Wednesday, 5 October 2011

Bishop O'Donoghue preaches powerfully against the UK's culture of death

Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue (right)
This past weekend there was a pro-life pilgrimage in Walsingham led by Bishop Patrick O'Donoghue. I have written before on several occasions about Bishop O'Donoghue's fearless pro-life leadership. Long may it continue.

Somebody has kindly sent to me the text of Bishop O'Donoghue's sermon at the pilgrimage. I include below some particularly impressive quotes. You can read the full sermon online, thanks to Robert Colquhoun.
For 41 years we've lived in a state-sponsored culture of death that has killed 5 million children, and we're now surprised that some of the surviving children have turned out violent with no regard for the sanctity of life? 
How many children know that their mothers have had an abortion? What effect will it have on them knowing that they have been deprived of a brother or sister through abortion? 
... 
This is why we have come on pilgrimage to Walsingham, to make reparation for the desecration of so many homes throughout Our Lady's Dowry, homes that should have been reflections of the Holy House of Nazareth but have been broken by abortion, contraception and the culture of death. 
We also come to ask Our Lady to intercede for us that God continues to bless our homes with the life-giving grace of Nazareth, and to heal the broken homes throughout the UK that cause so much heart-ache and deprivation.
... 
Through taking on a human nature, a human body in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Jesus Christ, the eternally begotten Son of God, has united Himself with every woman, man, and child on this planet. By sharing in the same human nature as Jesus every human being born is somehow joined to the divine-human life of the Son of God who took flesh in the immaculate flesh of Mary, the Mother of God. 
This means that each human person conceived shares in a triple dignity: 
• Made in the Image of God
• The centre and crown of all creation
• Joined to Jesus Christ, the eternal begotten Son of God, through his incarnation in the womb of the Blessed Virgin Mary. 
This is why all people that sincerely care about nature, and that seek to protect the environment from being destroyed should care about the destruction of the pre-born child by abortion. Every time a child is killed through abortion a person who is created by God as the centre and crown of all creation is destroyed. This is why abortion is the greatest crime against the natural world, against the environment.
This is why all Christians that sincerely care about human dignity and human rights should care about euthanasia and assisted suicide. Every time a vulnerable person's heart is stopped by drugs or the withdrawal of fluids or food, a person who is united with the humanity of the Son of God is unjustly and sinfully tortured and killed. This is why euthanasia and assisted suicide is the greatest crime against humanity. 
This is why all Catholics, and all people of good will, who defend human life through their support of the pro-life movement are the most radical environmentalists and most radical advocates of human rights. The most endangered ecosystem on the planet is the mother's womb and the most endangered human right is the right to life of our most vulnerable citizens. Protecting the ecology of man from destruction by abortion and euthanasia should be the foremost concern of every human institution and government, in fact of every ecological group such as Green Peace and Friends of the Earth and every Human Rights group such as Amnesty International. 
But tragically for the future of life on this planet, the ecological movement and human rights movement are often the loudest advocates of so called 'reproductive rights', which as we know is just a cynical euphemism for killing unborn children. 
The world needs reminding that Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognises the right to life of every person. All are entitled to the rights of Freedom set forth in this declaration without distinction of any kind. 
It is deplorable that so many states choose to allow the unborn child to be a victim and targeted for killing - a barbaric & evil practice. We must stand firm in our call for respect for human life from natural conception to natural death. 
... 
There is no one more lowly in our society than the unborn child and the vulnerable sick and elderly. 
There is no one more powerful in our society than the politician, medical professional, or journalist who is pro-abortion, and pro-euthanasia. They are the Princes of the Culture of Death that has been established in our country. 
... 
The abortion industry in this country makes £60 million a year from the Department of Health for killing 200,000 unborn children 
Embryonic children have been killed and harvested to produce lines of stem cells for the pharmaceutical industry to make vast profits. 
Thousands of teenage mothers are pressurised into having abortions by the State to ensure that they don't claim social housing and benefits. Money is seen as being more important than a child's life. 
A Christian, fully human society is one that puts the needs of the most vulnerable first, that values human life more than the balance sheet.
It is very encouraging to hear of a bishop in this country powerfully repeating the great message spoken to the world by Mother Teresa, when receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, that "the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." With strong leadership from men like Bishop O'Donoghue there is still hope of ending this terrible destroyer of peace.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Please respond to government sex ed consultation

The Department for Educa­tion is inviting people to participate in a consultation about sex and relationships educa­tion (SRE) in England – and I hope you will do so. (Those living outside England can also participate, but the consultation relates specifically to the National Curriculum for England.)

The government have said that they are not going to make classroom SRE compul­sory within the scope of this consultation. However, they do regard classroom SRE as a benefit. Therefore we need to express our objections to the kind of SRE that is wide­spread in schools today, and refer to evidence that it doesn’t have the beneficial impact that politicians often claim. Please read SPUC's briefing which includes all you need to know to make a submission. The deadline is 30 November. Please do act on this.

Please also read our latest campaign bulletin on sex education with other action points.

