Post 201--Fraser Health Bullies Force Euthanasia

Our secular culture is playing around with death more and more as if it has the authority to make life-end decisions.  Civilized people know that life is not ours to give or take. It is only barbarians who feel free to play around with life and death as if it is theirs to give or take. We've experienced this barbarian attitude for decades in connection with abortion. Long ago, it was predicted that once we're over the abortion hurdle then we'll take the next step, killing the other weak vulnerables among us, that is, the elderly and others.  Those in palliative and hospices were the natural next target. 

And, sure enough, it has come.  At first preferred, even if illegal.  Then, after some time of force and illegalities, it became legal over the dead bodies of many Christians--pardon the intended pun! And now the next step: force it on the institutions of care regardless of their values, worldview or religion. 

It has been public knowledge that the progress of the West is due to its traditional Christian worldview--along with the help of humanism, which itself is just a product of Christianity. It has also been predicted that to the extent the West forsakes its Christian tradition, to the extent it will revert back to its pagan past.  The issues of abortion and euthanasia are the direct result of this reversion process. 

The notice below is reaching you too late, I'm afraid. I saw it just now, five minutes ago. Nevertheless I pass it on so you can become more familiar, more shocked and more involved in stopping this slide into barbarianism.  It's coming; have no doubt.  It's just dressed in the impressive dress of modern science that hides the true horror it is. 

Well, read and take whatever action or join whatever organization or movement in your neck of the woods you can.  But first, read this:

From: ARPA Canada <info@arpacanada.ca>

Date: February 8, 2018 10:35:54 AM PST

To: Nancy Leguijt <jakeleguijt@shaw.ca>

Subject: Important event on Saturday

Dear BC Friends,

Fraser Health is now forcing non-denominational palliative care providers and hospices to offer euthanasia. That means that organizations devoted to caring are now being instructed to assist withsuicide. Many of our readers will be familiar with Dr. Neil Hilliard, the medical director of Fraser Health’s palliative care program, who was featured in ARPA’s palliative care documentary. In light of this decision, Dr. Hilliard has resigned from his position.

Although this decision comes from Fraser Health, the developments are not limited to the Fraser Valley. News reports indicate that at least two other regions in the province are placing similar expectations on the palliative care providers.

In light of these developments, Langley ARPA is organizing an event, to be held on Saturday. More information is in their update below. We strongly encourage you to attend and bring this event to the attention of others!

With just a couple of days to go, we are not able to advertise this broadly and need your assistance. Please email and phone your friends and family, and especially those who you know are connected to care-giving or would have an interest in this. This includes people from other churches and organizations. If you are from outside of Langley, consider organizing a van or car load and get as many folks out as possible for this important event.

---

Dear Fraser Valley ARPA members and friends,

This Saturday the Langley ARPA chapter will be hosting a number of speakers including MP Mark Warawa, MLA Mary Polack, Langley Hospice Executive Director Nancy Panchuk, and former Medical Director of the Fraser Health Palliative Care Program Dr. Neil Hilliard to discuss the sudden mandate by Fraser Health requiring all Fraser Valley Hospice to provide euthanasia as part of hospice palliative care programs.

Many Hospice medical professionals, volunteers, and donors are absolutely opposed to this directive and are pushing back. Delta Hospice Executive Director Nancy Macey recently told the Vancouver Sun, "the pressure to provide MAiD everywhere is a bullying tactic of the Dying With Dignity activists." Dr. Hilliard stated in his resignation letter that "providing euthanasia or physician-assisted suicide is not in accordance with palliative care (which) "affirms life and regards dying as a normal process...". MP Mark Warawa recently submitted a letter to the Fraser Health Board saying that "requiring hospice palliative care facilities to hasten the death of a patient through the use of assisted suicide and euthanasia directly contradicts this recognized mandate and social licence of hospice facilities, healthcare professionals and volunteers that are supported and funded by generous donors in our communities." 

Please join us on Saturday, February 10 at 8 pm for a panel discussion on the next steps in the battle to keep Hospice from becoming lethal!

Where:  Credo Christian High school, 21846 52 Ave, Langley, BC

When:  Saturday, February 10 at 8:00 p.m. in the Gymnasium

Hosted by:  Langley ARPA Chapter

For more background information on the current situation, please check the following links:

• http://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/delta-hospice-rebels-against-fraser-healths-mandate-to-provide-medical-assistance-in-dying
• https://www.langleyadvance.com/news/langleys-conservative-mp-says-hospice-shouldnt-have-to-provide-assisted-suicide/
• ending-suffering-the-palliative-alternative-part-7

Post 87 –Remedy for Religious Fundamentalism?

Remedy for religious fundamentalism?  Who would have the nerve to make such a proposal? Seeking a remedy for such a wild societal phenomenon?  You’re in for a bit of lay philosophizing. Hope you’re up to it?

Some behind-the-scene stuff here. Originally I made a typographical error in the above paragraph. Instead of “seeking,” I wrote “seeding”  so that the sentence read “Seeding a remedy….”  Now wouldn’t that be wonderful? We just go out, buy a bag of seed, put it in the spreader and there it goes throughout the society, slowly germinating and sprouting the “remedy” flower till it has taken over the entire field.  Wouldn’t that be nice? Alas, only a typo!  Not even a dream, though it almost germinated one in me!

