And He shall Renew the Face of the EarthPro-life Citations from Christian and non-Christian Thinkers

Towards a Civilization of Love.

1. Who is my Neighbor? There was a scholar of the law who stood up to test him and said, "Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" Jesus said to him, "What is written in the law? How do you read it?" He said in reply, "You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." He replied to him, "You have answered correctly; do this and you will live." But because he wished to justify himself, he said to Jesus, "And who is my neighbor?" Jesus replied, "A man fell victim to robbers as he went down from Jerusalem to Jericho. They stripped and beat him and went off leaving him half-dead. A priest happened to be going down that road, but when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. Likewise a Levite came to the place, and when he saw him, he passed by on the opposite side. But a Samaritan traveler who came upon him was moved with compassion at the sight. He approached the victim, poured oil and wine over his wounds and bandaged them. Then he lifted him up on his own animal, took him to an inn and cared for him. The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper with the instruction, 'Take care of him. If you spend more than what I have given you, I shall repay you on my way back.' Which of these three, in your opinion, was neighbor to the robbers' victim?" He answered, "The one who treated him with mercy." Jesus said to him, "Go and do likewise." (The Gospel according to Luke) 2. The Sacred Value of Human Life When he presents the heart of his redemptive mission, Jesus says: "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10). In truth, he is referring to that "new" and "eternal" life which consists in communion with the Father, to which every person is freely called in the Son by the power of the Sanctifying Spirit. It is precisely in this "life" that all the aspects and stages of human life achieve their full significance... Even in the midst of difficulties and uncertainties, every person sincerely open to truth and goodness can, by the light of reason and the hidden action of grace, come to recognize in the natural law written in the heart (cf. Rom 2:14-15) the sacred value of human life from its very beginning until its end, and can affirm the right of every human being to have this primary good respected to the highest degree. Upon the recognition of this right, every human community and the political community itself are founded. (John Paul II: Evangelium Vitae)

3. His Name is Today We are guilty of many errors and many faults, but our worst crime is abandoning the children, neglecting the fountain of life. Many of the things we need can wait. The child cannot. Right now is the time his bones are being formed, his blood is being made, and his senses are being developed. To him we cannot answer Tomorrow, his name is today. (Gabiella Mistral, Chilean poet, winner of Nobel Prize for literature)

4. A Word of Truth And no sooner will falsehood be dispersed than the nakedness of violence will be revealed in all its ugliness - and violence, decrepit, will fall. Proverbs about truth are well-loved in Russian. They give steady and sometimes striking expression to the not inconsiderable harsh national experience: ONE WORD OF TRUTH SHALL OUTWEIGH THE WHOLE WORLD. (Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Lecture)

5. A Positive Alternative Ongewenst of onbedoeld zwanger? Wat nu? Zij ongewenst zwanger? Wat nu? Er is ook hulp voor jongens/mannen! Ik ben zwanger, maar ben er niet blij mee. Ik ben overtijd en ik ben zo bang dat..... Als ik thuis vertel dat ik zwanger ben, dan... Ik ben zwanger, maar mijn vriend wil het niet. Ons gezin is compleet, wat nu? Ik weet niet hoe ik mijn studie moet combineren met een zwangerschap. Wat kan de VBOK voor je doen? We bieden je een luisterend oor en bekijken samen je situatie. We helpen je tot een keuze te komen die het beste bij je past. We wijzen je de weg in het net van sociale voorzieningen. (Handige websites) Wil je de baby afstaan ter adoptie, dan begeleiden we je. We bieden eventueel opvang in bijvoorbeeld het VBOK-huis.

Meer weten? Bel dan: 0900 202 10 88 (24 uur; 0,05/min.) of e-mail naar: hulpverlening@vbok.nl

VBOK toen De VBOK (de Vereniging ter Bescherming van het Ongeboren Kind) is in 1971 in Amsterdam door een aantal artsen en andere betrokkenen opgericht. Onder hen bevonden zich o.a.:Prof. Dr. G.A. Lindeboom; Mw. C.A.H. Haitsma Mulier-van Beusekom; P.M. Beijersbergen van Henegouwen s.j.; Drs. H.J. Ogilvie, huisarts.

Amsterdam was de plek waar de eerste abortuskliniek geopend werd, zodat de oprichters de ongewenst zwangere vrouwen juist daar een alternatief wilden bieden voor abortus. Nadat in 1981 de Wet Afbreking Zwangerschap was aanvaard, is de VBOK zich op hulpverlening en voorlichting gaan concentreren. Het initiatief vond navolging in het gehele land. VBOK nu Tegenwoordig is het Landelijk Dienstencentrum gevestigd in Amersfoort. Daarnaast bevinden zich hulpposten in Amsterdam, Den Haag, Dordrecht, Eindhoven, Goes, Groningen, Maastricht, Rotterdam en Zwolle. In Gouda is het VBOK-huis gevestigd. In totaal werken er ca. 50 beroepskrachten en ca. 750 opgeleide vrijwilligers bij de VBOK. Op zo'n 100 plaatsen in Nederland hebben de vrijwilligers zich verenigd in VBOK-teams om de VBOK regionaal en lokaal te presenteren. Doelstelling Zoals vermeld in het mission statement, wil de VBOK een maximale bijdrage leveren aan het respect voor en de bescherming van het ongeboren kind vanaf de conceptie. De VBOK biedt daarom hulp bij ongewenste zwangerschap en na zwangerschapsverlies en geeft voorlichting op scholen en verenigingen. In het strategisch beleidsplan 2005-2009 'VBOK op koers' vertaald de VBOK haar doelstellingen. De jaarlijkse bijdragen van 100.000 leden en donateurs, (geringe) overheidssubsidie en giften vormen het maatschappelijk en financieel draagvlak voor het werk. (De VBOK)

6. Something Beautiful I will tell you something beautiful. We are fighting abortion by adoption - by care of the mother and adoption for her baby. We have saved thousands of lives. We have sent word to the clinics, to the hospitals and police stations: "Please don't destroy the child; we will take the child." So we always have someone tell the mothers in trouble: "Come, we will take care of you, we will get a home for your child." And we have a tremendous demand from couples who cannot have a child - but I never give a child to a couple who have done something not to have a child. Jesus said. "Anyone who receives a child in my name, receives me." By adopting a child, these couples receive Jesus but, by aborting a child, a couple refuses to receive Jesus.

Please don't kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child. I am willing to accept any child who would be aborted and to give that child to a married couple who will love the child and be loved by the child. From our children's home in Calcutta alone, we have saved over 3000 children from abortion. These children have brought such love and joy to their adopting parents and have grown up so full of love and joy. (Mother Theresa, National Prayer Breakfast, Washington D.C. February 3, 1994)

7. The Worst Problem is the Destruction of Love I know that couples have to plan their family and for that there is natural family planning. The way to plan the family is natural family planning, not contraception. In destroying the power of giving life, through contraception, a husband or wife is doing something to self. This turns the attention to self and so it destroys the gift of love in him or her. In loving, the husband and wife must turn the attention to each other as happens in natural family planning, and not to self, as happens in contraception. Once that living love is destroyed by contraception, abortion follows very easily. I also know that there are great problems in the world - that many spouses do not love each other enough to practice natural family planning. We cannot solve all the problems in the world, but let us never bring in the worst problem of all, and that is to destroy love. And this is what happens when we tell people to practice contraception and abortion. The poor are very great people. They can teach us so many beautiful things. Once one of them came to thank us for teaching her natural family planning and said: "You people who have practiced chastity, you are the best people to teach us natural family planning because it is nothing more than self-control out of love for each other." (Mother Theresa, National Prayer Breakfast, Washoington February 3, 1994)

8. Do Something for the Child Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you to kill me - there is nothing between. And this I appeal in India, I appeal everywhere: Let us bring the child back, and this year being the child's year: What have we done for the child? (Mother Theresa, Nobel Lecture, Oslo 11 december 1979) 9. Zij begrijpen ons niet!

