Free Church Concerns on Public Issues
Public Questions

Euthanasia

The Convener of the Free Church Public Questions Committee, Dr Donald M
MacDonald, presented a petition to the Public Petitions Committee of the
Scottish Parliament calling on MSPs to reject any attempt to legalise
Physician Assisted Suicide and euthanasia. The petition had been signed by
2,400 people, mostly in the Western Isles, and was sponsored by Mr Alasdair
Morrison (then MSP) who is to be congratulated on his initiative in
responding to concerns expressed by his constituents. The Convener presented
the petition along with Canon Donald Mackay of Oban Cathedral and it was
well received by the Committee. The petition also highlighted the importance
of making good palliative care as widely available as possible and this also
struck a responsive chord in the Committee, the chairman of which, Mr
Michael McMahon MSP, is Chairman of the Parliament's Palliative Care Group.
Britain is a world leader in palliative care, and experience shows that
expert care in terminal illness greatly reduces the demand for euthanasia.

SORs

The Committee are calling on the General Assembly to "deplore the Government's insistence on bringing in the Sexual Orientation Regulations without granting exemptions for Churches, other faith groups and individuals on the ground of conscience, in the matter of providing certain public services,
especially in the fields of fostering and adoption".

The Committee responded to the Government's consultation paper Getting Equal which advocated outlawing discrimination against people in the provision of goods, facilities and services on the basis of their sexual orientation. The
Government requested opinions on the principles to be applied to such
legislation, referred to as Sexual Orientation Regulations or SORs.
Regrettably, the Government pressed ahead with these Regulations which
became law at the end of April. While there ought to be no discrimination
against homosexuals in the provision of all essential goods and services,
what we do object to is that these Regulations will attempt to force
churches and faith groups to recognise homosexual activity as morally
acceptable and same-sex civil partnerships as equivalent to marriage. Recent
incidents in which university Christian Unions have been refused official
recognition as student societies and refused permission to hold meetings on
university premises have highlighted the concerted attempt by the homosexual
lobby to challenge Christian values.

Human Trafficking

In this the bicentennial year of the abolition of the British slave trade,
the Committee is calling on the Assembly to express gratitude to God for the
life and work of William Wilberforce and for the success of the abolition
movement, but at the same time to recognise with great concern the existence
of human trafficking in different parts of the world and the number of
individuals who, as a result enter the UK annually. The Committee is also
commending the work of Stop the Traffik Campaign and CARE in their attempts
to eradicate human trafficking.

One estimate claims that today there are at least 12 million people in the
world living and working in contemporary forms of slavery! Next to the
illegal arms trade and drug smuggling, human trafficking is the third
largest illegal trade in the World. Most victims of trafficking found in the
UK arrive from Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa. The UK is predicted to have
over 2,000 victims of trafficking entering the country annually. In 1999
Home Office research estimated that 1,492 of such victims, alone, were women trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation. Stop the Traffik
Campaign is a large coalition of over 160 organisations, including CARE,
that are all dedicated to seeing the end of this modern form of slavery.

40th Anniversary of Abortion Act

October will see the fortieth anniversary of the passing of the Abortion Act
(1967) which marked a watershed in the attitudes of society and the medical
profession towards the unborn child. After 40 years and over 6 million
abortions in Britain, is there any hope of changing the law so as to reduce
this dreadful loss of human life? There have been numerous attempts to have
the law changed, but so far they have been unsuccessful, apart form the
reduction of the limit from 28 to 24 weeks in 1990. The Committee's Report
gives a detailed overview of the effects of the Abortion Act over the last
40 years and why the abortion debate has intensified in recent years. The
Report also includes a study of the Biblical basis for the sanctity of human
life and addresses questions such as, When does human life begin? When does
the foetus become a person? When does the soul enter the body? The Report
suggests that we should continue to teach and maintain a high view of
pre-natal human life from conception onwards and maintain our opposition to
abortion on any ground except the very rare case of saving the mother's
life. We also should support those groups which campaign in legitimate ways
for change in the Abortion Act to limit the number of abortions.

The Family

The number one social and economic problem in Scotland today is the
disintegration and dysfunctionality of the modern family. Having sown the
wind we are reaping the whirlwind. Given that the family is a God-given
institution, and one that is core to our spiritual, physical and emotional
well being, the Free Church needs to take a long hard look at what is going
on, what the Bible has to say and how that can be applied to modern Britain
today. A considerable number of our children are unhealthy, poorly educated,
binge drinking, sexually promiscuous, drug taking, smoking adolescents who
are often coping with broken and dysfunctional homes. The Report attempts to
explain how this situation has come about and the effect that the moral
revolution of the 1960s has had on marriage and the institution of the
family and how many children in Britain today are growing up in an
environment which has been described as 'Toxic Childhood'. We as a church
are called to be salt and light. In this respect we begin at home. The Free
Church must seek to provide support and encouragement for the varied
families we have in our midst. Every church should be a resource for every
family with which we have contact. Our teaching must reflect the priorities
of the Bible in the context and culture in which we find ourselves.

The General Assembly of the Free Church meets from 21st to 25th May in
Edinburgh. The Public Questions Report is due to be considered on Thursday
24th at 10 am.