One of my favourite columnists in the Vancouver Sun, Michael Den Tandt, had the courage—or should I say “nerve?”-- to suggest a remedy, using the title of this post I borrowed from him, but without the extension “…is clear.”  His full title: “The remedy for religious fundamentalism is clear” (Boxing Day, Dec. 26, 2015).  Wow!  This is something we’ve all been waiting for: a clear remedy for this scourge of fundamentalism. I could hardly think of a more appropriate Christmas gift, even now that we are into January 2016 with Christmas long behind us.

For those of us who are writers, there is enough in Den Tandt’s column to fill a good-sized volume with comments, reactions and alternatives. I will have to be very selective to keep this down to an acceptable blog post length. It’s possible that I will have to use two posts even to say the minimum, but that would not be the end of the world, at least, not of my world. So, Michael, I’m going to think along with you a little and make some suggestions as well as ask some questions. I do this in the framework of appreciation for your courage to even dream of a remedy of so intractable a global scourge.

Den Tandt’s remedy? In his words, “It is, simply, ecumenism.” That term means, again in his own words, “the notion that people of faith, and indeed agnostics and atheists, have far more in common than they sometimes wish to believe.”  My association with Humanist Atheists has taught me that this is a typical perspective of that group of people. In fact, based on my association with them, I consider that part of the core of Humanism and Atheism. Taking that away from them would be similar to taking Jesus away from Christians or Muhammad from Muslims. You end up with an empty shell. 

Jesus observed that a tree shall by known by its fruit. We know that there are many kinds of trees, each with its own fruit. Now trees have certain basic things in common that mark them as trees. They have roots, stems, branches and, often, leaves and, usually, fruit, though not necessarily edible. Without those they are not considered trees. Though they share certain structural features, their root structures vary, bark is different so that we can identify them as this or that kind of tree. Their leaves look and behave differently as does their fruit. Trees, yes, all of them, but still they are very different from each other, used for different purposes ranging from shade, decoration,  construction, canoes, nesting, food all the way to burning. All trees, yes, but how different from each other.  By their fruit, including their various uses, you will know that it is this tree or that tree. Anyone who can’t tell the difference between a Western apple tree and an African baobab would be looked at askance.                           

Every society is undergirded by a worldview that gives it shape and values. Most members of a given society are hardly aware of that worldview; they just assume it as their “common sense,” but it affects both their thought patterns as well as behavior.  In fact, it creates their culture. Part of that worldview is the dominant religion of the culture. Yes, behind every culture lies a religion of some sort. That is to say, a more or less coherent set of values and ideas by which the  people guide their lives and form their social structures and to which the people have given their hearts. All of this means that you can learn something about a people’s religion by analyzing their culture.

It may be that the above was more true in the past when most cultures tended to be cohesive mono-cultures and mono-religions.  This situation may be breaking down into groupings within a given culture so that today one finds more worldviews next to each other in any society. Nevertheless, the dominant cultures of the world have religions behind them, religions that have taken on a large variety of shapes, values and beliefs that undergird the societies.

Now, can you possibly believe that with, say, Chinese or Indian cultures being so different from Western cultures, the roots of these greatly different cultures are one and the same? If the fruits of two or more trees are widely different, can you argue that the trees are one and the same?  If you did, people would not take you seriously. These cultures are different because the underlying religions are different from each other. The fruits from all these different cultures are different because the religions are different.

Dogmatic insistence that these religions are basically the same is just that: dogma, ideology, in this case modern Humanistic , Secular or Atheistic ideology or religion. Adherents of these movements will ward off any argumentation countering that dogma as much as any Christian will resist arguments against Christ or a Muslim against Mohammad. We all defend the values, philosophies and beliefs that constitute the core of our hearts and minds. Den Tandt is really expressing a major core value of one of these three close buddies, Humanism, Secularism or Atheism—or all three.

I am tired of having to mention all three of this triad all the time. I am going to refer to the whole gamut simply as “Humanism,” realizing full well not all adherents are Atheists. This will also hold for the next post.

Now, I’m all for the tolerance and peace Den Tandt is really after and I honour him for trying to help us solve a major problem of our time.  Absolutely. However, that should not be based on the faith of one of the many religions, in this case, Secular religion or worldview. He is really interpreting the entire range of religions from his particular secular dogmatic view point. And that's alright, as long as he recognizes the legitimacy of others as well. His remedy is undergirded by another core component of his worldview or religion, namely that his is the only rational or scientific one. And if I may be politically incorrect, most adherents of his Humanism, deep down, have contempt for all the other religions except their own and basically think of them as nonsense. I would hope this is not true of Den Tandt, but there is a sign in his column that would make us think that this might be the case, but that we’ll examine in the next post.

As a closing aside, there is one other religion that thinks of all religions as being the same, namely Baha’i. Baha’i members I know tend to be very sweet and amicable people; most of them have none of the hard pride that tends to mark Humanists—or condemnation. I suspect the reason for the difference between these two perspectives to be that the Baha’i come out of a non-Enlightenment context, a context they share with all non-Humanist religions, whereas Humanists have faith in reason which has harder edges and less room for emotion or affection.