NETHERLANDS PASSES EUTHANASIA LAW

AMSTERDAM, Nov. 28, 00 (CWNews.com) - The Dutch parliament passed a new law on Tuesday becoming the first country to formally legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The law was approved by a vote of 104-40 and is expected to receive the approval of the Senate and come into force next year. Euthanasia, the act of killing terminally ill patients, has been tacitly legal for 20 years, but recent prosecutions of doctors propelled advocates to push for full legalization.

Under 1993 guidelines which did not legalize the practice but said doctors would not be prosecuted, a patient must be undergoing irremediable and unbearable suffering, be aware of all other medical options and have sought a second professional opinion. The request must be made voluntarily, persistently, and independently while the patient is of sound mind. Doctors are not supposed to suggest it as an option.

Under the new law, a patient will be able to make a written request for euthanasia, giving doctors the right to use their own discretion when patients become too physically or mentally ill to decide for themselves.

The euthanasia advocates have said they will not stop with the limits imposed by the new euthanasia law. They want to allow children as young as 12 to demand their own death even if their parents disagree and to allow people who are “tired of life” to also ask their doctors to kill them.

VATICAN CONDEMNS DUTCH EUTHANASIA LAW

VATICAN, Nov. 29, 00 (CWNews.com) -- A Vatican spokesman has condemned a new Dutch law allowing euthanasia, describing it as “a law that violates the dignity of the human person.”

Joaquin Navarro-Valls, the head of the Vatican press office, made his comment in reaction to news that the legislature of the Netherlands had approved a measure allowing euthanasia. Navarro-Valls pointed out that the bill poses “a grave problem of professional ethics for the doctors who must put it into practice.”

Navarro-Valls (who is a physician himself) also noted that the new law violates the Geneva Declaration of 1948, approved by the World Medical Association, as well as the ethical principles adopted by representatives of medical associations from 12 different European countries in 1987.

“Yet again we find ourselves face to face with a state law that violates the natural law and the individual conscience,” the Vatican spokesman said. He added that the passage of the new measure marked a “sad step” for the Netherlands.

L’OSSERVATORE RIPS DUTCH EUTHANASIA LAW

VATICAN, Nov. 30, 00 (CWNews.com) -- The new Dutch law allowing legalized euthanasia is a “monstrous juridical pretension,” a “crime against life and against the human person,” and “an abdication of medicine,” the Vatican’s newspaper said.

The article by Father Gino Concetti in the November 30 issue of L’Osservatore Romano said the new law contradicts a “fundamental right,” the right to die with dignity. And the theologian wrote that the many cases of physician-assisted suicide already reported in the Netherlands (some 2,500 cases last year alone) does not justify the new measure. “While the state must take into account the culture of the citizens and their requests, it is not required to accept them when they involve attacks on fundamental rights,” he wrote.

Lamenting the “excessive tolerance” that gave rise to the new law, Father Concetti voiced his fears that other European countries might be tempted to follow suit. He urged Christians to work “to develop structures of welcome and more efficient forms of solidarity” to care for those who are terminally ill, and thus to “defend life in its final phase” rather than succumb to “the culture of death.”

Bayside Prophecies

Euthanasia Is Murder

    Our Lady - "Darkness of spirit has entered upon your country and the world. Pray much, My children, for the value for life and the living grows dim. In your world of spiritual darkness, there shall be a loss for the love of life. Death will become commonplace as man loses his love of neighbor. But first and above all, he has lost his love of his God.
    "No man shall murder...and it is murder, My children, when he shall give the excuse of saying an individual is no longer living or a part of the world because he has become emaciated, because he lives only with prayers and the help of all scientific means. The Eternal Father has placed a soul in that body. That body is the temple of the Holy Spirit! No man can know when that soul must return to the Eternal Father. No man shall hasten its exit from a body by murder! Euthanasia is murder! Shall you become a judge over the living and the dead?
    "I give fair warning, as your Mother, that the world has set itself upon a course for its own destruction. In My Son's House it shall be bishop against bishop and cardinal against cardinal, for Satan has set himself in their midst. It shall be mother against daughter, father against son. There shall be discord in the homes as the family heads struggle to maintain the Faith." (6-5-76)

Pope Paul's Encyclical On Birth Control
Our Lady - "The encyclical of Pope Paul on birth control is true and must be followed by mankind. There shall be no rationalization of sin. There shall be no excuse for the murder of the unborn. Sin has become a way of life among mankind, but Heaven does not condone murder. Heaven cannot condone sin, though the Eternal Father in His mercy is most merciful and long - suffering and forgiving. But man must repent of his sin now, while there is time.
    "Already the measures are being taken necessary in the propagation of the damnable abomination of the destruction of life further by euthanasia, My children.
    "As man goes farther into the darkness, he has lost complete contact with his spirit, the Spirit of life and light, and he is losing his soul, surrendering his eternal life to satan.
    "What does it gain you, My children, if you gather all of the treasures of the world, of your earth world, and not one treasure shall you store in Heaven for your entrance over the veil? You will come without credits, My children, and you cannot enter into the Kingdom of your God. And many, sadly to say, My children, as fast as snowflakes shall fall from your heavens, many are falling into hell, eternal damnation and suffering, and the agonizing ... knowing that forever and ever beyond all living there shall be nothing but emptiness and suffering." (10-2-76)

Sin is insanity.
Jesus - "Sin is insanity. The aged will be put to death, the crippled will be put to death, the mentally ill will be eliminated. The value of life will be gone. The value for life will be destroyed. Murderers! Sanctioned among those with the power to destroy the souls!" - March 18, 1974

Directives from Heaven

#23 ABORTION