You may recently have signed or col­lected signatures for SPUC's national petition against explicit sex education lessons. I’m very grateful to all who have done this. Please do return any outstanding forms to SPUC HQ by 16 October, so we can present them to the Secretary of State.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Today's must-read pro-life news-stories, Wed 5 Oct

Charlie Marie-Skinner & mum Heather
Top stories:

Baby doctors said should be aborted takes first steps
A British baby girl whom doctors had advised be aborted has taken her first steps. Charlie Marie-Skinner was diagnosed in the womb with a large tumour on her heart. Doctors advised her mother to have an abortion but the advice was firmly refused. [Telegraph, 4 October] http://goo.gl/tPGJ3

Pro-life fundraising ball to be held in London, 19 November
The annual Good Counsel Network ball will be held in London on 19 November. The network helps women in crisis pregnancies. The ball is a major fundraiser for the network. [Maria Stops Abortion, 28 September] http://goo.gl/ASmtK

Argentinian lawmakers sign pledge in defense of life and family
Legislators from across Argentina have signed a pledge against abortion and euthanasia and in defence of the family. The signing ceremony was attended by senior Catholic Church officials. Archbishop Alfredo Horacio Zecca said that abortion entails the "radical exclusion of others". [CNA, 28 September] http://goo.gl/Wz32A

Other stories:

Abortion
Population
Sexual ethics
General
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Tuesday, 4 October 2011

Utilitarians have a distorted view of humanity

Jeremy Bentham
I read recently an article in The Economist (September 24, 2011) entitled "Goodness has nothing to do with it". It was sub-titled “Utilitarians are not nice people”.

The Economist reminded readers that the goal of utilitarianism is encapsulated in the saying of Jeremy Bentham, the English philosopher, that “the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation”.

The article explores the question: What kind of people agree with utilitarian acts which involve killing one individual in order to save five individuals? ... and it cites the research of Daniel Bartels at Columbia University and David Pizarro at Cornell.

The Economist states:
“One of the classic techniques used to measure a person’s willingness to behave in a utilitarian way is known as trolleyology. The subject of the study is challenged with thought experiments involving a runaway railway trolley or train carriage. All involve choices, each of which leads to people’s deaths. For example: there are five railway workmen in the path of a runaway carriage. The men will surely be killed unless the subject of the experiment, a bystander in the story, does something. The subject is told he is on a bridge over the tracks. Next to him is a big, heavy stranger. The subject is informed that his own body would be too light to stop the train, but that if he pushes the stranger onto the tracks, the stranger’s large body will stop the train and save the five lives. That, unfortunately, would kill the stranger.

“Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro knew from previous research that around 90% of people refuse the utilitarian act of killing one individual to save five. What no one had previously inquired about, though, was the nature of the remaining 10%.”
Bartels and Pizarro, according to The Economist, found a strong link between "utilitarian answers to moral dilemmas (push the fat guy off the bridge) and personalities that were psychopathic, Machieavellian or tended to view life as meaningless.”

OK, one might think, The Economist will probably now go on to reach adverse conclusions about utilitarianism as a proper theoretical basis for legislation. Not a bit of it. The final paragraph reads:
“That does not make utilitarianism wrong. Crafting legislation—one of the main things that Bentham and Mill wanted to improve—inevitably involves riding roughshod over someone’s interests. Utilitarianism provides a plausible framework for deciding who should get trampled. The results obtained by Dr Bartels and Dr Pizarro do, though, raise questions about the type of people who you want making the laws. Psychopathic, Machiavellian misanthropes? Apparently, yes.”
It’s horrifying, isn’t it, that utilitarianism can be lauded like this in a leading international news journal - and in spite of such (predictable) results from an experiment to test the personality of those making utilitarian decisions?

I cannot, however, fault the article in terms of its analysis of our current political and legislative situation. In September 2008 I noted Dame Mary Warnock’s view that people with disabling conditions have a duty to die prematurely. In an interview with the Church of Scotland's Life and Work magazine, Lady Warnock said:
"If you're demented, you're wasting people's lives – your family's lives – and you're wasting the resources of the National Health Service.
"I'm absolutely, fully in agreement with the argument that if pain is insufferable, then someone should be given help to die, but I feel there's a wider argument that if somebody absolutely, desperately wants to die because they're a burden to their family, or the state, then I think they too should be allowed to die.

"Actually I've just written an article called 'A Duty to Die?' for a Norwegian periodical. I wrote it really suggesting that there's nothing wrong with feeling you ought to do so for the sake of others as well as yourself."
Now I'm not saying that Lady Warnock is psychopathic, but what sort of person says that a person with dementia is wasting their family's lives? On what grounds does she make this claim? Lady Warnock said that people with dementia are wasting National Health Service (NHS) resources.  But if the NHS isn't there to care for the sick, such as people with dementia, then what is it for? To assist us to die before we inconvenience our families?

Remember that Lady Warnock has shaped legislation that we live with today in Britain. Earlier this month I reported on the excellent conference at the Anscombe Bioethics Centre where Dr David Albert Jones, the centre's director, gave a fascinating insight into why Britain has one of the least restrictive policies on human embryo research in the world:
"Not only does UK law permit every conceivable category of embryo to be created for research, but it also shows little evidence of willingness to restrict human embryo research in practice. By 2008, 2 million embryos had been destroyed in clincal practice or research in the UK. In the same period the regulator (the HFEA) had only once refused a research license, and this was later granted on appeal."
Commenting on Lady Warnock's report*, on the basis of which the British Parliament voted in 1990 to legalise destructive research on human embryos for a wide range of purposes, Dr Jones said:
"Warnock's approach is highly problematic. It is disingenuous to call this an account of the status of the embryo. The embryo drops out of consideration and it is the moral feelings of objectors that are considered. But it fails also as an attempt to respect these feelings, for it does not critically engage with the arguments but treats concern about harm to the embryo as a mere expression of emotion, in contrast to the concern about benefit to patients which is treated as an objective concern."
I strongly recommend everyone to read the summary of Dr Jones's address or to read it in full when the proceedings of the day conference are published. (Two years ago, I wrote on one aspect of the theme Dr Jones explored with such expertise in a post entitled Reasonable-minded citizens should be genuinely frightened of Mary Warnock.)

