What price life?

This is the blog post from David Robertson that I thought that I had simply "Shared" on Facebook! However, only my own comment explaining why I had done so has appeared in the public arena! 

I share it here so that it may reach as wide an audience as possible. As always, he expresses my own sentiments better than I can do myself! Well worth the read. 

The Real ‘Dirty Deal’ – Abortion, Northern Ireland, the BMA, Killing white babies and Sacking the Disability Commissioner 

Wheeling and Dealing

Politics is all about deals and compromises – especially if you have a minority government, like the current UK situation. In such circumstances in order for a government to get their programme through there has been a great deal of wheeling and dealing. The Democratic Unionist Party are masters at this and as a result they have got the people of Northern Ireland a good deal. Despite the faux pas outrage of Labour and the SNP you have to admire the DUP for doing what politicians are supposed to do – get the best for their electorate.  And of course Labour and the SNP are being hypocritical as they too were previously prepared to work with the DUP as this clip so brilliantly puts it.

The Real Dirty Deal

But there was a real dirty deal done today. Labour’s Sheila Creasy took the opportunity offered by the vote on the Queens speech to put forward an amendment offering women in Northern Ireland, free abortions on the NHS in England and Wales (the Scottish government had already said they would do the same).   Northern Ireland does not permit abortion except is cases of danger to the mothers life and serious dangers to mental health.   It is a devolved matter and therefore has nothing to do with the UK parliament – which did not stop Labour promising to impose a liberal abortion law on Northern Ireland.  The Supreme Court recently decided that it was not a human right to have an abortion and that it was up to the Northern Ireland Assembly to determine about abortion.  The UK government were opposed to offering free abortions but because they feared that several Tory MPs would support the amendment the government, wanting to avoid defeat on this amendment, found the money to make that offer.

There are so many things that are illogical and immoral about this decision.

We are told this is an issue for justice. Where is the justice for the unborn child?  Parents occasionally show me the photo/scan of their child at 12 weeks in the womb.  You can see the limbs, the features of a human being.  But people want to say that she is an it.  That he is not human but just a lump that can be removed.  The fact is that it is not just the woman’s body – there is at least one other human body involved.

We are told that the NHS is desperately short of money. Why then can £1 million be found to provide for babies to be killed?  People are rightly angry and asking about the justice for the 80 who died in the Grenfell tower fire. So why are we not upset that the UK government just offered to pay to kill around 1,000 Northern Irish babies in the womb in English hospitals?

We are told that the fact that the DUP are opposed to abortion is a sign that they are backward and out of step with everyone else.  Are Sinn Fein for abortion – given their Catholic roots? What about all the Labour MPs who are Catholic? Are they too spineless to stand up for their faith?   What is progressive and forward thinking about killing children in the womb? And why stop there? Why not have post-birth abortion if parents don’t want to keep their babies?

The BMA Betrayal

But it wasn’t only the politicians who were engaging in this culture of death – the BMA (British Medical Association) were joining in. BMA Votes to Decriminalise Abortion

In a decision that I suspect does not reflect many of the views of its members, but rather the politics of its leadership, the BMA this week voted to ask the government to decriminalize abortion. What many people do not realize is that abortion is illegal in the UK – except when two doctors agree that the health of the woman or the baby is in danger (the latter part always confused me – killing someone to improve their health doesn’t really work logically!). The BMA in seeking to change that are in effect seeking to permit abortion on demand up to birth. If you really need to know what is wrong with this, my good friend Dr Peter Saunders sets it out clearly – Why Decriminalising Abortion is Harmful

The fact is that the BMA have gone against the Hippocratic oath – – “Similarly I will not give to a woman a pessary to cause abortion”. They have gone against every principle of medicine, justice and humanity – just to go along with the current political and culture of death zeitgeist.

The Depths of Meduza

There was one other abortion story this week – which reaches even lower depths. The feminist magazine Meduza had an article that argued that white women should have abortions in order to bring justice to non-whites! I had assumed it was a spoof but apparently not. Abort White Babies

White women: it is time to do your part! Your white children reinforce the white supremacist society that benefits you. If you claim to be progressive, and yet willingly birth white children by your own choice, you are a hypocrite. White women should be encouraged to abort their white children, and to use their freed-up time and resources to assist women of color who have no other choice but to raise their children.

