Overnight, the Belgians have passed legislation that will allow, as in Holland, Euthanasia to children. There are the usual assurances. They hope the law will never be used. It is there to allow for an easeful death.

But there is no easeful death. Dying hurts: the brain is starved of oxygen. We may pray to go gently into that next life, but we are not the choosers of this. I get ferally angry when people do this: in my view it is medicalizing suicide, something I spend most days (at work) dealing with.

So today I am starting with a Psalm. For all in the West need to be grieving for this action: we have rediscovered the error of considering some lives as inconvenient, in full knowledge that the last time this happened it was abused. I have seen the data:L if you go to any professional meeting in Germany or Austria (or Eastern Europe) in my field, once you have got passed the scientologists protesting your existence, you find sobering discussions on the euthanasia of people with mental sub-normality or psychosis, and how those who opposed it were pressured to comply.

We all need to be penitent. .

Psalm 51

³   For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
⁴   Against you, you alone, have I sinned, and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence and blameless when you pass judgment.

⁵   Indeed, I was born guilty, a sinner when my mother conceived me.

¹⁵  O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise.
¹⁶  For you have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
¹⁷  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.

There are consequences to this, and they involve the disappearance of peoples. Commentator Bobeye made this point yesterday, about what he called the prime directive for humans — to be fruitful, and multiply.

Those who comply with God’s Prime Directive (be fruitful and multiply) show that they love life. Those who refuse show that they love pleasure. Easy to know them by their fruit. People leave organizations when they lose confidence in the leadership and find no other means of redress. At one time the Anglican Church did not exist, but followers and lovers of God did. New fellowships will form and the Godless leaders of the old will be seen no more.

Well, I commented back that I had never seen the prime directive before… and the old covenant prime directive was to be fruitful. In Christ, the prime directive is to make disciples of all nations, but the old one remains, with all its pain in this fallen world.

Consider for a second the founder of that Tribe, the Israelites, when he went to get himself a wife to his father’s people.

Genesis 27:46-28:4, 28:10-22

⁴⁶Then Rebekah said to Isaac, “I am weary of my life because of the Hittite women. If Jacob marries one of the Hittite women such as these, one of the women of the land, what good will my life be to me?”

¹Then Isaac called Jacob and blessed him, and charged him, “You shall not marry one of the Canaanite women. ²Go at once to Paddan-aram to the house of Bethuel, your mother’s father; and take as wife from there one of the daughters of Laban, your mother’s brother. ³May God Almighty bless you and make you fruitful and numerous, that you may become a company of peoples. ⁴May he give to you the blessing of Abraham, to you and to your offspring with you, so that you may take possession of the land where you now live as an alien — land that God gave to Abraham.”

¹⁰Jacob left Beer-sheba and went toward Haran. ¹¹He came to a certain place and stayed there for the night, because the sun had set. Taking one of the stones of the place, he put it under his head and lay down in that place. ¹²And he dreamed that there was a ladder set up on the earth, the top of it reaching to heaven; and the angels of God were ascending and descending on it. ¹³And the LORD stood beside him and said, “I am the LORD, the God of Abraham your father and the God of Isaac; the land on which you lie I will give to you and to your offspring; ¹⁴and your offspring shall be like the dust of the earth, and you shall spread abroad to the west and to the east and to the north and to the south; and all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and in your offspring. ¹⁵Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go, and will bring you back to this land; for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you.” ¹⁶Then Jacob woke from his sleep and said, “Surely the LORD is in this place — and I did not know it!” ¹⁷And he was afraid, and said, “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven.”

¹⁸So Jacob rose early in the morning, and he took the stone that he had put under his head and set it up for a pillar and poured oil on the top of it. ¹⁹He called that place Bethel; but the name of the city was Luz at the first. ²⁰Then Jacob made a vow, saying, “If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, ²¹so that I come again to my father’s house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God, ²²and this stone, which I have set up for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and of all that you give me I will surely give one tenth to you.”

It is worthwhile noting that the covenant of Abraham was renewed with Jacob (who became Israel) and part of that was having multiple descendants and surviving. And here Bobeye is correct: one of the prime duties for every married couple is to raise a new and godly generation. Some couples, however, cannot have children, but they can adopt.

Having children, choosing a lifelong relationship — for you will never stop caring and worrying about them — does not make for a life of ease. Not when you are on the phone to your kids when they are tens of thousands of miles away and all you can do is listen. Not when you see them falling into errors and you cannot rescue them.

My children are growing up: I have but one in high school now. And they have forced me to learn to pray — even though I am strong enough to physically pick up them (we are all tall, and the lightest would be around 150 lbs — which is not me, by the way) there is an age when you can not rule but need to advise, for the child is grown; married, a parent themselves.
For not all women are like my cat: and unlike all women, my cal has only had one set of kittehs (old photo: the kittens are now five), and they have all been “fixed”. For they are not human, and I do not care if their line dies out. I care about letting them be cats, with that delusion of all felines that they own the house.

But we seem to, on the liberal side, consider humans as cats. We want to kill them if they become inconvenient — or at least lock them up — the one thing that Foucault got correct in his analysis of the asylum, by the way — so life is neat. We want to be able to have time limits and expiry dates on our contracts and relationships with each other. as if being “trapped in an unhappy marriage” is sufficient reason to break another’s heart.

And as one of the many who has been through a divorce, I can tell you that it is no neat procedure, and any such covenant with an expiry date will break hearts.

We are denying that there is humanity in suffering. We are foolish: we are not remaining in solidarity with all people, of all races, in all circumstances, and acknowledging that they are valued and worthy. For by the standards we judge others, we ourselves will be judged.

And if we judge death to others: we are told we will get the same measure. Choose life. Choose to continue relationships. Choose Christ. For the liberal Belgians who made this law will not be here in a few generations: the Catholics who oppose it, and the Reformed neighbors in Holland who oppose their parallel law will be. And both groups will be fruitful and make disciples, or else they, too, will die, and their nation with them.