It's very devious and insidious to see how -- once one permits a departure from the notion of the inherent good of life and the responsibilities that are owed to life -- that then it becomes very difficult to answer the question, 'Why not kill a person' ... People don't like to have the comparison made because it rightly makes all of us very uneasy, but there are some very striking analogies to what is happening now among us here in the United States and the Third Reich, Nazi Germany.
More Quotes from Richard Neuhaus:
I became a Catholic in order to be more fully the Christian I was as a Lutheran, and that is what has happened.Richard Neuhaus
The idea of physician-assisted suicide is a direct and potentially lethal blow to the whole self-understanding of the medical profession. It all of a sudden finds itself in the position not of healing, but of killing. I think a lot of doctors who have reflected upon this philosophically recognize that it is a truly radical assault upon the very self-understanding of Western medicine.
Richard Neuhaus
human nature being what it is, those who want to evade the clear statement of the instruction will have ample opportunities to seek loopholes, evasions and rationalizations.
Richard Neuhaus
In legal parlance, that is called 'the rational person test,' ... That's where somebody else says, 'Even though we have no idea what this person would want in this circumstance in which they cannot themselves tell us what they want, a 'rational' person -- meaning, myself -- in that circumstance would want to die.' So you move very quickly from so-called voluntary euthanasia to involuntary euthanasia. These legal and medical developments are not simply hypothetical They're in the courts right now.
Richard Neuhaus
The bishop has to show in each and every case that he is in a very serious posture of pastoral care and concern for that politician -- and that has to be seen by the Catholic people. When something is a public scandal, it has to be remedied publicly, but there are many different ways in which bishops might exercise that pastoral care and concern,
Richard Neuhaus
One example is Roe v. Wade. The lethal logic of Roe v. Wade is that nobody has rights that we are bound to respect if they cannot effectively assert those rights. They are at the mercy and the discretion of those who can effectively assert their rights. We're not talking simply about the unborn, we're talking about the aged, the radically handicapped, the deformed.
Richard Neuhaus
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Based on Topics: Duty Quotes, Life Quotes, People QuotesBased on Keywords: analogies, devious, reich
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During 65 years, I have walked the path of duty and discipline... And today, looking back at that long path of service, my soldier's heart stirs and murmurs from deep within: Thank you. Thank you, my homeland.
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