Who needs a Disability Commissioner?

Finally another note on the same issue – The Times reported that Lord Shinkwin, who is Britain’s disability commissioner has been fired from his role. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) had decided that his role was no longer needed.   Lord Shinkwin had argued passionately for equality for the disabled, including in the womb. Hence he needed to go. Because as I pointed out in this article in the Scotsman – Human rights are determined by the elites and are not subject to challenge. Some people have more rights than others. The child in the womb and the disabled do not share the same human rights as others (and I suspect that the poor, the elderly and the sick had better watch out as well).

What can we do in the midst of such rampant evil?

We must stand for the truth. We must speak up for the weak and defenceless.   Something which the church at its best as always done.   Traudl Junge (Hitler’s’ secretary) tells us what he thought about this Christian tendency.

“Sometimes we also had interesting discussions about the church and the development of the human race. Perhaps it’s going too far to call them discussions, because he would begin explaining his ideas when some question or remark from one of us had set them off, and we just listened. He was not a member of any church, and thought the Christian religions were out-dated, hypocritical institutions that lured people into them. The laws of nature were his religion. He could reconcile his dogma of violence better with nature than with the Christian doctrine of loving your neighbour and your enemy. ‘Science isn’t yet clear about the origins of humanity,’ he once said. ‘We are probably the highest stage of development of some mammal which developed from reptiles and moved on to human beings, perhaps by way of the apes. We are a part of creation and children of nature, and the same laws apply to us as to all living creatures. And in nature the law of the struggle for survival has reigned from the first.

Everything incapable of life, everything weak is eliminated. Only mankind and above all the church have made it their aim to keep alive the weak, those unfit to live, and people of an inferior kind.” (Until the Final Hour –p108)

Indeed. That is our aim.  To keep alive the week, those others consider ‘unfit to live’ and ‘people of an inferior kind’.   We are Christians.  We recognise that all human beings are made in the image of God.  All life is precious to us. On that we will not compromise or do deals. In the words of a far greater German than Hitler –  “here we stand, we can do no other”!

"It's not over until it's over"

As I type this post, I am on a MegaBus coach travelling from London to Glasgow - after a few days in Amsterdam to celebrate a Silver Wedding Anniversary, and a Graduation in the Randag family in Bloemendaal.

Of course, in my absence, much has happened in the UK.  The General Assembly of the Church of Scotland has voted to allow the ordination and induction of practising homosexuals.  This is a move that is designed, I understand, to please all sections of the Kirk - the "revisionists" and the "traditionalists"!  As in most such cases, it may end up pleasing no-one.  The question for many will now be, "For how long can I remain a part of what is rapidly becoming (some would claim, 'has already become') an apostate church?"  For what it's worth, they have my deepest sympathy.  I recall my own situation over the slightly less contentious matter of infant baptism.  I am one of those who may truly claim that "I know what you are going through"!

At the same time, the House of Commons has been debating in the Report Stage of the Marriage (same-sex couples) Bill.  A number of amendments were tabled but, as far as I can make out, all were defeated - even if the Prime Minister had to depend on the support of her Majesty's Opposition.  Even there, a number of Labour members (my own MP included) voted in support of at least one of the amendments, in principled defiance of the Party Whip.

Of course, the newspapers have been providing their usual headline, and article, commentaries.  I have read, on-line, "Gay marriage step closer as bill clears major hurdle" (The Independent); "... gay marriage, which is expected to clear a final Commons vote tonight, remains on track, and same-sex couples should be able to tie the knot as early as next summer." (The Metro);"... the marriage (same-sex couples) bill will now experience a safer journey through parliament." (The Observer).