In hindsight I would like to adjust my advice to reasonable-minded citizens with regard to Mary Warnock. We need not be frightened of her, terrifying as her views and influence may be. Neither do we need to judge whether or not her open utilitarianism suggests psychopathic tendencies. But we do need to be aware of exactly what Lady Warnock and others like her think and we need to be prepared to stand up and refute their distorted view of humanity with the truth that all life is worth living.

*The Report of the Committee of Inquiry into Human Fertilisation and Embryology, Cmnd. 9314, London, 1984

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Monday, 3 October 2011

May Fr Michael Williams, a SPUC supporter, rest in peace

I was saddened to hear last week of the death of Fr Michael Williams, a young pro-life priest from Liverpool. Alan Houghton, a supporter of SPUC in Liverpool, has written a tribute to Fr Mike and has kindly given me permission to publish it on this blog:
Fr. Mike was an outstanding priest and a remarkable friend. Mike and I met back in 1996, before either of us even went to seminary. After Angie [Alan's wife] he was my closest friend and it is distressing to lose him. Nevertheless, we were able to be with him and his family at the moment he went to God. His death was beautiful and holy - it has deepened my faith and love for God.
In addition to his duties as a hospital chaplain - in which role he brought several souls back to God at the end of their lives - Fr. Mike was a strong pro-lifer. He had a great deal of respect for SPUC in general.

As far as I know, he was the only priest in the Liverpool Archdiocese who still prayed outside the BPAS centre on Merseyside. He also turned up to wave off Anne Fearon and the SPUC sponsored walk this time last year. I have a photo in my album of Mike as a seminarian holding a banner on the SPUC pro-life chain of witness in Great Crosby in 2003. Mike promoted the teachings of the Church on chastity and life issues to young engaged couples and defended Humanae Vitae to other priests when the occasion arose.

From a merely human perspective this is a grave loss to the Church and the pro-life movement. However, I know Michael always wanted to 'get home to God' (as he used to put it). Mike spent a lot of time in intercession before the Blessed Sacrament and I know that he can do a lot more for us than he ever could before!
A rare man of virtue - outstanding among our generation. May God rest his soul.
I was also deeply moved when I heard that the death of Fr Mike prompted another young priest to stand on the front line of the pro-life battle this weekend. Upon hearing of the death of his friend Fr Leon Pereira O.P. decided that he would follow Fr Mike's example and join in with the 40 Days for Life vigil in London. He went there on Saturday morning and met my son Paul who had organised for a group of young Catholics to go to the vigil together.

Fr Leon leads the young pro-lifers in prayer
Fr Leon also kindly agreed to write a tribute to Fr Mike and has given me permission to publish it.
I first met Fr Mike before either of us were ordained. He was a seminarian at Ushaw at the time, and I was training for the priesthood at Blackfriars, Oxford. His sister attended Mass at Blackfriars (and still does) and he would come to visit her. I remember how proud she was of her little brother, and with good reason.
Fr Mike was terribly easy-going, and I think it had a lot to do with his prayerfulness and deep devotion. At the hospital where he was chaplain, he seemed to know everyone by name, and quickly involved himself in bioethical and pro-life matters arising there.
He was a quiet man, genuinely humble, and very charitable. He was the kind of person who made you wish you were more like him, without ever reproaching you.
When I last spoke to him, at Fr Lawrence Lew's ordination in Oxford about 3 weeks ago, Michael was looking forward to his new assignation, to another hospital. What struck me was how clearly the virtue of hope shone through him, not optimism or wishful thinking but Christian hope.
He also had fortitude in abundance. It was his example which inspired me. He had a great spirit of fun, and seamlessly combined it with a deep devotion to Christ, Our Lady and the saints. The latter fed the former.
The news of his sudden coma and death shocked many people. I found myself thinking of some of the things Mike did, like leading the Rosary outside abortion mills. And it was his death, as well the seminarians I teach at Oscott talking about '40 days for life' which made me decide finally to do something about this myself.
And that's how I found myself in Bedford Square two days after Fr Mike's death (he died on the feast of his patron, St Michael the Archangel), leading the Rosary as he used to.
I generally avoid talking about the dead as though they're already in heaven, preferring to pray for the repose of their souls rather than "celebrate their lives". In Fr Michael's case, I certainly pray for him and for his family, and offered Mass for him, but I also find myself praying to him.
He was a good man and a good priest.
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Today's must-read pro-life news-stories, Mon 3 October

Xiu Fang Zhang (right)
Top stories:

