THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
The New York chapter of the group known as Compassion & Choices held a press conference and rally at the state capitol building on Monday to call for the passage of Assembly Bill 2694, which was filed last week by Senator Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, and Assemblymember Amy Paulin, D-Westchester.
The effort is not new, as the bill had likewise been introduced in years past, but Compassion & Choices has renewed its call to pass the legislation in New York State.
“Every press conference, I can’t help but think about my sister … who on her dying bed when she was stricken with ovarian cancer, would be yelling out, ‘When am I going to die already?'” Paulin stated. “My sister would have chosen life. That’s the irony. Aid in dying patients would choose life, but their cancer, their disease, their bodies are choosing otherwise.”
“And who would not want to be able to make choices when you are the most vulnerable, when you are the most at risk, and when you are suffering in pain?” she asked. “… When there are no meds that can help alleviate that, when you know that you are going to die within a week, within days, within minutes, you want to relieve yourself of that pain. And the only thing you can do many times is this option. Why wouldn’t we give it to the residents of our state like they have done in other places?”
A. 2694 allows for physicians to prescribe fatal medication to adults who have a terminal illness, defined as an “incurable or irreversible illness or condition” that will “within reasonable medical judgment, produce death within six months.”
Under the measure, the patient is required to submit both an oral and written request to die to his or her attending physician. The written request must be signed by two witnesses, who attest that the person made the decision of their own volition and without coercion, and one may not be a relative or the employee of the facility where the patient is receiving treatment.
The attending physician is also mandated to discuss all of the available options with the individual, including palliative care and hospice. The physician may not write the prescription without first “offering the qualified individual an opportunity to rescind the request.”
The patient is permitted to decline to inform their family that they have chosen to die via a lethal prescription.
While part of the goal of Monday’s press conference was to announce the results of a stated poll by WebMD/Medscape, which claims that doctors in New York state support having the option of physician-assisted suicide 56 to 26 percent, the New York Alliance Against Assisted Suicide noted in a press release that the Medical Society of the State of New York (MSSNY) still opposes doctor-prescribed death.
“Despite shifts in favor of physician-assisted suicide as evidenced by its legality in an increasing number of states, physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia have not been part of the normative practice of modern medicine,” MSSNY writes on its website. “Compelling arguments have not been made for medicine to change its footing and to incorporate the active shortening of life into the norms of medical practice.”
“Although relief of suffering has always been a fundamental duty in medical practice, relief of suffering through shortening of life has not. Moreover, the social and societal implications of such a fundamental change cannot be fully contemplated,” it outlines. “MSSNY supports all appropriate efforts to promote patient autonomy, promote patient dignity, and to relieve suffering associated with severe and advanced diseases. Physicians should not perform euthanasia or participate in assisted suicide.”
Diane Coleman, the president of Not Dead Yet, also expressed concern that because of the cost of healthcare, some might choose assisted suicide because it is the cheapest way out.
“We live with a profit-driven healthcare system facing tremendous cost-cutting pressures. Assisted suicide is the cheapest ‘treatment,’” she sad in a statement. “These bills grant legal immunity to doctors and others who assist suicides of people who may have a terminal condition. They do not prevent mistakes, coercion or abuse and, therefore, endanger the lives of old, ill and disabled people.”
In addition to A. 2694, Assembly bill 30 has been filed, which would direct the commissioner of the State Department of Health to to “conduct a study relating to medical aid in dying,” and Senate bill 647 would prohibit insurance companies from covering the lethal drug so as to avoid swaying the ailing patient.
Physician-assisted suicide is currently legal in seven states—California, Colorado, Montana, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington—as well as the District of Columbia.
While there is much talk about bodily autonomy surrounding both the issue of abortion and physician-assisted suicide, Scripture states in 2 Corinthians 5:15, “He died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him which died for them, and rose again.”
Job 14:5 also outlines, “Seeing [man’s] days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, Thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.”
