Dire Straits: Assisted Suicide Passes in Washington State
The culture of death once again has the wind in its sails after being moribund, at least as to assisted suicide, since 1994. There are many reasons for the loss having to do with the overwhelming financial backing from all around the world in favor of assisted suicide, to a popular former governor as spokesperson, an in-the-tank media that were full cheerleaders for the pro side, to a local campaign in opposition that was, to put it politely, very disappointing in its vision, imagination,and execution.
But none of that matters now. Here's what we face: There are very powerful people of the George Soros stripe, with a great deal of money, who are committed to pushing this agenda throughout the nation. And you have determined activists leading the charge, people like Barbara Coombs Lee and Kathryn Tucker who are not only expert propagandists, but very capable politicians. In the last several years they moved the euthanasia/assisted suicide movement in this country away from the crackpot model--e.g. Derek Humphry and his suicide machines--and into what I call the professional model, in which very well tailored, upper middle class or rich activists network with other well tailored, upper middle class or rich professional types, to move the agenda forward--in elections, in the courts, in legislatures, before organizations and media to obtain endorsements, etc.
Meanwhile, the opposition is generally starved for funds, marginalized in the popular media, and as a consequence, always stuck in reactive mode when we need to be proactive.
But we can't do it alone. If people and foundations wish to stop this juggernaut, they are going to have to do what proponents have done and step forward and give those of us willing to give our all to fighting the death culture the resources we need to compete. If they don't, there will be more Washington States.
Anyone who still says "it can't happen here," isn't paying attention. It is happening here, and it will happen here increasingly unless there is a greater commitment shown by those with means who oppose these agendas to reversing the current course.
Labels: Washington I-1000. Assisted Suicide. Culture of Death.
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 10:30 PM
18 Comments
18 Comments:
This is incredibly upsetting news. I know that I, for one, am committed to doing something, but often feel powerless. I feel that we are in grave danger of euthanasia being legitimized nationwide the way abortion has, even though euthanasia opponents are diverse in their positions on the abortion issue. If that happens, it will probably be a good thirty or fifty years before we get even close to reversing such a ruling, if we ever do. We will find out how to defeat this, but it's going to be a long road.
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Do you think that assisted suicide is passing in these two states (OR & WA) because they are both extremely secular states?
One hope that I have is that, at least in California, we have a larger population of religious people, especially Catholics but also many evangelicals. Californians have defeated Prop. 8, in large part thanks to the religious community here who are not afraid to be aggressive in campaigning.
No doubt, it was a brutal election night last night for the pro-sanctity of life population. We can be temporarily discouraged, but we can't give up. Pro-lifers who voted for Obama claim that his policies will decrease abortions, a claim that makes no sense to me. We need to document the facts, and we need to keep putting our voices out there to be heard. No giving up now. We're needed more than ever.
I think they passed because the oppo. didn't get their message out in an effective way and the big bucks poured in for the pro death side.
These are difficult times. Our job is to remain steadfast and uncompromisingly tell the truth as long as we have breath.
Wesley, Wesley. One of the things that always flabbergasts me is the way that social conservatives hate democracy. As I post this, it appears that the initiative was approved by about 58% of the people who voted on it. That is a fairly substantial margin. If the vote had been 58% against I-1000, your post would have congratulated the voters of Washington on their wisdom and discernment. Since the vote went for the initiative, however, you apparently regard them as a bunch of rubes who had the wool pulled over their eyes by "well tailored, upper middle class or rich activists" who were funded by city slickers from out of state. Did it not occur to you, even for a moment, that the voters of Washington considered the initiative and decided that it is an idea whose time has come?
makarios: Hmm. It isn't anti democracy to bemoan a terrible decision. It would be anti democracy to try to illegally thwart the carrying out of the law. But until that line is reached, it is pro freedom to continue the struggle--as the pro euthanasia side does everytime they lose.
I know a lot about how the campaign was run, and I don't think the issue was fully or fairly debated, nor the reasons for voting no energetically and imaginatively presented. I think the law was bought.
But even if that isn't so, even if it is indeed "an idea whose time has come," that doesn't mean it is a good idea. To the contrary: This agenda is destructive, nihilistic, and abandoning, and it will cause people to die prematurely. Almost as bad, it sends an insidious message to people who are ill, people with disabilities, and those tempted by self destructive desires through existential agony that killing is an acceptable answer to their problems.
So, I will trod on hoping to do what I can to hold back the poisonous tide that unquestionably is flowing.