Wakefield public meeting to hear parents' worries about explicit sex education
A public meeting will be held tomorrow (4 October) evening in Wakefield to hear parents' worries about explicit sex education programmes in primary schools. Antonia Tully, coordinator of Safe at School, SPUC's nationwide campaign for parents concerned about explicit sex education, has been invited to Wakefield to explain how graphic sex education is priming young children for teenage sex. The meeting has been organised in response to the concerns of local families. [SPUC, 30 September] http://goo.gl/N04xY

Chinese mother-of-four wins right to appeal UK deportation order
A Chinese mother of four children has won the right to appeal against a decision to deport her from the UK back to Communist China. Xiu Fang Zhang (pictured), 34, came to Britain in 2003. She fears that her children will be taken away from her by the Communist authorities if she is deported to China. [Mail, 3 October] http://goo.gl/rKO2F

UK writer killed himself with euthanasia kit
A British man killed himself with a euthanasia kit bought on the internet, a coroner's inquest has found. Jack Semmens, 73, ordered the kit from the United States. Mr Semmens left notes saying: "£10,000 to Dignitas? I don’t think so", "So many people live far too long" and "Tired of life". [Sunday Sun, 2 October] http://goo.gl/SpcT4

Other stories:

Abortion
Embryology
General
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Sunday, 2 October 2011

Vatican newspaper highlights the destruction of the imperfect

Early last month L'Osservatore Romano ran an editorial analysis of the now routine practice of eugenic abortions entitled 'Destruction of the imperfect'.

After more than 30 years working in the pro-life movement I continue to be horrified by the seemingly endless destruction of human life, as highlighted by Carlo Bellieni (pictured) in the aforementioned article:
"The facts are important. The registry of congenital malformations of Emilia Romagna – among the few available Italian sources – reveals that the rate of abortion of fetuses with Down Syndrome is above 60% above the total (and more than 70% in Italian women); more than 50% of girls with Turner Syndrome (resulting in shortness and low fertility) are aborted. The first case involves delayed intellectual development and the second delays physical development: reason enough to destroy them?
Eurocat, a European register, shows that in cases of orofacial clefts – an opening of the lip or palate, a mild and operable condition – the abortion rate is more than 10%. In France, 96% of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted and recently a Parisian Deputy in Parliament declared: “The real question I ask myself is why is there still 4%?”. In 1996 the magazine “Archives de Pédiatrie” launched an j’accuse against prenatal elimination of fetuses on the base of future shortness, this characteristic also dramatically decreased from the social panorama and certainly not because a cure was found."
The Parisian politician quoted above is not alone in seemingly disdaining children with disabilities. Last week at the meeting of a pro-abortion coalition group in London, Marge Berer, editor of the pro-abortion journal Reproductive Health Matters, described British abortion law as among the best in the world, in part because it allows for abortion on the grounds of foetal abnormalities. In fact on this ground women in Britain can access abortions up to birth. Marge Berer later bemoaned that the abortion industry was finding it difficult to find abortionists in Spain who are prepared to carry out abortions after 24 weeks due to the ongoing trial of a late-term abortionist.

Alison Davis, leader of No Less Human a group within SPUC, has sent me her response to the L'Osservatore Romano article. Alison says:
"This article visits the now familiar story of the attempts by Governments all over the developed world to wipe out disability by 'weeding out' (sic) those who have it. It correctly points out that disabled people themselves (a survey of Italian people with spina bifida is cited) say that their 'quality of life' is high - often higher than those who have no obvious disability. The reason for the 'wiping out' programme can only be economic; the fact that killing us ultimately costs less than treating us.
The article ends by calling for 'solidarity' with sick and disabled people who are being eradicated by abortion. This takes me back to 1985 when I attended a conference in Chicago, travelling alone. I was waiting at the taxi rank, and the driver of first taxi that pulled up refused to take me, saying it would take extra time to load my wheelchair, a task for which he could not charge. He looked at the next-in-line, a young black couple. They spoke together for a second then the man said to the taxi driver: 'You don't take her, you don't take us. Solidarity makes sense.' It does indeed, which is why disabled people should be entitled to be a part of society rather than routinely 'weeded out'.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Saturday, 1 October 2011

Wakefield public meeting to hear about dangers of explicit sex education in primary schools

antonia20110918_lowA public meeting will be held next Tuesday (4 October) evening in Wakefield to hear parents' worries about explicit sex education programmes in primary schools.

Antonia Tully (pictured), coordinator of SPUC's Safe at School campaign, a nationwide campaign for parents concerned about explicit sex education, will be speaking in Wakefield to explain how graphic sex education is priming young children for teenage sex. Mrs Tully, a mother of five school-aged children, will be showing video clips from classroom teaching resources, aimed at seven year olds, which show sexual intercourse. The meeting has been organised by the local SPUC branch.

All parents are urged to attend to find out how to uphold their rights to protect their children from sexualisation in the classroom.

The meeting will be held at Outwood Memorial Hall, Victoria Street, Outwood, Wakefield WF1 2NN starting at 7.30pm, Tuesday 4 October 2011.

For more information, please contact Antonia Tully on (020) 8407 3643 or safeatschool@spuc.org.uk

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Evan Harris wants doctors to push the abortion agenda

At a Voice for Choice pro-abortion meeting in London last week, Evan Harris (pictured), the pro-abortion MP who lost his seat at the last general election, said that the support of medical professionals was “vital” and should be used to push the abortion agenda. Evan Harris said that he would be happy to use the time on his hands to help in this regard.