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It is definitely not how Austrians wanted to begin the New Year.
In a bloody start to 2019, four women have been brutally murdered in the peaceful Alpine nation of almost 9 million people in just over two weeks, shaking the country to its core.
With an additional two murders of women committed last December, the tally of this “femicide,” as it is being termed, stands at six in a little over five weeks. (There have been no male murder victims.) And this in a country with the very low murder rate of only .66 per 100,000 people! (The United States, by contrast, has 5.35)
What is conspicuous to Austrians about these terrible tragedies is that all the women-killers, except one, are not native Austrians. (Non-Austrians are only 15 percent of the population.) Another visible factor is most murders were committed by partners or ex-partners of women who were about to leave, or had left, relationships with their killers.
“It is striking that many foreigners and asylum seekers are found over proportionally among the suspects. That suggests that this group is particularly misogynistic and patriarchist oriented,” said social scientist Birgitt Haller of the Institute for Conflict Research in Vienna.
Police concur. They report that sometimes when called to a migrant home where the husband is physically abusing his wife: “Then he doesn’t understand at all why he is not allowed to hit his wife and why he has to leave the apartment.”
Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Strache of the ruling conservative Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), horrified by the killings, says the fact most of the criminals have a migrant background “is not permitted to be withheld.”
“That is why it would be completely false to speak of an increase in violence among Austrians,” Strache said.
Unfortunately for the people in the land of the edelweiss, and especially for women, it does not appear conditions are going to soon improve. In fact, Austrians can only expect them to get worse, as murder rate statistics indicate. There were 40 murders in Austria in 2015, 17 of them women (42.5%). This increased to 49 in 2016, 28 of them women (57.1%), and again to 62 in 2017, with 36 being women (58%).
Last year, there were 74 murders in Austria, including 44 (60%) women, a new record. But the growing number of murders also matches the general upward trend in crime in the county. Knife attacks, for example, have gone up 300 per percent in the last ten years.
It is the number of female murder victims, however, that distinguishes Austria. In seven of the last ten years, more women have been murdered than men, in two years the numbers were even and only one saw more men killed than women. As well, there are only three countries in Europe where more women are killed: Iceland, the Czech Republic and Switzerland.
But bare statistics do not convey the beauty of the lives extinguished, two of whom were only 16, the despicableness of their killers and the horror of their crimes.
The first victim was one of the 16-year-olds, Michelle, a native Austrian living in Steyr. Her 17 year-old Afghan ex-boyfriend, Saber, murdered her last December 9. He had come to Austria two years earlier as an underage asylum seeker and lived in a hostel for underage migrants.
Saber was described as controlling and forbid Michelle contact with other boys. She broke up with him, however, when she discovered he had another girlfriend. In what may have been an attempted reconciliation, Saber was visiting Michelle in her room when he stabbed her to death.
To escape immediate discovery, Saber then barricaded the bedroom door with a chest, fleeing out the window, leaving Michelle dying on her bed under a pile of laundry. Michelle’s mother and sister made the horrifying discovery only hours later.
Saber had apparently admitted to Michelle’s brother he had killed a person back in Afghanistan. If confirmed, he can’t be deported, however, since that country has the death penalty. Ironically, as an underage teenager, the most jail time Saber will get in Austria in exchange for Michelle’s precious, young life is fifteen years.
The next murder occurred on Christmas Eve in Vienna. A man, originally from India, drowned his wife in the bathtub. Then he took a pair of scissors and cut her forearms to make it look like suicide. “Raging jealousy” was the apparent motive.
The third occurred January 8 in Amstetten. A Turk stabbed his wife 38 times in front of their three children on the street. She had intended to leave him. The man was known as an Islamic fundamentalist and was in the sights of the intelligence service. He would try to convert people and go around lecturing smoking women. At Christmas markets, he would knock ‘gluhwein’, a traditional mulled wine drink, out of people’s hands, saying the drinks were “un-Islamic.” He also had had 30 complaints made against him concerning disturbing the peace, but police could not act because he was not violent.