In the Netherlands, euthanasia for competent persons older than 16 years of age has been legally accepted since 1985. The question under consideration now is whether deliberate life-ending procedures are also acceptable for newborns and infants, despite the fact that these patients cannot express their own will. Or must infants with disorders associated with severe and sustained suffering be kept alive when their suffering cannot be adequately reduced? In the Netherlands, as in all other countries, ending someones life, except in extreme conditions, is considered murder. A life of suffering that cannot be alleviated by any means might be considered one of these extreme conditions. Legal control over euthanasia in newborns is based on physicians own reports, followed by assessment by criminal prosecutors. To provide all the information needed for assessment and to prevent interrogations by police officers, we developed a protocol, known as the Groningen protocol, for cases in which a decision is made to actively end the life of a newborn. During the past few months, the international press has been full of blood-chilling accounts and misunderstandings concerning this protocol. (Eduard Verhagen, co-author of the Protocol of Groningen)

10. The Groningen Protocol for Euthanasia in Newborns. Requirements that must be fulfilled --The diagnosis and prognosis must be certain --Hopeless and unbearable suffering must be present --The diagnosis, prognosis, and unbearable suffering must be confirmed by at least one independent doctor --Both parents must give informed consent --The procedure must be performed in accordance with the accepted medical standard Information needed to support and clarify the decision about euthanasia --Diagnosis and prognosis

--Describe all relevant medical data and the results of diagnostic investigations used to establish the diagnosis --List all the participants in the decision-making process, all opinions expressed, and the final consensus --Describe how the prognosis regarding long-term health was assessed --Describe how the degree of suffering and life expectancy were assessed --Describe the availability of alternative treatments, alternative means of alleviating suffering, or both --Describe treatments and the results of treatment preceding the decision about euthanasia Euthanasia decision --Describe who initiated the discussion about possible euthanasia and at what moment --List the considerations that prompted the decision --List all the participants in the decision-making process, all opinions expressed, and the final consensus --Describe the way in which the parents were informed and their opinions Consultation --Describe the physician or physicians who gave a second opinion (name and qualifications) --List the results of the examinations and the recommendations made by the consulting physician or physicians Implementation --Describe the actual euthanasia procedure (time, place, participants, and administration of drugs) --Describe the reasons for the chosen method of euthanasia Steps taken after death --Describe the findings of the coroner --Describe how the euthanasia was reported to the prosecuting authority --Describe how the parents are being supported and counseled --Describe planned follow-up, including case review, postmortem examination, and genetic counseling

(The Protocol of Groningen, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, March 10 2005)

11. Het Alle beschikbare literatuur hebben we doorgenomen, waaronder de jurisprudentie die ontstond doordat twee kinderartsen die het wl gedaan hadden van rechtsvervolging waren ontslagen. Onmisbaar was de hulp die we via een Groningse Officier van Justitie van het OM kregen. We wisten namelijk dat 22 gevallen van euthanasie op een pasgeborene tot in de hoogste instantie, de minister zelf, waren geseponeerd. Zo kregen we inzicht in de argumenten die daarbij doorslaggevend waren en konden we het protocol perfectioneren. (Eduard Verhagen)

12. Steun vanuit Amerika

One sure way to start a lively argument at a dinner party is to raise the question Are we humans getting more decent over time? Optimists about moral progress will point out that the last few centuries have seen, in the West at least, such welcome developments as the abolition of slavery and of legal segregation, the expansion of freedoms (of religion, speech and press), better treatment of women and a gradual reduction of violence, notably murder, in everyday life. Pessimists will respond by citing the epic evils of the 20th century -- the Holocaust, the Gulag. Depending on their religious convictions, some may call attention to the breakdown of the family and a supposed decline in sexual morality.1 Others will complain of backsliding in areas where moral progress had seemingly been secured, like the killing of civilians in war, the reintroduction of the death penalty or the use of torture. And it is quite possible, if your dinner guests are especially well informed, that someone will bring up infanticide.2 Infanticide -- the deliberate killing of newborns with the consent of the parents and the community3 -- has been common4 throughout most of human history. In some societies, like the Eskimos, the Kung in Africa and 18th-century Japan, it served as a form of birth control when food supplies were limited. In others, like the Greek city-states and ancient Rome, it was a way of getting rid of deformed babies. (Plato was an ardent advocate of infanticide for eugenic purposes.) But the three great monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, all condemned infanticide as murder, holding that only God has the right to take innocent human life. Consequently, the practice has long been outlawed in every Western nation.5 This year, however, a new chapter may have begun in the history of infanticide. Two physicians practicing in the Netherlands, the very heart of civilized Europe, this spring published in The New England Journal of Medicine a set of guidelines for what they called infant ''euthanasia.'' The authors named their guidelines the Groningen protocol, after the city where they work. One of the physicians, Dr. Eduard Verhagen, has admitted to presiding over the killing of four babies in the last three years, by means of a lethal intravenous drip of morphine and midazolam (a sleeping agent). While Verhagen's actions

were illegal under Dutch law, he hasn't been prosecuted for them; and if his guidelines were to be accepted, they could establish a legal basis for his death-administering work. At first blush, a call for open infanticide would seem to be the opposite of moral progress. It offends against the ''sanctity of life,'' a doctrine that has come to suffuse moral consciousness, especially in the United States. All human life is held to be of equal and inestimable value. A newborn baby, no matter how deformed or retarded, has a right to life -- a right that trumps all other moral considerations. Violating that right is always and everywhere murder. The sanctity-of-life doctrine has an impressively absolute ring to it. In practice, however, it has proved quite flexible. Take the case of a baby who is born missing most or all of its brain. This condition, known as anencephaly, occurs in about 1 in every 2,000 births. An anencephalic baby, while biologically human, will never develop a rudimentary consciousness, let alone an ability to relate to others or a sense of the future. Yet according to the sanctity-of-life doctrine, those deficiencies do not affect its moral status and hence its right to life. Anencephalic babies could be kept alive for years, given the necessary life support. Yet treatment is typically withheld from them on the grounds that it amounts to ''extraordinary means'' -- even though a baby with a normal brain in need of similar treatment would not be so deprived. Thus they are allowed to die. Are there any limits to such ''passive'' euthanasia?6 A famous test case occurred in 1982 in Indiana, when an infant known as Baby Doe was born with Down syndrome. Children with Down syndrome typically suffer some retardation and other difficulties; while presenting a great challenge to their parents and families, they often live joyful and relatively independent lives. As it happened, Baby Doe also had an improperly formed esophagus, which meant that food put into his mouth could not reach his stomach. Surgery might have remedied this problem, but his parents and physician decided against it, opting for painkillers instead. Within a few days, Baby Doe starved to death. The Reagan administration responded to the case by drafting the ''Baby Doe guidelines,'' which mandated life-sustaining care for such handicapped newborns. But the guidelines were opposed by the American Medical Association and were eventually struck down by the Supreme Court. The distinction between killing a baby and letting it die may be convenient. But is there any moral difference?7 Failing to save someone's life out of ignorance or laziness or cowardice is one thing. But when available lifesaving treatment is deliberately withheld from a baby, the intention is to cause that baby's death8. And the result is just as sure -- if possibly more protracted and painful -- as it would have been through lethal injection.9 It is interesting to contrast the sort of passive euthanasia of infants that is deemed acceptable in our sanctity-of-life culture with the active form that has been advocated in the Netherlands. The Groningen protocol is concerned with an element not present in the above cases: unbearable and unrelievable suffering. Consider the case of Sanne, a Dutch baby girl who was born with a severe form of Hallopeau-Siemens syndrome, a rare skin

disease. As reported earlier this year by Gregory Crouch in The Times, the baby Sanne's ''skin would literally come off if anyone touched her, leaving painful scar tissue in its place.'' With this condition, she was expected to live at most 9 or 10 years before dying of skin cancer. Her parents asked that an end be put to her ordeal, but hospital officials, fearing criminal prosecution, refused. After six months of agony, Sanne finally died of pneumonia. In a case like Sanne's, a new moral duty would seem to be germane: the duty to prevent suffering, especially futile suffering10. That is what the Groningen protocol seeks to recognize. If the newborn's prognosis is hopeless and the pain both severe and unrelievable, it observes, the parents and physicians ''may concur that death would be more humane than continued life.'' The protocol aims to safeguard against ''unjustified''11 euthanasia by offering a checklist of requirements, including informed consent of both parents, certain diagnosis, confirmation by at least one independent doctor and so on. The debate over infant euthanasia is usually framed as a collision between two values: sanctity of life and quality of life. Judgments about the latter, of course, are notoriously subjective and can lead you down a slippery slope. But shifting the emphasis to suffering changes the terms of the debate. To keep alive an infant whose short life expectancy will be dominated by pain -- pain that it can neither bear nor comprehend -- is, it might be argued, to do that infant a continuous injury. Our sense of what constitutes moral progress is a matter partly of reason and partly of sentiment. On the reason side, the Groningen protocol may seem progressive because it refuses to countenance the prolonging of an infant's suffering merely to satisfy a dubious distinction between ''killing'' and ''letting nature take its course.''12 It insists on unflinching honesty13 about a practice that is often shrouded in casuistry14 in the United States. Moral sentiments, though, have an inertia that sometimes resists the force of moral reasons. Just quote Verhagen's description of the medically induced infant deaths over which he has presided -- ''it's beautiful in a way. . . . It is after they die that you see them relaxed for the first time'' -- and even the most spirited dinner-table debate over moral progress will, for a moment, fall silent.15(Jim Holt, The New York Times)1

Does a moral judgement depend only on religious convictions? And why should this area of morality be special in this sense?2

Clever preamble: Captatio benevolentiae I would define infanticide in this more simple fashion: the killing of the infant. Common is employed elastically; it tells us nothing: How common?