Medical professionals, beware!

Evan Harris went on to say that the RCOG and medical workers generally are absolutely crucial (in the pro-abortion campaign). He said that politicians nearly always follow the medics. He said that if ever parliament looked like ignoring pro-abortion lobbying from medical professionals, that it was very effective to argue ... “This would be the first time parliament has ignored its medical professionals on these issues”. He said that the argument was not strictly true, but it was for the most part and was certainly effective!

This is the Evan Harris who as an MP:
  • argued for the law to be changed to allow patients to be assisted to commit suicide by lethal dose;
  • tabled an amendment to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill apparently designed to force doctors, nurses and pharmacists to prescribe, provide, dispense or administer birth control when requested to do so;
  • tabled amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology bill to remove the requirement for two doctors to authorise an abortion and no longer to require the doctors to act in “good faith”, making abortion more like any other “medical” procedure
Dr Harris is trying to manipulate the debate about abortion by setting himself up as the self-appointed arbiter and all-knowing oracle of what he claims to be evidence-based medical science. Rather than be manipulated by Evan Harris, who warns us that he has time on his hands, many medical professionals and politicians will prefer to take heed of a review in the British Journal of Psychiatry which concluded that women having abortions experience an 81% increased risk of mental health problems.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Friday, 30 September 2011

Today's must-read pro-life news-stories, Fri 30 September

Women prisoners with post-abortion trauma
Top stories:

Contact Council of Europe urgently to protect unborn children from discrimination
This coming Tuesday (4 October) the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will consider a report which includes serious attacks on unborn children with sex-linked genetic disorders. SPUC has asked its supporters to contact their country’s delegates at PACE, asking them to to reject or amend the dangerous clauses, or vote against the report if the bad content is not removed. [SPUC, 28 September] http://goo.gl/Nfd0J

SPUC supporters encouraged to join SPUC London region at 40 Days for Life vigil
SPUC supporters are encouraged to join SPUC London region at the 40 Days for Life vigil outside a central London abortion centre. The vigil will be held on Sat 15 October, beginning at 10am and finishing at 4pm outside BPAS, 26/27 Bedford Square, WC1B 3HP. For more information, call 020 8668 7697 or email pascal.lalande@btopenworld.com

M case decision welcome but judgment contains future threats to disabled people
SPUC Pro-Life has published a summary and in-depth commentary on Wednesday's decision in the M case. Mr Justice Baker, sitting in the Court of Protection, refused an application for withdrawal of assisted food and fluids from a woman diagnosed in a so-called 'minimally conscious state'. SPUC Pro-Life welcomed the decision but warned that the judgment contains future threats to disabled people. [SPUC, 29 September] http://goo.gl/tbalv

Other stories:

Abortion
Embryology
General
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Praying with 40 Days for Life London for an end to abortion

I have said before how blessed we are in London to have such a fantastic pro-life initiative in 40 Days for Life London. This is the third time that the forty day vigil has been run in this city and the driving force behind it has been committed young pro-lifers. They are giving up much to run such a worthy campaign, not least their time.

This morning I joined them for the first time since the vigil was launched on Tuesday evening and began proper on Wednesday morning outside of the BPAS abortion facility in Bedford Square.

Here I am praying with Beata, one of the 40 Days for Life London organising team.

I was also very happy to be attending the vigil with my son Paul.



The the 40 Days for Life vigil itself is an event open to people of all faiths and none. Paul is organising for a group of young Catholics to go together to the vigil tomorrow morning  between 9.30am and 12.30pm and they are going to the 8am Mass at the Brompton Oratory beforehand for anyone wishing to join them. Although the organisation for this is being done by young people all are welcome to join them, as indeed they are for the entire 40 Day campaign.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Thursday, 29 September 2011

M case decision welcome but judgment contains future threats to disabled people

SPUC Pro-Life has published a summary and in-depth commentary (below) on yesterday's decision in the M case. Mr Justice Baker, sitting in the Court of Protection, refused an application for withdrawal of assisted food and fluids from a woman diagnosed in a so-called 'minimally conscious state'. Yesterday afternoon Paul Tully, SPUC Pro-Life's general secretary, debated the M case with Dr Evan Harris on Sky News, and has written the summary and commentary below.

M case judgment, Court of Protection, 28 September 2011: decision welcome but judgment contains future threats to disabled people

Summary:

On the positive side:
  • Ms M has been spared the slow and degrading process of death by dehydration/starvation;
  • The judge gave great weight to the evidence of the healthcare staff involved in Ms M’s day-to-day care – more so than expert medical witnesses, and more so than the evidence of her sister who visits her only briefly and occasionally.
On the negative side:
  • The judgment has extended the scope for the courts to dictate that other patients in a similar condition can be killed
  • This case will pave the way for future Court of Protection cases – which may be shrouded in secrecy – which may sanction death for similar patients
  • The judgment implies that poor quality of life was grounds for killing starving incapacitated patients
  • The judge said that everyone seeking to have similarly disabled relatives killed in this way should get legal aid (but not people who were trying to stop someone being killed)
  • The judgment said that the protection of life for vulnerable people was a “fundamental” principle, but not an “absolute” one – a manoeuvre by which he left scope for decisions to starve/dehydrate others in future.
  • The legal and media attention devoted to this case belies the fact that hundreds, or perhaps thousands of people with conditions like stroke or dementia, are deliberately killed by withdrawing assisted food and water every year in Britain.
Commentary:

We welcome the decision to spare Ms M[i] the horrible slow death by dehydration and starvation that was sought by Irwin Mitchell, the legal firm who, acting at their own expense[ii], asked for her to be killed by this cruel and inhuman process. Irwin Mitchell were acting for Ms M’s mother, Mrs W, who has Alzheimer’s disease, and her sister, Ms B.

