbial foot in the door.'

Don't be fooled by all the anti-religion or religiously neutral talk coming from Lara Giddings, Nick McKimm or their supporters. A religious battle is being played out here. The stakes are high and the people of God need to fall on their knees, confess their sins and seek God's forgiveness. We need to restore faithful corporate worship of the Triune God of the Scriptures and then seek to again be the salt of society. Prayer, repentance, right Sunday/Lord's Day worship and courage to stand against evil is desperatly needed.

Published in : Worldviews, Ethics

Keywords : Tasmania euthanasia bill, euthanasia voluntary, active euthanasia, euthanasia ethics, voluntary euthanasia, dying with dignity