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This step has been generally regarded as a moral advance for humanity, in the same sense as for example, the abolition of slavery.6

You tell us. Make your own thought clear on this point. You tell us. Make your own thought clear. Laziness and cowardice can be involved here And also here.

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Preventing suffering is not a new moral duty, but something as old as goodness in the human heart. Unbearable suffering indeed presents a duty to those to whom it appears and addresses itself. It puts our humanity to the test. The relief of unbearable suffering might lead in a determined case to the death of someone, and a decision to relieve such suffering at the cost of bodily life is morally defensible. because the value of the soul is greater than that of the body. But this is not the question which is being addressed here; the question here is whether homicide can be renamed and repackaged as the relief of unbearable suffering. It is not merely traditional morality that says no. It is also the most progressive part of human moral and social conscience that says no. It says that it cannot, that such a homicide falls under the same condemnation as other acts of violence which one claims to justify by having a good and urgent end. (Which acts of violence are not in fact justified in this way?)

11

I find this a remarkable use of quotation marks: for me something is justified or unjustified. What does unjustified then signify? Are we to be satisfied with this imprecision? Doctors normally would be involved in a discussion of whether a certain treatment was justified or unjustified in a technical sense, given the fact that fundamental ethical parameters are assumed to be present in natural law and in positive dispositions. The Protocol of Groningen undermines these parameters, establishing its own vague and contradictory dispositions in their place. It establishes indeed a method of decisionmaking, but in such a way that these decisions can hardly be profoundly satisfying.12

It is in certain circumstances, perhaps a dubious distinction, and for the following reason: Letting nature take its course can constitute neglect. Neglect is a possible means to be used in a murderous plan:. That such a thing also is possible does not mean there is no such thing as murder. By inaction (neglect) we can also become collaborators with the culture of death. Instead we ought to dedicate ourselves to the relief of unbearable suffering, and the protection of the weak and innocent. The difference between this and homicidal action is substantial, not verbal..13

A Protocol that speaks of what in fact is homicide as an act of mercy (confusing the two) is far from honesty/clarity

.What is the meaning of shrouded in casuistry? If there is a better alternative to this casuistry, lets hear it. Clarity is a good thing. But a heap of complications is not relieved by a fundamental confusion (or deception).14 15

It is not only sentiment which abhors such an expression but also the moral conscience.

(The annotations are mine.)

13. Wij mogen ons belangrijk vinden Toen ook de New York Times Verhagen uitgebreid aan het woord liet, kwam er ineens steun van collegas, ouders en zelfs sporters en artiesten. (Article in Triakel, #4, december 14, 2007 Het Groningen protocol drie jaar later)

14. The Poet is a Visionary Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son? Oh, what did you see, my darling young one? I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it, I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin', I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin', I saw a white ladder all covered with water, I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken, I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children, And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall. --Bob Dylan, Hard Rain

15. Waarom slecht?/What is wrong with euthanasia? Waarom moet euthanasie beschouwd worden als verwerpelijk? Omdat het in strijd is met een fundamentele en dringende plicht: de plicht om ondraaglijk lijden te verlichten. Maar de pretentie van euthanasie is juist de vervulling van dezelfde plicht. De vraag is of euthanasie inderdaad de vervulling is van deze plicht. Als het niet zo is moet het beschouwd worden als slecht, als moreel verwerpelijk. Het antwoord is inderdaad nee omdat door euthanasie het geknakte riet wordt gebroken. Euthanasie wordt gerealiseerd om de waardigheid van de mens te beschermen, maar in feite wordt dezelfde waardigheid geschonden. Ondraagbaar lijden wordt aangevochten door

hetzelfde lijden door te voeren, tot een summum te brengen, waardoor een mens letterlijk breekt. De medicijn is erger dan de ziekte, verergert de ziekte. Het is geen goed medicijn. Euthanasie is dus in strijd is met zijn eigen essentile pretentie. het houdt een intrinsieke absurditeit in. Daarom is het moreel slecht. Het is moreel slecht op basis van zijn eigen structuur, die essentieel in strijd is met een morele plicht. . Why is euthanasia wrong? Euthanasia is wrong because it negates and contradicts a fundamental and grave moral duty: the duty to relieve hopeless suffering. Euthanasia pretends to be a moral act in the most noble sense of the word, and the very essence of this pretence is its (pretended) fulfillment of the fundamental and grave moral obligation to relieve hopeless suffering. Euthanasia would be a good moral act if it in fact did what it pretends to do. Yet euthanasia is an evil moral actbecause it does the opposite of what it pretends to do. Instead of relieving hopeless suffering it aggravates and consummates the same hopeless suffering which it pretends to relieve. Hopeless suffering cries out for acute and urgent relief. The fact that it is hopeless suffering means there is no possibility of relief. Nevertheless such suffering cries out, in a terrible paradox, for precisely that relief which is impossible. If one argues for the permissibility of euthanasia on the basis of the existence of hopeless suffering, one is necessarily arguing that the hopelessness in question is something objective. The objectivity of hopeless suffering is therefore the basis of any sensible discussion of the morality of euthanasia. Euthanasia renders homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering. This homicide pretends to be the relief which is sought. (The argument in favor of euthanasia, if one boils it down, is never that euthanasia does not constitute homicide, but that it constitutes a homicide which is rationally justified in view of the phenomenon of hopeless suffering.) But to accept homicide as the adequate response to hopeless suffering is to banalize and ultimately deny the phenomenon of hopeless suffering. The homicide which constitutes euthanasia is not simply and inadequate response to call to relieve hopeless suffering; it is a response which goes in the wrong direction. It does not relieve; it aggravates. It pretends to empty the chalice of suffering, but instead of emptying it, it fills it further. It fills it to the brim. Euthanasia therefore ought not to be confused with palliative therapy for the terminally ill (pain relief pursued as a good in itself). The progress of medical care in this field is to be welcomed, applauded and further stimulatedmedical care which cannot be reduced to the exclusively pharmacological, but which always will always must be fully human, and which

therefore has a relation to the miracle of authentic charity, compassion and care for the suffering fellow human being. It is, above all, this miracle which trumps the hopelessness of hopeless suffering. The prolife option, animated by a serene faith in this miracle, is thus far removed from a mere fatalism and inaction. It is the one position before the phenomenon which rhymes with authentic human progress The operating principle behind arguments for euthanasia, thus, is not simply pain relief. It is rather this idea: that death is the only medicine adequate to relieve hopeless suffering, that death itself, therefore, is the final good, the good that must be realized. (Here one catches glimpse of the nucleus of that culture of death named by Pope John Paul II: a cult of death which is honored as the solution to the Great Curse of hopeless suffering.) The point to be made here is simply this: that the principle is a false principle: death is the triumph of hopeless suffering, not the end of it. While acknowledging the possible good intentions that concrete persons may have or have had in choosing for euthanasia, it is necessary to conclude that Euthanasia in its essential structure, does not constitute a realization of human solidarity, but rather, tragically, a betrayal of human solidarity. Mercy is a good thing; but that does not make mercy-killing a good thing. It is, indeed a complex thing (being an evil thing wrapped in a good wrapper, namely a good intention), but that it is complex means that we need to form our judgment concerning it carefully and uprightly. It does not mean that we may reach no conclusions about euthanasia. It does not mean that there is no conclusion to be made. It does not mean that our conclusion regarding euthanasia is yes and no. It does not mean that euthanasia is not intrinsically wrong. A parallel case: It is politically correct to afiirm that terrorism is wrong, and clearly wrong. Yet terrorism is also a complex reality. One ought to place oneself in the mind of the terrorist. The terrorist chooses an evil thing wrapped in the good wrapper, which, exactly as in the case of euthanasia, is a good intention. A terrorist does not kill simply for the sake of killing. (We have now other names for that phenomenon.) A terrorist is typically someone who has reasons: he is acting in the name of those who are victimized politically, who endure the political version of hopeless suffering (Think of the historically persecuted Catholic in Northern Ireland, the Palestinian) Terrorism is a complex thing. Yet we do not praise the terrorist. Why are we now praising the practitioner of euthanasia? We are now saying that the practitioner of euthanasia is exercising the highest morality. But is that so? I say that it is not so. We praise him because we belong to his tribe. We praise him because he is buttering our bread and solving our problem: We cannot possibly maintain all the older