Now, even although I have learned a lot about it, in recent months, I make no claim to be an expert in Parliamentary procedure.  However, even I know that, while it is likely that the Bill will be passed this evening, at its Third reading, it could well be with a reduced majority.  I know, too, that it then has to be laid before the House of Lords.  I am fully aware that all of the indications are that the Bill will face a much more difficult passage in the Upper House, and that it is by no means guaranteed to be passed there.  It is also my understanding that, because it was in neither the manifestos of the parties who are now so apparently keen to support it, nor in any Queen's Speech, the Parliament Act cannot be invoked.  This, for those who do not know, is a legislative procedure that ensures that the Lords are unable to totally defy the will of the Commons.  Certain newspaper opinion may yet prove to be wrong!  As the heading to this post states, "It's not over until it's over" - and it certainly isn't over yet!

One additional point.  Writing to his young friend, and son in the faith, Timothy, the apostle Paul warns that "... the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander into myths." (II Tim 4:3-4).

"For it is impossible to restore again to repentance those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the goodness of the word of God and the powers of the age to come, if they then commit apostasy, since they crucify the Son of God on their own account and hold him up to contempt. For land which has drunk the rain that often falls upon it, and brings forth vegetation useful to those for whose sake it is cultivated, receives a blessing from God. But if it bears thorns and thistles, it is worthless and near to being cursed; its end is to be burned." explains the author of the Letter to Hebrew disciples of Jesus. (6:4-8).

Could it be that the things that we see around us are the very signs that Jesus assured us would be visible for those with eyes to see - signs that Father God is about to wind up this dimension that we inhabit?

Certainly, as someone once said, if God does not come in judgement upon the world today, He would need to apologise to Sodom and Gomorrah!

"Surely I am coming soon." Amen. Come, Lord Jesus! The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all the saints. Amen." (Rev 22:20-21).

God works in a mysterious way!

Not a Councillor - but still very much a "political animal", and keeping an eye on the situation here in the UK.  And there is much to watch!  The Local Council elections gave the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer some serious food for thought (or should that be "some food for serious thought"?!).  I suppose that the Deputy PM has some deep thinking to do as well - but let's not waste time and space on nonentities!

According to today's various news reports, Messrs Cameron and Osborne are taking a great deal of flak from both their back-benchers and their supporters around the country.  The very poor showing of the Conservative Party on Thursday is being blamed on the (Liberal) policies that the Coalition Government is seen as having espoused.  To many, it has been a case of the tail wagging the dog!

The response has been, to say the least, interesting. Speaking on the Andrew Marr Show, on BBC television, Mr Osborne indicated that  the controversial reforms of the House of Lords, and plans for homosexual/lesbian marriage were being kicked into the long grass. Yet, not so long ago, Mr Cameron was passionately supporting the latter - even at a meeting of senior clergy!

Personally, I am totally in favour of reforming the Upper Chamber in Westminster.  I would immediately throw out every single one of the jumped-up Prescotts, Kinnocks, and other so-called "Life Peers", and all of those who, regardless of their background, have been found guilty of fraud or any other crime.  I would then re-instate the hereditary Lords, on the one condition that no-one would be permitted to be connected to any political party.  In that way, I believe, we would achieve an independent Upper House, with all of the life experience that many of these noble Lords and Ladies are able to bring to debate.  I know that there have been many times, in the long and distant past, when I have been so glad to have an unelected Chamber of hereditary Peers who were able to inject what is, in our political circles, that most rare of commodities - common-sense - into debate, and frustrate the stupidity of the elected representatives (usually representing themselves!) in the House of Commoners!

As far as the proposals anent the redefinition of the God-ordained institution of marriage as between a man and a woman, to the exclusion of all others, for life, is concerned, I hope that the Scottish Government will take the hint as well.  I have already e-mailed Mr Salmond to inform him that the SNP support for this redefinition lost him my First Preference vote on Thursday.  Okay, so I would have given myself that vote in any case - but the SNP didn't even receive my Second Preference!

God does work in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.  Could it be that the results on Thursday were actually His means of having this proposal taken out of play?  It will be interesting to hear the Queen's Speech (actually, the Government's Speech, read by HM!) on Wednesday!   I only know that He is the Sovereign God, Whose plans and purposes shall come to pass - regardless of political parties and/or personalities.  All praise and glory to His Name.