The fourth female murder occurred the same day. An unemployed, native Austrian man, described as “eccentric,”stabbed his ex-girlfriend to death in front of her apartment building, striking her six times.
The fifth murder witnessed the death of the second 16-year-old, Manuela, on January 13. Her ex-boyfriend, a 19-year-old Syrian asylum seeker, Yazan, strangled her to death in a park, covering her body afterwards with leaves and branches. Manuela’s mother, worried when her daughter did not return home, discovered her lifeless form when looking for her. Yazan had already been in trouble with police “many times” and had two convictions.
The last murder occurred on January 15 when an Ethiopian man stabbed his sister to death in Vienna’s main train station. The sister had come from London to save him from the drug scene he had fallen into. After an argument in the ticket hall, the man fled to a lower level, his sister following. He then turned and stabbed her. The man was suffering from a broken relationship, in which he felt the woman had treated him badly.
The former socialist government, who allowed the migrant wave into Austria in 2015, is being heavily blamed for the women murders. Strache holds all those who initially cheered the then unregulated, massive influx, and, more specifically, the former SPO (Socialist Party of Austria) chancellor, Werner Faymann, directly responsible.
Roman Haider of the FPO’s national council speaks of the SPO’s 2015 “welcoming culture” as “completely false,” saying “these crimes against our women and children are to be attributed” to it.
“Where the journey of the SPO welcome train is heading, one can experience almost daily now in the media,” he said. “The senior conductor and short-time chancellor opened the borders and led the migrants right across our country at the expense of the taxpayer, unregistered and uncontrolled, as well noted.”
“The White House is putting the Europeans on notice, saying that if they try to do an end-run around U.S. sanctions on Iran, they will be subject to stiff fines and penalties.” Iran is a rogue nation with jihadist proxies operating worldwide; it aims to obliterate Israel. No Western nation should be appeasing it. Unfortunately, Barack Hussein Obama did just that, apparently trusting that his appeasement strategy would contain Iran.
Another well-known fact is that globalists are eroding democratic institutions with their suicidal open-border policies, curbing free speech, arrogating ever more power to the anti-democratic United Nations — and doing business with the likes of Iran. So it’s no surprise that “unfazed, the European Union is marching forward with the plan, which, if implemented, could further strain trans-Atlantic relations.” This excludes the nations of the EU that make up the Visegrad group (Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic and Slovakia), as well as Austria and Italy, which have stood for freedom.
It’s now a faceoff: according to Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark), “the choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States….I hope our European allies choose wisely.” Let’s hope no one holds his or her breath regarding the wisdom of most EU countries.
“Trump Warns Europeans Not to Try to Evade Iran Sanctions,” Associated Press, January 28, 2019:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is closely eyeing efforts in Europe to set up an alternative money payment channel to ease doing business with Iran and avoid running afoul of sanctions the U.S. has levied on the Islamic republic.
The White House is putting the Europeans on notice, saying that if they try to do an end-run around U.S. sanctions on Iran, they will be subject to stiff fines and penalties. Unfazed, the European Union is marching forward with the plan, which, if implemented, could further strain trans-Atlantic relations.
A spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini said preparations for the alternative system were “at an advanced stage.”
“I hope that we can announce the launch very soon,” Maja Kocijancic told reporters late last week in Brussels.
Getting out ahead of a possible announcement, a senior administration official told The Associated Press on Friday that the U.S. will fully enforce its sanctions and hold individuals and entities accountable for undermining them. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the issue.
“The choice is whether to do business with Iran or the United States,” Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., told the AP. “I hope our European allies choose wisely.”
The U.S. joined China, France, Germany, Russia and Britain in signing a pact with Iran in 2015 that offered to lift economic sanctions in exchange for Tehran’s pledge to rein in its nuclear weapons program….