people that our aging society is creating (all those useless leaches and eyesores), because it would crimp our lifestyle, which is of course unthinkable. Therefore certain mechanisms will be perforce created, and they will be surrounded by a faade of high-mindedness. Will that not be a perfect exercise of what was once called social Darwinism, which in plain language is human viciousness but then masked under liberal consensus? The scandal is that hopeless suffering remains, that it remains unacknowledged, that we have refused to acknowledge it. Merely acknowledging it would be a first step towards salvation, and here is that first step everything. We have chosen the way of that priest and that Levite who refused to see the man who had fallen in the hands of robbers on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho. Those who saw, and refuse to see. John of the Cross: Where there is no love, put love, and there will be love. Euthanasia therefore is wrong. I believe that the moralists and spiritual leaders who have avoided the issue of euthanasia with that politically correct shrug of the shoulders: Gee, that is a difficult one; why doesnt everyone just decide for themselves? have seriously abdicated their proper responsibility: the responsibility of thought, and the responsibility of speaking out.

16. De waarde van het (mede-) lijden The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer. This holds true both for the individual and for society. A society unable to accept its suffering members and incapable of helping to share their suffering and to bear it inwardly through com-passion is a cruel and inhuman society. Yet society cannot accept its suffering members and support them in their trials unless individuals are capable of doing so themselves; moreover, the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the other who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love. The Latin word con-solatio, consolation, expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie. In the end, even the yes to love is a source of suffering, because love always requires expropriations of my I, in which I allow myself to be pruned and wounded. Love simply cannot exist without this painful renunciation of myself, for otherwise it becomes pure selfishness and thereby ceases to be love. 39. To suffer with the other and for others; to suffer for the sake of truth and justice; to suffer out of love and in order to become a person who truly lovesthese are fundamental elements

of humanity, and to abandon them would destroy man himself. Yet once again the question arises: are we capable of this? Is the other important enough to warrant my becoming, on his account, a person who suffers? Does truth matter to me enough to make suffering worthwhile? Is the promise of love so great that it justifies the gift of myself? In the history of humanity, it was the Christian faith that had the particular merit of bringing forth within man a new and deeper capacity for these kinds of suffering that are decisive for his humanity. The Christian faith has shown us that truth, justice and love are not simply ideals, but enormously weighty realities. It has shown us that God Truth and Love in persondesired to suffer for us and with us. Bernard of Clairvaux coined the marvellous expression: Impassibilis est Deus, sed non incompassibilis 29God cannot suffer, but he can suffer with. Man is worth so much to God that he himself became man in order to suffer with man in an utterly real wayin flesh and bloodas is revealed to us in the account of Jesus's Passion. Hence in all human suffering we are joined by one who experiences and carries that suffering with us; hence consolatio is present in all suffering, the consolation of God's compassionate loveand so the star of hope rises. (Pope Benedict XVI, Spes Salvi)

17. Nederland heeft ware helden Plaats:Polizeiliches Durchgangerslager Amersfoort (P.D.A.), Datum: Goede Vrijdag 3 april 1942 Gelegenheid: Toespraak Pater Titus Brandsma Titel: "De Nederlandse lijdensmystiek en haar eigen karakter" Hoofdpunten: --Het is ons een vreugde in de geest onzer vaderen uit 14e, 15e en 16e eeuw deze blijde en grote dag te herdenken." --De mystiek is de wondere vereniging van God en mens, het niet langer schuilgaan van het goddelijke achter het menselijke, de Godservaring in ons." --Ruusbruuc, Geert Groot, Thomas van Kempen, Hendrik Mande Liduina, het lijden van Christus --"Op deze dag, blijde dankbare stemming bij levendige voorstelling van het lijden van Christus." --"God in ons! Omnia possum in eo qui me confortat --Perseveramus Deo adjutante --Probamur Dum Amamur (Zinspeling op afkorting naam kamp, P.D.A.) 26 juli 1942: Pater Titus Brandsma sterft te Dachau, als gevolg aan een dodelijke injectie

"De "verpleegster" die hem op 26 juli 1942 het dodelijke spuitje gaf, getuigde later dat haar steeds levendig het gelaat voor de geest stond van die priester die "medelijden met mij had". (toespraak Johannes Paulus II bij zaligverklaring Titus Brandsma) Op dezelfde zondag 26 juli: het Herderlijk Schrijven van de Nederlandse Bisschoppen veroordeelt de jodenvervolging. Dit werd voorgelezen in alle Katholieke kerken. Op twee augustus in reactie hierop werden tot het katholicisme bekeerde joden opgepakt. Tot hen behoorden Edith Stein en haar zus Rosa. Als zij te Echt in hechtenis genomen worden, zijn deze woorden van Edith Stein te horen. Kom, laten wij gaan voor ons volk (Levensverhaal van de Zalige Titus Brandsma)

Why not have a closer look? Pierre Mertens, President of the International Federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus, had a meeting on Monday 10 October 2005 with Dr. de Jong and Dr. Kompanje, who both have doubts about the appropriateness of Dr. Verhagens Groningen Protocol in the case of spina bifida (cf. infra). This protocol is developed to provide a (legal) frame for doctors facing the birth of a severely disabled child and presented in the New England Journal of Medicine, 10 March 2005. 22 cases of deliberate termination of life of on such babies have been reported - but not prosecuted - from 1997 until 2004. Since no legislative framework exists for these babies, one can assume that there are many more cases that are not being reported. Several elements in this protocol do not seem to be correct or verifiable, making the Groningen Protocol an inadequate instrument to decide over life and death of a new-born. Dr. de Jong and Dr Kompanje have the following arguments: Why do all cases concern babies with spina bifida? Dr. de Jong says: I knew that this report was coming up, but when I read it I thought: What? The 22 described cases were all children with spina bifida! Ive been treating such new-borns for years and I never had the impression that they were suffering unbearably. Dr. Erwin Kompanje: I expected it to be cases of children suffering from severe congenital heart conditions or from trisomy 18 a complex syndrome involving a lot of suffering. But it only concerned severe cases of spina bifida. Whats that, what does that mean? That remains completely unclear. (Press Release from the International federation for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus)

18. Sommige handelingen zijn altijd moreel verwerpelijk For men to choose to kill the innocent as a means to their ends is always murder, and murder is one of the worst of human actions. So the prohibition on deliberately killing prisoners of war or the civilian population is not like the Queensbury Rules: its force does not depend on its promulgation as part of positive law, written down, agreed upon, and adhered to by the parties concerned.

