Culture of death still gaining ground

JUST learned that the Belgian parliament is poised to approve euthanasia even for children. This, to me, is a new low in the slippery slope of the culture of death that can start with what many people say as harmless like contraception, or even way before that.

When we start claiming rights that do not come from God’s will and commandments and that in fact go against them and that are simply based on human consensus, then we are in for this slippery slope that can appear to us as sweet, convenient, practical and advantageous in the beginning, until its ugliness appears in the end.

This so-called “right to die” that started to be applied on elders is now to be applied on minors. Once finally legalized, Belgium will be the first country to have such law. And I’m sure, many others, especially the so-called “developed” countries, will follow suit.

Obviously, some qualifications are made to make the law appear humane. But nothing in them actually erases the fact that the law is giving us some rights that we actually do not have. Life, no matter how deformed, weakened or sick, comes from God and only God can take it away from us.

Of course, this issue will be debated ad nauseam all over the world. This is what usually happens when our relationship with God is not anymore strong and clear, sustained by a living piety. When we get unhinged from our Creator and ultimate Lawgiver, then we can go exploring all kinds of possibilities, including perversions.

When God has no place in one’s heart, when he is ignored, marginalized, or replaced by some human idols, then the road to endless rationalizations is opened. Our God-given gifts of intelligence, will, freedom, etc., which enable us to experience the grandeur of God can also be used to create our own grandeur without God.

At the moment, we still have the scourge of abortion still trying to spread its scope in the world. It is even trying to enter our country. And again, this started with the seemingly innocent and supposedly highly practical contraception that we have now officially legalized and are actively promoting with our RH Law.

Aside from abortion, we are already seeing how issues like same-sex unions, polyamory, etc., are grabbing the attention and interest of many people. Human sexuality is now defined according to people’s preferences and not anymore according to God’s laws. I shudder at the thought of what would come next after these.

Polyamory is a relatively new phenomenon that is gaining ground in some countries. This is what Wikipedia says of it:

It is “the practice, desire or acceptance of having more than one intimate relationship at a time with the knowledge and consent of everyone involved…The word is sometimes used in a broader sense to refer to sexual or romantic relationships that are not sexually exclusive, though there is disagreement on how broadly it applies…”

It may even include “polysexuality,” that is, attraction towards multiple genders and sexes. Now, I don’t know what other “poly” it can tend to. It may reach the ultimate perversity of having sexual and romantic relationships not only with humans but also with animals, plants and even inanimate objects.

Again the workings of the slippery slope are evident. We have to do something about these, but always along the path of truth and charity that Christ himself preached, lived and suffered and died for.

We have to be wary of falling into bitter zeal that can ignite us with some good intentions, but without prudence and charity. It is a zeal that definitely will be more destructive and constructive, and that can make the issues more confusing and more difficult to resolve.

What we have to do first is to pray a lot, to be very generous with sacrifices and mortifications, even extraordinary ones, and wage an unremitting apostolate both on the personal and collective levels, based on doctrine, and pursued always in friendship and confidence.

If the environment is too hot or hostile, then we just have to be more patient. There is always divine providence that knows what to do with how we use or abuse our freedom. The world is passing through a certain difficult stage that like the others in the past can always yield something positive and enlightening in the future.

This, of course, does not mean that we simply be cavalier about the situation. We have to do all to defend the truth always in charity.