The Canadian Parliament turned down recently a bill to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

In a landslide vote, the House of Commons rejected Bill C-384 by a vote of 228 to 59.

Immediately after the vote, two members said they mistakenly voted for the bill, instead of against it.

Conservative Member and Parliamentary Secretary for Health Stephen Fletcher abstained, stressing that he believed “the individual is ultimately responsible” for his fate.

Fletcher, a quadriplegic MP, is confined to a motorized wheel chair.

The bill, which was proposed by parliament member Francine Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l’Île, BQ) also irked Congress of Families Managing Director Larry Jacobs who said it might be used to hasten the deaths of the mentally ill, chronically depressed, elderly (who could be put to death for financial gain), bedridden and handicapped.

Alex Schadenberg, executive director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition, told LifeSiteNews that the defeat of Lalonde’s bill means that Canada should now move on to finding better ways of offering true health care to Canada’s vulnerable patients.

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Approximately 150 evangelical Christian, Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox leaders have taken a stand for Christ and Christian values by signing the “Manhattan Declaration.” The document,  signed on November 20, 2009, is an example to members of their denominations and others to keep defending three main biblical principles: the sanctity of human life; traditional marriage by the Bible’s definition of one man and one woman; and freedom of religious expression.

The Manhattan Declaration is subtitled “A Call of Christian Conscience.” Regarding the assault in American society and the current government against the above three values, the text states:
“…we are compelled today to speak out forcefully in their [the three values] defense, and to commit ourselves to honoring them fully no matter what pressures are brought upon us and our institutions to abandon or compromise them.”

According to a Florida Baptist Witness Newspaper editorial by Editor James A. Smith, the authors of the Declaration are Charles Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship; Timothy George, a Southern Baptist minister and dean of Alabama’s Beeson Divinity School, and Robert P. George, a Princeton University professor of jurisprudence.

The group is not politically affiliated. The Declaration states the signers’  unconditional commitment is to Christ only, and recommends acts of civil disobedience when absolutely necessary (see the Summary of the Manhattan Declaration in the paragraph “Unjust Laws”).

The Manhattan Declaration clarifies that its followers will not stand by or comply with any edict that enables mistreatment of human life from the unborn to the elderly, including abortion, euthanasia or destruction of human embryos for research; will not bless immoral sexual partnerships, and will not be silenced on the grounds of religious objection.
 
The Summary ends with this succinct statement: “We will fully and ungrudgingly render to Caesar what is Caesar’s. But under no circumstances will we render to Caesar what is God’s.”

This echoes the Hebrew leader Joshua’s call to faith: “Now fear the LORD and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:14-16, NIV).

When the apostle Peter was given strict orders by the governing body, the Sanhedrin, to stop preaching in the name of Christ, he declared “We must obey God, not men” (Acts 5).

Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. also advocated civil (peaceful) disobedience for the Civil Rights movement and accomplished much in this manner. He stood on the fact that all men are created equal, both in the Declaration of Independence and in the Gospel (Galatians 3:28-29). If all men are created equal, then Christians have the right to voice their opinion as much as anyone else. 
 
Whom will we obey as Christians? Will we silently go along with the crowd so as not to make waves, or will we stand by the signers of the Manhattan Declaration to come out and be separate as Jesus commanded?

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The Green Movement, enlisting humans to save the planet by “going green,” is no longer enough for some environmentalists. The fast-spreading word is that humanity must die out to save the earth.

Listed with a starting date of 1996 at their website, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is several steps ahead of the old Hemlock Society. The Hemlock Society, now called Compassion and Choices, came to the forefront in the late 1950’s to advocate “death with dignity”—voluntary euthanasia for people with terminal illnesses. The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT, pronounced vehement) simply suggests humans should no longer procreate.

While voluntary euthanasia goes against the biblical principle of waiting for God’s timing, VHEMT simply suggests not to breed any further humans for the sake of the earth. They equate God’s leaving one family behind to re-populate earth after the flood as an “OOPS,” and state that some other “being” will be needed to help in this situation (see this page at their website, under the question “When and Where did VHEMT start?”).

Well…that would definitely solve the problem of getting sick and wanting to die. But VHEMT’s purpose has nothing to do with soothing human pain and everything to do with putting the earth first, to an extreme degree.

Their theory is that if we stop breeding, the Earth (a word they always capitalize) will return to its original healthy state. This isn’t a one child per family rule – it’s no breeding at all.

What this reporter would like to know is…who will be around to appreciate it? Do animals appreciate things? Can animals express their appreciation? One thing’s for sure –animals won’t go around saying “Ahhhh, that’s better.”

According to the Life Issues Institute, Inc.‘s “Connector” October Newsletter, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is not a lone wolf in their theory that humans are the worst threat to the environment. Several animal rights and earth-worshipping groups take the same view, including big names like the Sierra Club, the Cousteau Society, and the Audubon Society. 

One thing can be said for VHEMT. They don’t approve of killing people to reduce the population (see here). However, their goal could be misinterpreted by madmen, much as our Christian faith’s purpose has been mishandled in the past, and genocides for the sake of population control could happen. VHEMT already had to speak out against a group called the Church of Euthanasia, whose founder advocates suicide to people who really want to save the earth (although the founder hasn’t killed himself). 

Meanwhile, both Oregon and Washington State now have “death with dignity” acts for legal assisted suicide. Jack Kevorkian, once called the “Doctor of Death” for participating in assisted suicides, would never be arrested today.

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