Ms M is described as being in a “Minimally Conscious State”, a diagnosis one-step removed from the Non-Responsive State (also called “Vegetative State”).

The judge’s ruling hinged on the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which was designed to enshrine the 1993 Bland case in law. The Bland case defined food and water given by tube as medical treatment, said that some severely disabled people were not worth keeping alive, and argued that when such disabled people died it was really their underlying disability that killed them, not the doctors or relatives who deliberately starved/dehydrated them.[iii]

In his judgment, Mr Baker cites some of the most disturbing passages of the Bland judgment, including Lord Goff’s assertions that “the very poor quality of the life” of  a patient was ground for withholding life-prolonging treatment.[iv]

The Mental Capacity Act added to this by saying that if anyone asked in advance to be starved/dehydrated in this way (by making an advance directive), then they must be left to die in this way if they become incapacitated and rely on tube-feeding.

Ironically, the Mental Capacity Act has helped prevent Ms M from being killed by dehydration and starvation in this instance, as she did not have an advance directive. Ms M can only be killed if the courts regard it as being in her “best interests.” The judge, Mr Justice Baker, has insisted that the letter of the law be observed, and that everything possible to improve Ms M’s condition should be tried before she is starved to death.

However, there are a number of very disturbing aspects about Mr Baker’s judgment:

He said that if Ms M’s condition had been slightly worse, so that she was defined as being in a “vegetative” state[v], he would automatically have agreed to killing her.[vi]

The judge gives considerable attention to evidence from M’s sister, Ms B, even though she does not visit her often or for very long, but calls briefly once every 3-4 weeks and doesn’t talk to her sister.[vii] While Mr Baker says she has shown “devotion” to her sister,  he gives more weight to the evidence of the various healthcare staff in assessing M’s current status.

On the other hand, Mr Baker gives significant weight in his judgment to the evidence of the healthcare staff, such as skills workers, physiotherapists, etc, who work with Ms M, and who said that her overall experience of life is positive. The judge gave this more weight than the evidence of the medical expert, Professor Lynne Turner-Stokes, who said that M’s overall experience was negative.[viii] While one can be thankful that this view prevailed, it is deplorable that someone’s right to life should be balanced on whether their experience of life is deemed negative or positive.

The concluding section of the judgment “Observations for future cases” is deeply disturbing.  Here, with the authority of the President of the Court of Protection, Mr Baker sets out procedures for bringing future cases of patients in the “Minimally Conscious State” to court for rulings on the withdrawal of their food and fluids. Thus he is setting the scene for widening the Bland judgment

He calls for public funding to be given to any relatives who want to make such an application. In very many cases of this type, families will be divided between those who want their relative to be killed and those who want them to continue to receive care. This proposal means public funding for the killers, but no support for relatives who oppose attempts to starve and dehydrate their relatives.[ix]

Notes:
[i] In accordance with normal standards of courtesy in journalism and elsewhere (which may not necessarily obtain in legal documents), we accord Ms M an honorific title (‘Ms’), at least when introducing her, on the basis that even if this title is not the formally correct one, it indicates the respect we accord her as a fellow human being. 
[ii] See Judgment (W(B) v M & S & an NHS Trust, [2011] EWHC 2443 (Fam)), §27
[iii] For a fuller commentary on Bland, see http://www.spuc.org.uk/about/no-less-human/Bland.pdf
[iv] Judgment, §64
[v] The term ‘vegetative’ in this context is offensive to many people with disabilities; the term ‘non-responsive’ is a non-derogatory alternative.
[vi] Judgment, §35
[vii] Judgment §115
[viii] Judgment §251
[ix] Judgment §260

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Wednesday, 28 September 2011

Contact Council of Europe urgently to protect unborn children from discrimination

(You can also read the alert below in French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish)

Next week the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE, not to be confused with the European Parliament of the European Union (EU)) will consider a report which includes serious attacks on unborn children with sex-linked genetic disorders. The report is called “Prenatal Sex Selection”. It is being proposed by Ms. Doris Stump, Swiss socialist PACE delegate, and it includes a Resolution and Recommendation, on which delegates will be asked to vote. We believe that both the Resolution and the Recommendation must be amended – and if this cannot be done, they should be opposed. The report comes from the Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men. Amendments must be submitted no later than 3 October 2011 by 4pm. The debate is scheduled for 4 October 2011 during the PACE plenary session.