When I say that to choose to kill the innocent as a means to ones ends is murder, I am saying what would generally be accepted as correct. But I shall be asked for my definition of the innocent. I will give it, but later. Here, it is not necessary; for with Hiroshima and Nagasaki we are not confronted with a borderline case. In the bombing of these cities it was certainly decided to kill the innocent as a means to an end. And a very large number of them, all at once, without warning, without the interstices of escape or the chance to take shelter, which existed even in the area bombing of the German cities. I have long been puzzled by the common cant about President Trumans courage in making this decision. Of course, I know that you can be cowardly without having reason to think you are in danger. But how can you be courageous? Light has come to me lately: the term is an acknowledgement of the truth. Mr. Truman was brave because, and only because, what he did was so bad. But I think the judgement unsound. Given the right circumstances (e.g. that no one whose opinion matters will disapprove), a quite mediocre person can do spectacularly wicked things without thereby becoming impressive. I determined to oppose the proposal to give Mr. Truman an honorary degree here at Oxford. Now, an honorary degree is not a reward of merit: it is, as it were, a reward for being a very distinguished person, and it would be foolish to enquire whether a candidate deserves to be as distinguished as he is. That is why, in general, the question whether so-andso should have an honorary degree is devoid of interest. A very distinguished person will hardly be also a notorious criminal, and if he should chance to be a non-notorious criminal it would, in my opinion, be improper to bring the matter up. It is only in the rather rare case in which a man is known everywhere for an action, in fact of which it is sycophancy to honor him, that the question can be of the slightest interest. I have been accused of being high-minded. I must be saying You may not do evil that good may come, which is a disagreeably high-minded doctrine. The action was necessary, or at any rate it was thought by competent, expert military opinion to be necessary; it probably saved more lives than it sacrificed; it had a good result, it ended the war. Come now: if you had to choose between boiling one baby and letting some frightful disaster befall a thousand peopleor a million people, if a thousand is not enoughwhat would you do? Are you going to strike an attitude and say You may not do evil that good may come? (People who never hear such arguments will hardly believe they take place, and will pass this rapidly by.) It pretty certainly saved a huge number of lives. Given the conditions, I agree. That is to say, if those bombs had not been dropped the Allies would have had to invade Japan to achieve their aim, and they would have done so. Very many soldiers on both sides would have been killed; the Japanese, it is saidand it may well be truewould have massacred the prisoners of war; and large numbers of their civilian population would have been killed by ordinary bombing. I do not dispute it. Given the conditions, that was probably what was averted by that action. But what were the conditions? The unlimited objective, the fixation on unconditional surrender. The disregard of the fact that the Japanese were desirous of negotiating peace. The character of the Potsdam Declarationtheir chance. I will not suggest, as some would like to do, that there was an exultant itch to use the new weapons, but it seems plausible to think that the consciousness of the possession of such instruments had its effect on the manner in which the Japanese were offered their chance. We can now reformulate the principle of doing evil that good may come Every fool can be as much of a knave as suits him.

I recommend this history to undergraduates reading Greats as throwing a glaring light on Aristotles thesis that you cannot be or do any good where you are stupid.

(G.E.M. Anscombe in Mr. Trumans Degree)

19. A Shallow PhilosophyIf you notice the transition from Mill to Moore, you will suspect that it was made somewhere by someone; Sidgwick will come to mind as a likely name; and you will in fact find it going on, almost casually, in him. He is rather a dull author; and the important things in him occur in asides and footnotes and small bits of argument which are not concerned with his grand classification of the "methods of ethics." A divine law theory of ethics is reduced to an insignificant variety by a footnote telling us that "the best theologians" (God knows whom he meant) tell us that God is to be obeyed in his capacity of a moral being. one seems to hear Aristotle saying: "Isn't the praise vulgar?"[5] But Sidgwick is vulgar in that kind of way: he thinks, for example, that humility consists in underestimating your own merits--i.e, in a species of untruthfulness; and that the ground for having laws against blasphemy was that it was offensive to believers; and that to go accurately into the virtue of purity is to offend against its canons, a thing he reproves "medieval theologians" for not realizing. From the point of view of the present enquiry, the most important thing about Sidgwick was his definition of intention. He defines intention in such a way that one must be said to intend any foreseen consequences of one's voluntary action. This definition is obviously incorrect, and I dare say that no one would be found to defend it now. He uses it to put forward an ethical thesis which would now be accepted by many people: the thesis that it does not make any difference to a man's responsibility for something that he foresaw, that he felt no desire for it, either as an end or as a means to an end. Using the language of intention more correctly, and avoiding Sidgwick's faulty conception, we may state the thesis thus: it does not make any difference to a man's responsibility for an effect of his action which he can foresee, that he does not intend it. Now this sounds rather edifying; it is I think quite characteristic of very bad degenerations of thought on such questions that they sound edifying. We can see what it amounts to by considering an example. Let us suppose that a man has a responsibility for the maintenance of some child. Therefore deliberately to withdraw support from it is a bad sort of thing for him to do. It would be bad for him to withdraw its maintenance because he didn't want to maintain it any longer; and also bad for him to withdraw it because by doing so he would, let us say, compel someone else to do something. (We may suppose for the sake of argument that compelling that person to do that thing is in itself quite admirable.) But now he has to choose between doing something disgraceful and going to prison; if he goes to prison, it will follow that he withdraws support from the child. By Sidgwick's doctrine, there is no difference in his responsibility for ceasing to maintain the child, between the case where he does it for its own sake or as a means to some other purpose, and when it happens as a foreseen and unavoidable consequence of his going to prison rather than do something disgraceful. It follows that he must weigh up the relative badness of withdrawing support from the child and of doing the disgraceful thing; and it may easily be that the disgraceful thing is in fact a less vicious action than intentionally withdrawing support from the child would be; if then the fact that withdrawing support from the child is a side effect of his going to prison does not make any difference to his responsibility, this consideration will incline

him to do the disgraceful thing; which can still be pretty bad. And of course, once he has started to look at the matter in this light, the only reasonable thing for him to consider will be the consequences and not the intrinsic badness of this or that action. So that, given that he judges reasonably that no great harm will come of it, he can do a much more disgraceful thing than deliberately withdrawing support from the child. And if his calculations turn out in fact wrong, it will appear that he was not responsible for the consequences, because he did not foresee them. For in fact Sidgwick's thesis leads to its being quite impossible to estimate the badness of an action except in the light of expected consequences. But if so, then you must estimate the badness in the light of the consequences you expect; and so it will follow that you can exculpate yourself from the actual consequences of the most disgraceful actions, so long as you can make out a case for not having foreseen them. Whereas I should contend that a man is responsible for the bad consequences of his bad actions, but gets no credit for the good ones; and contrariwise is not responsible for the bad consequences of good actions. The denial of any distinction between foreseen and intended consequences, as far as responsibility is concerned, was not made by Sidgwick in developing any one "method of ethics"; he made this important move on behalf of everybody and just on its own account; and I think it plausible to suggest that this move on the part of Sidgwick explains the difference between old-fashioned Utilitarianism and that consequentialism, as I name it, which marks him and every English academic moral philosopher since him. By it, the kind of consideration which would formerly have been regarded as a temptation, the kind of consideration urged upon men by wives and flattering friends, was given a status by moral philosophers in their theories. It is a necessary feature of consequentialism that it is a shallow philosophy. For there are always borderline cases in ethics. Now if you are either an Aristotelian, or a believer in divine law, you will deal with a borderline case by considering whether doing such-and-such in such-and-such circumstances is, say, murder, or is an act of injustice; and according as you decide it is or it isn't, you judge it to be a thing to do or not. This would be the method of casuistry; and while it may lead you to stretch a point on the circumference, it will not permit you to destroy the center. But if you are a consequentialist, the question "What is it right to do in such-and-such circumstances?" is a stupid one to raise. The casuist raises such a question only to ask "Would it be permissible to do so-and-so?" or "Would it be permissible not to do so-and-so?" Only if it would not be permissible not to do so-and-so could he say "This would be the thing to do."[6] Otherwise, though he may speak against some action, he cannot prescribe any-for in an actual case, the circumstances (beyond the ones imagined) might suggest all sorts of possibilities, and you can't know in advance what the possibilities are going to be. Now the consequentialist has no footing on which to say "This would be permissible, this not"; because by his own hypothesis, it is the consequences that are to decide, and he has no business to pretend that he can lay it down what possible twists a man could give doing this or that; the most he can say is: a man must not bring about this or that; he has no right to say he will, in an actual case, bring about such-and-such unless he does so-and-so. Further, the consequentialist, in order to be imagining borderline cases at all, has of course to assume some sort of law or standard according to which this is a borderline case, Where then does he get the standard from? In practice the answer invariably is: from the standards current in his society or his circle. And it has in fact been the mark of all these philosophers that they have been extremely conventional; they have nothing in them by which to revolt against the conventional standards of their sort of people; it is impossible that they should be profound. But the chance that a whole range of conventional standards will be decent is small.--Finally, the point of considering hypothetical situations, perhaps very improbable ones, seems to be to elicit from yourself or someone else a hypothetical decision

to do something of a bad kind. I don't doubt this has the effect of predisposing people--who will never get into the situations for which they have made hypothetical choices--to consent to similar bad actions, or to praise and flatter those who do them, so long as their crowd does so too, when the desperate circumstances imagined don't hold at all.

