Sunday, November 16, 2008

Hybrid embryos today, the old and sick tomorrow

The agenda of death goes on. Last week the Queen signed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act: not for the first time, breaking her Coronation Oath.

She was asked 
Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel?
She replied 'I will'. 
But hey, 1952 was a long time ago, maybe she's forgotten.

The merchants of death will not leave matters there, however: new attempts will be made to extend (note: not legalise) involuntary as well as voluntary euthanasia. The legal situation now (following first the Bland Judgement and then the Mental Capacity Act 2005) is that doctors can and sometimes must starve and dehydrate incapacitated patients to death - patients who obviously cannot consent to this. The horrible and lingering death this produces is the ideal argument, the proponents of euthanasia believe, for introducing the killing of patients by lethal injection.

John Smeaton reminds us:

SPUC has frequently quoted Dr Helga Kuhse, the utilitarian bioethicist, who as then-president of the World Federation of Right to Die Societies, said in 1984:

"If we can get people to accept the removal of all treatment and care--especially the removal of food and fluids--they will see what a painful way this is to die and then, in the patient's best interests, they will accept the lethal injection".


Lord Joffe is again going to seek to bring a bill to Parliament, and neither Labour nor the Conservatives have any principled objection to it - which is why the Mental Capacity Act got through with so little opposition.

So, although we won the Joffe battle last time, be prepared for another fight - under less favourable conditions.
See his full post.

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Pope Leo XIII's Prayer to St Michael

Holy Michael, Archangel, defend us in the day of battle. Be our safeguard against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray, and do thou, Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the power of God, thrust down to Hell Satan, and all wicked spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls. Amen