The Pride of the Ruthless

More news from the Groningen Hospital in the Netherlands: Dr. Eduard Verhagen, head of pediatrics at the hospital, has admitted euthanizing four seriously ill infants over the past 16 months. His admission is intended to bring support to his cause at the level of the Dutch national legislature. This week, World Net Daily reported the recent comments Dr. Verhagen made to the London Telegraph:

"There is a small group of children for whom no treatment is possible for the congenital disease and malformations they are born with," Verhagen told the London Telegraph, explaining why he had chosen to break the law. "Asking doctors to take away the pain easily and allow the child to die quietly is the natural reaction.

"For the incurable to die early requires that we do this or they enter a starvation phase and what suffering is more unbearable than a minor left to die from natural causes such as these."

Intelligent and articulate rationalization like that espoused by Dr. Verhagen is sure to please the rebellious human spirit. What was once unthinkable is now being practiced, legislated, even lauded. While sympathy is focused squarely on the plight of children, ruthlessness is ignored. In the article, a spokesman for Wim Eijk, the Roman Catholic bishop in Groningen, wisely responded, "It is a slippery slope that will give doctors the right to impose life or death, and will lead to an argument that it should be extended to all." Because humanism exists only to serve the physical world, centuries-old prohibitions against the "man playing God" syndrome are tossed aside. The humanist regards man as the supreme judge of his own fate and owner of his body. The logical extension is that an individual or group of individuals can be the intercessory judge of another's human being's fate and the owner by proxy of another human being's body when practicality or circumstance necessitate it. A godless world can lead only to tyranny.

In Proverbs Chapter 6, King Solomon wrote the following words with rather definitive clarity:

¹⁶ [These] things the LORD hates...
¹⁷ Haughty eyes, a lying tongue, hands that shed innocent blood.