By Judie Brown
A death knell is “an action or event presaging death or destruction.”
We can almost hear it today, as a cavalcade of despots leads the way in our modern-day rush to deny human dignity to the vulnerable. We know their names, and we know their deeds, but we have not overcome the dazed attitude of those who refuse to acknowledge the horrors in our midst.
For instance, in Illinois, elected officials in the state senate have joined the chorus of those who clamor to kill innocent people simply because they are ill or dying. Bishop Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, spoke of this and said,
Doctors take an oath to do no harm. Now, they can prescribe death. . . . There are documented cases of patients being denied treatment and instead offered life-ending drugs. Individuals could also be coerced into taking the lethal drug. Physician assisted suicide undermines the value of each person, especially the vulnerable, the poor, and those with disabilities.
And Julie Grimstad of HALO wrote, “This is not a Halloween prank! The ludicrously named ‘Sanitary Food Preparation Act,’ Illinois Senate Bill (SB) 1950, which passed the Senate in the dark of early Halloween morning, will permit physicians to prescribe lethal drugs to enable patients to kill themselves.”
In addition, Fox News reports that the global reach of the assisted suicide movement has begun targeting children! Fox News Digital points out that opponents to such treachery involving children “face a multimillion-dollar global lobby that could be called Assisted Suicide Inc., a sprawling network changing laws worldwide, developing euthanasia services for funeral parlors, selling ‘suicide pods,’ promoting ‘suicide tourism’ and even training ‘doulas for death.’”
In many instances, it appears that humankind has devolved into a web of dark practices where even children can seek out and find ways to take their own lives without a hint of medical difficulty. But what else can we expect to emerge from the milieu of loathing for the innocent preborn that has resulted in more than 70 million abortions worldwide on an annual basis? To far too many individuals, organizations, and governments, the preciousness of a single life has become nothing more than a platitude.
Nothing good can emerge when human dignity is reduced to personal preferences and practices. Some suggest that people are growing tired of the evils parading around as commonplace, yet we often see that humankind’s moral compass has become a fatality in an atmosphere of denial that the commandments of God are relevant.
We are grateful for a vice president who can say publicly that abortion is child sacrifice. But at this juncture in human history, when Americans can ask for safety regulations of the abortion pill rather than condemning it outright and demanding that it be taken off the market, we take a step back to ask, What is a human being’s life worth today?
Are persons mere talking points on political agendas? Clearly the task of the pro-life American has come full circle. Today we must begin with the fundamental questions: Who is a person, and why is each individual worthy of every effort we can expend to nurture, defend, and protect them from the powerful forces that desire mainstreaming actions that impose a death knell on those they suggest are unworthy of life?
We cannot, we will not, and we must not permit this carnage to continue unabated. As Max Lucado said, “No one can do everything, but everyone can do something.” Let us heed that advice and DO something to protect innocent lives.