The following sections (in bold) in the Resolution deny the right to life of children, especially children with inherited diseases:
(7) In line with the Council of Europe Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (ETS No. 164), the Assembly believes that, in the context of assisted reproduction technologies such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis, prenatal sex selection should be resorted to only to avoid serious hereditary diseases linked to one sex”
(8.5) encourage national ethics bodies to elaborate and introduce guidelines for medical staff, discouraging prenatal sex selection by whatever method, unless justified for the prevention of serious sex-linked genetic diseases”
(8.7) introduce legislation with a view to prohibiting sex selection in the context of assisted reproduction technologies and legal abortion, except when it is justified to avoid a serious hereditary disease.”
The following danger is found in the Recommendation:
(3.3) step up efforts aimed at promoting the signature, ratification and implementation of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210) and the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine”
Again, the European Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention) denies the right to life of unborn children by approving destruction of embryos with inherited disease, and therefore the reference to it in the present Recommendation should be deleted.

Please contact your country’s delegates at PACE:
(http://assembly.coe.int/ASP/AssemblyList/AL_DelegationsList_E.asp)
asking them to:
  • to reject or amend the dangerous clauses in order to protect unborn children, particularly those who may have a sex-linked genetic disorder
  • vote against the report if the bad content is not removed.
Please don’t forget to copy any replies you receive from PACE delegates to SPUC either by email to political@spuc.org.uk or by post to SPUC HQ.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Tuesday, 27 September 2011

Dr Margaret Ogola, the Kenyan pro-life humanitarian, has died

I have just heard the very sad news that Dr Margaret Ogola has died. On behalf of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, I extend our deepest sympathy to George, her husband, and her six children.

I first encountered Dr Ogola in 1994 in Cairo at the United Nations Conference on Population and Development where I was lobbying on behalf of SPUC. A Kenyan paediatrician, Margaret worked at Kenyatta General Hospital in Nairobi, as a consultant paediatrician.

Margaret was speaking in Cairo at the forum for non-governmental organizations about her work at Kenyatta General Hospital.

She said that a woman in need of an antibiotic for a sick child would have to pay for the syringe, for the needle, and for the antibiotic, otherwise her child would not be treated. However, the same woman seeking contraception could get every variety under the sun at the brand new family planning clinic next to her hospital, completely free of charge, courtesy of Western nations.

As I wrote in SPUC's newspaper at the time Human Concern:
"Not one penny of the 17 billion US dollars which the Cairo Conference agreed to spend will go on treating sick children. However, a staggering 15 billion US dollars will be spent on population control."
In 1997, I travelled to Kenya with Peter Smith, an SPUC UN lobbyist, and Dr Jack Willke, known as the father of the US pro-life movement, to speak at a seminar, organized by Margaret on behalf of the Kenyan Catholic episcopal conference. The seminar was for church leaders, educationalists and health professionals on the battle against the international abortion lobby and its designs for Kenya.

In 2001, she wrote in support of SPUC's intervention in a court battle - in which the Family Planning Association was seeking to undermine the legal protection of unborn children in Northern Ireland. They were using the tactic, used by David Steel when he introduced the British Abortion Act, that the abortion law in Northern Ireland needed "clarification".

Margaret Ogola said in her letter to SPUC:
"There are very restrictive abortion laws in Kenya, as there are in the vast majority of African countries. Our abortion laws are actually based on the legal situation inherited from Britain before our independence. This certainly does not mean that the law is in need of any clarification; indeed far from it. The law is quite clear, and its implications are undisputed."

She continued:

"No government minister here in Kenya has ever sought to offer guidance as to the cases in which abortion would be allowed. It is not the place of the government or individual ministers to issue such guidance. There are many similarities between abortion law in Kenya and abortion law in Norther Ireland. Here there is no question of a minister issuing any guidelines relating to abortion.

"I wish to assure you that I am more than willing to provide any further information you may require in the course of court proceedings in Belfast ... "
Dr Ogola was not only a pro-life champion in Kenya and internationally. She was an award winning author (The River and the Source: see image above), and, in her own words in her letter to SPUC "a wife and a mother". In addition she was one of this century's and the last century's great African humanitarians as her obituary on the Strathmore University website today makes clear:
"In 1998, she became the National Executive Secretary for Health and Family Life at the Kenya Episcopal Conference until 2002. The job entailed co-ordinating the administration of over 430 health care facilities run by the Catholic Church in Kenya.

"The facilities offer about 20% of healthcare in Kenya.

"In November 2002, she became the Kenya co-ordinator of HACI (Hope for African Children Initiative), a partnership of several international NGOs – Plan, CARE, Save the Children, Society for Women and Aids, World Conference for Religion and Peace, and World Vision.

"Dr Ogola also helped found and manage the SOS HIV/AIDS Clinic (April 2004 –April 2005), which is a clinic for people living with Aids (PLWAs). The clinic offers VCT, provision of ART and nutritional support to 1000 persons from the surrounding slums: women, men and children."
Visiting the Ogolas' home in Nairobi in 1997 was humbling. The simplicity with which she and George, also a doctor, and their large family lived - and carried out their selfless humanitarian work - is something I will never forget.

And neither must we forget Kenya - and all African nations - so cruelly targeted by the worldwide population control lobby, led by Barack Obama and the US administration.

As Dr Ogola told the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing:
Unless we recognise that each individual is irrepeatable and valuable by virtue of simply being conceived human, we cannot begin to talk about human rights. This includes the right to be born, as all of us have enjoyed. True justice should be for each human being, visible and invisible, young and old, disabled and able, to enjoy fully their right to life. The accidental attributes that we acquire such as colour, sex intelligence, economic circumstances, physical or mental disability should not be used as an excuse to deprive a person of life.
I strongly encourage everyone to read the whole of this excellent speech entitled 'The Dignity of African Women'.