Or, I could throw up my hands and give up and get back to my long neglected golf game, and shrug my shoulders as each person is poisoned to death when there were other alternatives to the difficulties they faced.
Tempting. I would sleep better at night. But heaven help me, quitting is just not in my nature.
One of the things that I like about you, Wesley, is that we can respectfully agree to disagree. Very refreshing in an area where people often view those with opposing opinions as evil or deluded.
Keep on fighting the good fight.
Hmm. I talked to lots of voters in Washington (as I live here) and most of the ones who voted "yes" were absolutely uninformed on the issue. I tried, but people hear what they want to hear. (And then pull the whole "the government shouldn't legislate morality" . . . yeah because no other law is based on morality /sarcasm.)
Back at ya, Makarios.
You nailed it, Deborah. I'm so tired of hearing on issues regarding human life that "we can't legislate morality." Well, why, then, are there laws against rape, arson, armed robbery, and abusing your wife/husband/child? Because they are wrong and take rights away from the victim. So, ditto.
My question: if conservatives are supposedly so rich, why is it we only hear of the people in FAVOR of embryonic research/cloning/euthanasia getting bankrolled by rich donors, while opponents have to raise money ten dollars at a time?
Its seems the very generation who has who has promoted abortion or at least allowed the devaluation of human life to fly, will be its ultimate victims. So sad!!
I have trouble understanding who would be zealous for such a cause.
But it beats a judicial fiat. Imagine if WA justices had discovered a right to the provision of assisted suicide in their constitution. Then every hospital would have to make provisions for it. As it stands, any given doctor can simply refuse to sign any of the documents at any stage of the process. That's as much silver lining as we get these days, I guess.
(nitpick: it's "Straits")
"One of the things that always flabbergasts me is the way that social conservatives hate democracy."
Right. That's why we call ourselves "republicans," not "democrats." We believe in the rule of law, not of men. The Democratic Party was originally called the Republican Party. Its principals denounced democracy as "mob rule."
Why do we have elected representatives instead of direct legislation by the electorate? Because we have a republic (if we can keep it), not a democracy.
True democracy has never existed. There are always some classes and individuals who are excluded from the electorate (such as children, foreigners, slaves, women, paupers, vagabonds, the insane, criminals, and others at one time or another).
Even limited democracies cannot survive. If the laws are made on the passions of the moment, chaos and breakdown of the society results.
It is the assisted suicide activists who have brought repeated lawsuits to overturn laws they don't like against assisted suicide. The moral of that story is that if direct democracy gets them what they want, fine. If not, they will use the courts to overturn properly enacted laws they don't like. Or to put it another way, they don't believe in democracy on this issue as much as they believe in winning.
As one of the people who was working hard on the "no" campaign, it's a little discouraging to be dismissed as "disappointing in vision, imagination, and execution."
I'll grant you imagination and execution, if you like. But not vision. We were a handful of people with a pocketful of change working our fingers to the bone and doing the best we could. We were David with no rocks against an army of Goliath's with machine guns, as one volunteer characterized it. We had a much better vision than our time and our finances would allow us to carry out.
How about a little credit for fighting?
Post Tenebras Lux: I honor all who fought against I-1000. And I don't intend to get into a circular firing squad about it. I wrote what I wrote for a reason, and you concede two out of the three.
But the key issue now is to move forward from here.
I spoke to the Heal the Culture Convention in Seattle on Thursday night last and had some ideas about what to do now. We will be developing them further as we go along.
Thank you so much for working so hard against the culture of death.
All of this reminds me of an experience that I think might be edifying for others regarding the culture of death mentioned by Wesley and others.
It seems that whatever factors have caused this culture, it has long-been
influencing even the youngest among us. For instance, in 1993, when I was ten, I tried to stop some boys from killing a frog at a summer camp we were attending. The boys said that the frog was suffering and that they wanted to put it out of it's misery. When I continued to protest, one of them asked, "Meghan, would you rather have an injection, and die sleeping, or have both your legs bitten off by a great white shark?" It seems that this perspective is not restricted to those who are old enough to take a role in promoting euthanasia. I continue to be simultaneously shocked and vindicated by such experiences-I always knew that children think much more seriously about things than adults know, and that some of these thoughts can be dark, but at the same time, I thought (and still think) that the boy was awfully young to have this perspective. I wonder what makes even young children think this way? Is it personality? Experience? Seeing too much death on TV? Their parents' leanings on such matters?
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