(G.E.M. Anscombe, in Modern Moral Philosophy)

20. Prophecy and HistoryLater on I want to say something about all this, showing how this humane holocaust, this dreadful slaughter that began with 50 million babies last year, will undoubtedly be extended to the senile old and the mentally afflicted and mongoloid children, and so on, because of the large amount of money that maintaining them costs. It is all the more ironical when one thinks about the holocaust western audiences, and the German population in particular, have been shuddering over, as it has been presented on their TV and cinema screens. Note this compassionate or humane holocaust, if, as I fear, it gains momentum, will quite put that other in the shade. And, as I shall try to explain, what is even more ironical, the actual considerations that led to the German holocaust were not, as is commonly suggested, due to Nazi terrorism, but were based upon the sort of legislation that advocates of euthanasia, or mercy killing, in this country and in western Europe, are trying to get enacted. Its not true that the German holocaust was simply a war crime, as it was judged to be at Nuremberg. In point of fact, it was based upon a perfectly coherent, legally enacted decree approved and operated by the German medical profession before the Nazis took over power. In other words, from the point of view of the Guinness Book of Records you can say that in our mad world it takes about thirty years to transform a war crime into a compassionate act.

(Malcolm Muggeridge, The Great Liberal Death-Wish)

21. Serious? A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for

the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes. I think it is agreed by all parties, that this prodigious number of children in the arms, or on the backs, or at the heels of their mothers, and frequently of their fathers, is in the present deplorable state of the kingdom, a very great additional grievance; and therefore whoever could find out a fair, cheap and easy method of making these children sound and useful members of the common-wealth, would deserve so well of the publick, as to have his statue set up for a preserver of the nation. But my intention is very far from being confined to provide only for the children of professed beggars: it is of a much greater extent, and shall take in the whole number of infants at a certain age, who are born of parents in effect as little able to support them, as those who demand our charity in the streets. As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation. It is true, a child just dropt from its dam, may be supported by her milk, for a solar year, with little other nourishment: at most not above the value of two shillings, which the mother may certainly get, or the value in scraps, by her lawful occupation of begging; and it is exactly at one year old that I propose to provide for them in such a manner, as, instead of being a charge upon their parents, or the parish, or wanting food and raiment for the rest of their lives, they shall, on the contrary, contribute to the feeding, and partly to the cloathing of many thousands. There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast. The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born. The question therefore is, How this number shall be reared, and provided for? which, as I have

already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses, (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land: they can very seldom pick up a livelihood by stealing till they arrive at six years old; except where they are of towardly parts, although I confess they learn the rudiments much earlier; during which time they can however be properly looked upon only as probationers: As I have been informed by a principal gentleman in the county of Cavan, who protested to me, that he never knew above one or two instances under the age of six, even in a part of the kingdom so renowned for the quickest proficiency in that art. I am assured by our merchants, that a boy or a girl before twelve years old, is no saleable commodity, and even when they come to this age, they will not yield above three pounds, or three pounds and half a crown at most, on the exchange; which cannot turn to account either to the parents or kingdom, the charge of nutriments and rags having been at least four times that value. I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection. I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust. I do therefore humbly offer it to publick consideration, that of the hundred and twenty thousand children, already computed, twenty thousand may be reserved for breed, whereof only one fourth part to be males; which is more than we allow to sheep, black cattle, or swine, and my reason is, that these children are seldom the fruits of marriage, a circumstance not much regarded by our savages, therefore, one male will be sufficient to serve four females. That the remaining hundred thousand may, at a year old, be offered in sale to the persons of quality and fortune, through the kingdom, always advising the mother to let them suck plentifully in the last month, so as to render them plump, and fat for a good table. A child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends, and when the family dines alone, the fore or hind quarter will make a reasonable dish, and seasoned with a little pepper or salt, will be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter. I have reckoned upon a medium, that a child just born will weigh 12 pounds, and in a solar year, if tolerably nursed, encreaseth to 28 pounds.

I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children. Infant's flesh will be in season throughout the year, but more plentiful in March, and a little before and after; for we are told by a grave author, an eminent French physician, that fish being a prolifick dyet, there are more children born in Roman Catholick countries about nine months after Lent, the markets will be more glutted than usual, because the number of Popish infants, is at least three to one in this kingdom, and therefore it will have one other collateral advantage, by lessening the number of Papists among us. I have already computed the charge of nursing a beggar's child (in which list I reckon all cottagers, labourers, and four-fifths of the farmers) to be about two shillings per annum, rags included; and I believe no gentleman would repine to give ten shillings for the carcass of a good fat child, which, as I have said, will make four dishes of excellent nutritive meat, when he hath only some particular friend, or his own family to dine with him. Thus the squire will learn to be a good landlord, and grow popular among his tenants, the mother will have eight shillings neat profit, and be fit for work till she produces another child. Those who are more thrifty (as I must confess the times require) may flea the carcass; the skin of which, artificially dressed, will make admirable gloves for ladies, and summer boots for fine gentlemen. As to our City of Dublin, shambles may be appointed for this purpose, in the most convenient parts of it, and butchers we may be assured will not be wanting; although I rather recommend buying the children alive, and dressing them hot from the knife, as we do roasting pigs. A very worthy person, a true lover of his country, and whose virtues I highly esteem, was lately pleased, in discoursing on this matter, to offer a refinement upon my scheme. He said, that many gentlemen of this kingdom, having of late destroyed their deer, he conceived that the want of venison might be well supply'd by the bodies of young lads and maidens, not exceeding fourteen years of age, nor under twelve; so great a number of both sexes in every country being now ready to starve for want of work and service: And these to be disposed of by their parents if alive, or otherwise by their nearest relations. But with due deference to so excellent a friend, and so deserving a patriot, I cannot be altogether in his sentiments; for as to the males, my American acquaintance assured me from frequent experience, that

their flesh was generally tough and lean, like that of our school-boys, by continual exercise, and their taste disagreeable, and to fatten them would not answer the charge. Then as to the females, it would, I think, with humble submission, be a loss to the publick, because they soon would become breeders themselves: And besides, it is not improbable that some scrupulous people might be apt to censure such a practice, (although indeed very unjustly) as a little bordering upon cruelty, which, I confess, hath always been with me the strongest objection against any project, how well soever intended. But in order to justify my friend, he confessed, that this expedient was put into his head by the famous Salmanaazor, a native of the island Formosa, who came from thence to London, above twenty years ago, and in conversation told my friend, that in his country, when any young person happened to be put to death, the executioner sold the carcass to persons of quality, as a prime dainty; and that, in his time, the body of a plump girl of fifteen, who was crucified for an attempt to poison the Emperor, was sold to his imperial majesty's prime minister of state, and other great mandarins of the court in joints from the gibbet, at four hundred crowns. Neither indeed can I deny, that if the same use were made of several plump young girls in this town, who without one single groat to their fortunes, cannot stir abroad without a chair, and appear at a play-house and assemblies in foreign fineries which they never will pay for; the kingdom would not be the worse. Some persons of a desponding spirit are in great concern about that vast number of poor people, who are aged, diseased, or maimed; and I have been desired to employ my thoughts what course may be taken, to ease the nation of so grievous an incumbrance. But I am not in the least pain upon that matter, because it is very well known, that they are every day dying, and rotting, by cold and famine, and filth, and vermin, as fast as can be reasonably expected. And as to the young labourers, they are now in almost as hopeful a condition. They cannot get work, and consequently pine away from want of nourishment, to a degree, that if at any time they are accidentally hired to common labour, they have not strength to perform it, and thus the country and themselves are happily delivered from the evils to come. I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance. For first, as I have already observed, it would greatly lessen the number of Papists, with whom we are yearly over-run, being the principal breeders of the nation, as well as our most dangerous enemies, and who stay at home on purpose with a design

to deliver the kingdom to the Pretender, hoping to take their advantage by the absence of so many good Protestants, who have chosen rather to leave their country, than stay at home and pay tithes against their conscience to an episcopal curate. Secondly, The poorer tenants will have something valuable of their own, which by law may be made liable to a distress, and help to pay their landlord's rent, their corn and cattle being already seized, and money a thing unknown. Thirdly, Whereas the maintainance of an hundred thousand children, from two years old, and upwards, cannot be computed at less than ten shillings a piece per annum, the nation's stock will be thereby encreased fifty thousand pounds per annum, besides the profit of a new dish, introduced to the tables of all gentlemen of fortune in the kingdom, who have any refinement in taste. And the money will circulate among our selves, the goods being entirely of our own growth and manufacture. Fourthly, The constant breeders, besides the gain of eight shillings sterling per annum by the sale of their children, will be rid of the charge of maintaining them after the first year. Fifthly, This food would likewise bring great custom to taverns, where the vintners will certainly be so prudent as to procure the best receipts for dressing it to perfection; and consequently have their houses frequented by all the fine gentlemen, who justly value themselves upon their knowledge in good eating; and a skilful cook, who understands how to oblige his guests, will contrive to make it as expensive as they please. Sixthly, This would be a great inducement to marriage, which all wise nations have either encouraged by rewards, or enforced by laws and penalties. It would encrease the care and tenderness of mothers towards their children, when they were sure of a settlement for life to the poor babes, provided in some sort by the publick, to their annual profit instead of expence. We should soon see an honest emulation among the married women, which of them could bring the fattest child to the market. Men would become as fond of their wives, during the time of their pregnancy, as they are now of their mares in foal, their cows in calf, or sow when they are ready to farrow; nor offer to beat or kick them (as is too frequent a practice) for fear of a miscarriage. Many other advantages might be enumerated. For instance, the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barrel'd beef: the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvement in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables; which are

no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well grown, fat yearly child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a Lord Mayor's feast, or any other publick entertainment. But this, and many others, I omit, being studious of brevity. Supposing that one thousand families in this city, would be constant customers for infants flesh, besides others who might have it at merry meetings, particularly at weddings and christenings, I compute that Dublin would take off annually about twenty thousand carcasses; and the rest of the kingdom (where probably they will be sold somewhat cheaper) the remaining eighty thousand. I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal, unless it should be urged, that the number of people will be thereby much lessened in the kingdom. This I freely own, and 'twas indeed one principal design in offering it to the world. I desire the reader will observe, that I calculate my remedy for this one individual Kingdom of Ireland, and for no other that ever was, is, or, I think, ever can be upon Earth. Therefore let no man talk to me of other expedients: Of taxing our absentees at five shillings a pound: Of using neither cloaths, nor houshold furniture, except what is of our own growth and manufacture: Of utterly rejecting the materials and instruments that promote foreign luxury: Of curing the expensiveness of pride, vanity, idleness, and gaming in our women: Of introducing a vein of parsimony, prudence and temperance: Of learning to love our country, wherein we differ even from Laplanders, and the inhabitants of Topinamboo: Of quitting our animosities and factions, nor acting any longer like the Jews, who were murdering one another at the very moment their city was taken: Of being a little cautious not to sell our country and consciences for nothing: Of teaching landlords to have at least one degree of mercy towards their tenants. Lastly, of putting a spirit of honesty, industry, and skill into our shop-keepers, who, if a resolution could now be taken to buy only our native goods, would immediately unite to cheat and exact upon us in the price, the measure, and the goodness, nor could ever yet be brought to make one fair proposal of just dealing, though often and earnestly invited to it. Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, 'till he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice. But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real,

of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England. For this kind of commodity will not bear exportation, and flesh being of too tender a consistence, to admit a long continuance in salt, although perhaps I could name a country, which would be glad to eat up our whole nation without it. After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion, as to reject any offer, proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual. But before something of that kind shall be advanced in contradiction to my scheme, and offering a better, I desire the author or authors will be pleased maturely to consider two points. First, As things now stand, how they will be able to find food and raiment for a hundred thousand useless mouths and backs. And secondly, There being a round million of creatures in humane figure throughout this kingdom, whose whole subsistence put into a common stock, would leave them in debt two million of pounds sterling, adding those who are beggars by profession, to the bulk of farmers, cottagers and labourers, with their wives and children, who are beggars in effect; I desire those politicians who dislike my overture, and may perhaps be so bold to attempt an answer, that they will first ask the parents of these mortals, whether they would not at this day think it a great happiness to have been sold for food at a year old, in the manner I prescribe, and thereby have avoided such a perpetual scene of misfortunes, as they have since gone through, by the oppression of landlords, the impossibility of paying rent without money or trade, the want of common sustenance, with neither house nor cloaths to cover them from the inclemencies of the weather, and the most inevitable prospect of intailing the like, or greater miseries, upon their breed for ever. I profess, in the sincerity of my heart, that I have not the least personal interest in endeavouring to promote this necessary work, having no other motive than the publick good of my country, by advancing our trade, providing for infants, relieving the poor, and giving some pleasure to the rich. I have no children, by which I can propose to get a single penny; the youngest being nine years old, and my wife past child-bearing. (Jonathan Swift, in 1729) 22. The Wasteland. You ought to be ashamed, I said, to look so antique. (And her only thirty-one.) I can't help it, she said, pulling a long face, It's them pills I took, to bring it off, she said. (She's had five already, and nearly died of young George.)

The chemist said it would be all right, but I've never been the same. You are a proper fool, I said. Well, if Albert won't leave you alone, there it is, I said, What you get married for if you don't want children? Hurry up please, its time What is that sound high in the air Murmur of maternal lamentation Who are those hooded hordes swarming Over endless plains, stumbling in cracked earth Ringed by the flat horizon only What is the city over the mountains Cracks and reforms and bursts in the violet air Falling towers Jerusalem Athens Alexandria Vienna London Unreal T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land

23. Behind the Scenes IF YOU ARE WONDERING WHY the USA seems so involved in the population control of many Third World nations, read the entire National Security Study Memorandum, NSSM200: www.hli.org/nssm-200.pdf, and a 2004 retrospective on the memo: www.hli.org/Kissinger%20Report%202004.pdf. ADMINISTRATION ASKED TO END DECADES OLD US FOREIGN-TARGETED POPULATION CONTROL POLICY- The rarely-spoken of foreign-targeted US population control policy, NSSM 200, was given special public exposure at a Human Life International (HLI) press conference. HLI addressed the 3-decades-old population control policy that was drawn up based on a 1974 memorandum by Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State during the administration of President Richard Nixon. Kissinger's National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200) was a confidential document until declassified in the early 1990's and is still unknown to most Americans who would highly likely never have supported such a policy. The plan called for collusion among the U.S. government, the United Nations and nongovernmental organizations such as International Planned Parenthood Federation. According to NSSM 200: "Throughout the implementation of the [population control] process, we have to make sure to hide our tracks and disguise our programs as altruistic... hiding the fact that we want access to their natural resources." HLI has called upon the Bush Administration to formally rescind the Kissinger population control policy and withdraw related funding from the United Nations.

NSSM 200, and the US population control policy which came from it, especially targeted thirteen countries for depopulation, countries which, if allowed to increase sufficiently in population, were seen to be able to challenge US economic superiority. Billions of US taxpayer dollars have since gone into funding population control in countries around the globe. HLI explains in a release that NSSM 200 justified the radical population control methods it implemented by claiming it would: 1) prevent developing nations from becoming politically powerful; 2) protect U.S. investments in these countries; 3) maintain U.S. access to these countries' natural resources; 4) limit the number of young people in these countries, who are more likely to challenge existing social and political norms. The press conference was held at the National Press Club in Washington DC, and featured leaders from several of the 13 nations targeted by NSSM 200. These leaders discussed the repercussions their countries had experienced as a result of the secret population control agenda contained in the memo. "Recent articles in Newsweek and Parade magazines demonstrate that the 'need' for population control is nothing more than an over-hyped myth. The time has come for U.S. government policy to formally acknowledge this same basic truth," said T. J. Euteneuer, president of HLI. "For the past 30 years, billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars have gone to fund population control programs- this, too, must come to an end." The population-control ideology and the means to achieve it can be found in a U.S. executivelevel government document entitled National Security Study Memorandum 200 (NSSM 200), published in 1974 and declassified in 1989. Although this plan of action was to be activated in developing countries, it was designed as a two-edged sword that could be swung with equal determination in both developed and developing countries alike. The document was signed by Henry Kissinger and directed to the secretaries of defense, agriculture and central intelligence, the deputy secretary of state, and the administrator of the Agency for International Development, with a copy to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The focus of the study was the "international political and economic implications of population growth." The official policy of the U.S. regarding population control in foreign policy is spelled out in NSSM 200. The Memorandum became the official guide to U.S. foreign policy on Nov. 26, 1975 and has not been replaced since. NSSM 200, subtitled "Implications of Worldwide Population Growth for U.S. Security and Overseas Interests," warned that increasing populations in developing countries threatened U.S. strategic, economic, and military interests. (Physicians for Life) 24. Appearance and reality The U.S. can help to minimize charges of an imperialist motivation behind its support of population activities by repeatedly asserting that such support derives from a concern with:

(a) the right of the individual couple to determine freely and responsibly their number and spacing of children and to have information, education, and 1means to do so; and (b) the fundamental social and economic development of poor countries in which rapid population growth is both a contributing cause and a consequence of widespread poverty. Furthermore, the U.S. should also take steps to convey the message that the control of world population growth is in the mutual interest of the developed and developing countries alike. (NSSM 200)

25. In short: We Stand Behind the Current Development 1.Worldwide Abortion Practices Certain facts about abortion need to be appreciated: No country has reduced its population growth without resorting to abortion. Thirty million pregnancies are estimated to be terminated annually by abortion throughout the world. The figure is a guess. More precise data indicate about 7 percent of the world's population live in countries where abortion is prohibited without exception and 12 percent in countries where abortion is permitted only to save the life of the pregnant woman. About 15 percent live under statutes authorizing abortion on broader medical grounds, that is, to avert a threat to the woman's health, rather than to her life, and sometimes on eugenic and/or juridical grounds (rape, etc.) as well. Countries where social factors may be taken into consideration to justify termination of pregnancy account for 22 percent of the world's population and those allowing for elective abortion for at least some categories of women, for 36 percent. No information is available for the remaining 8 percent; it would appear, however, that most of these people live in areas with restrictive abortion laws. The abortion statutes of many countries are not strictly enforced and some abortions on medical grounds are probably tolerated in most places. It is well known that in some countries with very restrictive laws, abortions can be obtained from physicians openly and without interference from the authorities. Conversely, legal authorization of elective abortion does not guarantee that abortion on request is actually available to all women who may want their pregnancies terminated. Lack of medical personnel and facilities or conservative attitudes among physicians and hospital administrators may effectively curtail access to abortion, especially for economically or socially deprived women. 2. U.S. Legislation and Policies Relative to Abortion Although the Supreme Court of the United States invalidated the abortion laws of most states in January 1973, the subject still remains politically sensitive. U.S. Government actions relative to abortion are restricted as indicated by the following Federal legislation and the resultant policy decisions of the concerned departments and agencies. a. A.I.D. Program The predominant part of A.I.D.'s population assistance program has concentrated on contraceptive or foresight methods. A.I.D. recognized, however, that under developing country conditions

foresight methods not only are frequently unavailable but often fail because of ignorance, lack of preparation, misuse and non-use. Because of these latter conditions, increasing numbers of women in the developing world have been resorting to abortion, usually under unsafe and often lethal conditions. Indeed, abortion, legal and illegal, now has become the most widespread fertility control method in use in the world today. Since, in the developing world, the increasingly widespread practice of abortion is conducted often under unsafe conditions, A.I.D. sought through research to reduce the health risks and other complexities which arise from the illegal and unsafe forms of abortion. One result has been the development of the Menstrual Regulation Kit, a simple, inexpensive, safe and effective means of fertility control which is easy to use under LDC conditions. Section 114 of the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 (P.L. 93-189), as amended in 1974, adds for the first time restrictions on the use of A.I.D. funds relative to abortion. The provision states that "None of the funds made available to carry out this part (Part I of the Act) shall be used to pay for the performance of abortions as a method of family planning or to motivate or coerce any person to practice abortions." In order to comply with Section 114, A.I.D. has determined that foreign assistance funds will not be used to: (i) procure or distribute equipment provided for the purpose of inducing abortions as a method of family planning. (ii) directly support abortion activities in LDCs. However, A.I.D. may provide population program support to LDCs and institutions as long as A.I.D. funds are wholly attributable to the permissible aspects of such programs. (iii) information, education, training, or communication programs that promote abortion as a method of family planning. However, A.I.D. will continue to finance training of LDC doctors in the latest techniques used in obstetrics-gynecology practice, and will not disqualify such training programs if they include pregnancy termination within the overall curriculum. Such training is provided only at the election of the participants. (iiii) pay women in the LDCs to have abortions as a method of family planning or to pay persons to perform abortions or to solicit persons to undergo abortions. A.I.D. funds may continue to be used for research relative to abortion since the Congress specifically chose not to include research among the prohibited activities. A major effect of the amendment and policy determination is that A.I.D. will not be involved in further development or promotion of the Menstrual Regulation Kit. However, other donors or organizations may become interested in promoting with their own funds dissemination of this promising fertility control method. b. DHEW Programs Section 1008 of the Family Planning Services and Population Research Act of 1970 (P.L. 91-572) states that "None of the funds appropriated under this title shall be used in programs where abortion is a method of family planning." DHEW has adhered strictly to the intent of Congress and does not support abortion research. Studies of the causes and consequences of abortion are permitted, however. The Public Health Service Act Extension of 1973 (P.L. 93-45) contains the Church Amendment which establishes the right of health providers (both individuals and institutions)

to refuse to perform an abortion if it conflicts with moral or religious principles. c. Proposed Legislation on Abortion Research There are numerous proposed Congressional amendments and bills which are more restrictive on abortion research than any of the pieces of legislation cited above. It would be unwise to restrict abortion research for the following reasons: 1. The persistent and ubiquitous nature of abortion. 2. Widespread lack of safe abortion technique. 3. Restriction of research on abortifacient drugs and devices would: a. Possibly eliminate further development of the IUD. b. Prevent development of drugs which might have other beneficial uses. An example is methotrexate (R) which is now used to cure a hitherto fatal tumor of the uterus -choriocarcinoma. This drug was first used as an abortifacient. (NSSM 200) 26. Comment on the Foregoing It is not necessary to research what is simply reprehensible in moral terms. (CKLC)

27. OrdersTranscripts obtained by the National Security Archive show Kissinger receiving his orders from President Nixon: PRESIDENT: The second thing is as I have put on here now I want you to get ahold of [Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Thomas H.] Moorer tonight and I want a plan where every goddamn thing that can fly goes into Cambodia and hits every target that is open. KISSINGER: Right. PRESIDENT: That's to be done tomorrow. Tomorrow. Is that clear? KISSINGER: That is right PRESIDENT: I want this done. ... I want them to hit everything. I want them to use the big planes, the small planes, everything they can that will help out here and let's start giving them a little shock ... let me tell you on this business on Cambodia - I want something done tonight, I don't want any screwing around... A few minutes later, Kissinger transmits Nixon's orders to military assistant Alexander Haig: KISSINGER: Two, [Nixon] wants a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. He doesn't want to hear anything. It's an order, it's to be done. Anything that flys on anything that moves. You got that? HAIG: ...sounded like Haig laughing...

Noam Chomsky commented about this accusations:"On May 27, the New York Times published one of the most incredible sentences Ive ever seen. They ran an article about the Nixon-Kissinger interchanges. Kissinger fought very hard through the courts to try to prevent it, but the courts permitted it. You read through it, and you see the following statement embedded in it. Nixon at one point informs Kissinger, his right-hand Eichmann, that he wanted bombing of Cambodia. And Kissinger loyally transmits the order to the Pentagon to carry out "a massive bombing campaign in Cambodia. Anything that flies on anything that moves." That is the most explicit call for what we call genocide when other people do it that Ive ever seen in the historical record. Right at this moment there is a prosecution of Miloevi going on in the international tribunal, and the prosecutors are kind of hampered because they cant find direct orders, or a direct connection even, linking Miloevi to any atrocities on the ground. Suppose they found a statement like this. Suppose a document came out from Miloevi saying, "Reduce Kosovo to rubble. Anything that flies or anything that moves." They would be overjoyed. The trial would be over. He would be sent away for multiple life sentences -