May Dr Margaret Ogola, award winning author, medical doctor, and human rights advocate, and selfless friend of unborn children and their mothers worldwide, rest in peace.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Today's must-read pro-life news-stories, Tue 27 Sep

Gillian Walnes, Anne Frank Trust UK
Top stories:

Medical director of UK abortion provider finds performing abortions gratifying
The medical director of one of the UK's largest abortion providers has said that she finds performing abortions gratifying. Dr Patricia Lohr of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) also told a meeting of the pro-abortion lobby that "It's crucial for abortionists to talk about abortion as a good thing”. John Smeaton, SPUC director, commented: "We must hope and pray that, like the late Dr Bernard Nathanson and other ex-abortionists, Dr Lohr will see that choosing life, not death, is gratifying." [John Smeaton, 26 September] http://goo.gl/7OQJD

Holocaust charity condemns BBC presenter's population control remarks
A UK charity remembering the Holocaust has condemned remarks by a BBC presenter promoting population control. Chris Packham, a BBC wildlife presenter, said: "We face horrendous hurdles in getting this message [about limiting population growth] across. The first thing is the Holocaust, because the minute you talk about this, people call you a eugenicist and they believe that you want to kill people." Gillian Walnes (pictured), of the Anne Frank Trust UK, said they were ‘bizarre. I think that Chris Packham has made an odd and shocking choice in using the Holocaust to try to justify rejection of his thoughts on population control. The lessons we take from the Holocaust are about what terrible things an enforcement ideology can lead to and of the value and sanctity of human life." [Mail, 27 September] goo.gl/a6EuV

Women who use RU486 experience more pain and distress, UK study suggests
Women who use RU486, the abortion drug, experience more pain and distress than those who have a surgical abortion, a new study suggests. Researchers at Newcastle university, UK, found that more than half of the women studied had a worse than expected experience of the drug. Psychological effects included nightmares of killing their unborn children. [Earned Media, 26 September] http://goo.gl/9PmHs

Other stories:

Embryology
Euthanasia
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Monday, 26 September 2011

Medical director of BPAS finds performing abortions gratifying

I read a report today of a pro-abortion meeting held by Voice for Choice in central London last week. The meeting was addressed by Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP, Ann Furedi, the chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), and Dr Patricia Lohr, BPAS's medical director, and others from Brook.

Dr Lohr said she felt extremely fortunate to provide abortions. She said she finds performing abortion gratifying. She said Dr Lohr said that there was a need for all medical workers to be able to direct women towards an abortion even if the medical workers consider it to be morally wrong. She said:
"It's crucial for abortionists to talk about abortion as a good thing”.
But what kind of person thinks that performing abortions is gratifying; that one’s fortunate to provide them and that abortion is a good thing? Here, as a brief reminder, is a description of a suction abortion, the most common type of abortion procedure in Britain, representing 52% of the 189,574 abortions which took place last year under the Abortion Act in England and Wales:
“The cervix (the neck of the womb) must be stretched open to allow the surgeon to insert a plastic tube into the womb. Sharp-edged openings near the tip of the tube help to dismember the baby so the parts are small enough to be sucked out. The surgeon then uses the suction tube to evacuate the placenta from the womb. The remains of the baby are deposited in a jar for disposal.”
Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, who has written about the effect of abortion on the moral character of abortionists, says:
"The most likely negative effect upon abortionists may be the obscuring of their innate tendency towards the natural law in failing to distinguish unjustifiable homicide from medical treatment."
but that:
"[E]ven such a vice as serial killing of the innocent does not result in absolute and irrevocable corruption of an individual’s human nature."
So we must hope and pray that, like the late Dr Bernard Nathanson and other ex-abortionists, Dr Lohr will see that choosing life, not death, is gratifying.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Today's must-read pro-life news-stories, Mon 26 Sep

Kandice Smith & family
UN pressuring Ireland to legalise abortion
A UN committee on torture is pressuring Ireland to legalise abortion. The Committee on the Abolition of Torture said that Ireland's total ban on abortion may breach a UN convention against torture. Pat Buckley, SPUC's representative at the UN said the committee's observations were "an example of the pro-abortion strategy to create a "right to abortion" by stating falsehoods about international law and treaties over and over again until they begin to be treated as truth." [Pat Buckley, 24 September] http://goo.gl/8VfDR

Cystic fibrosis woman refuses abortion to give birth to triplets
A young American woman with cystic fibrosis has given birth to triplets after refusing abortion. Kandice Smith, 20, was warned by doctors that she may not survive giving birth. However, Miss Smith said ‘It has been the hardest fight of my life - but it has been worth every second. I would have died for my girls if I’d had to.’ [Mail, 23 September] http://goo.gl/iC1GE

UK man given suspended sentence for wife's euthanasia death
A retired British actor has been given a 12-month suspended sentence for smothering his ill wife to death. Stuart Mungall, 71, confessed to and was convicted of the manslaughter of his wife, 69, who had a degenerative brain disease. The sentence was a reduced one due to mitigating circumstances. [Peter Saunders, 23 September] http://goo.gl/2UmEV

Other stories:

Abortion
Embryology
Population
Sexual ethics
General
Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Saturday, 24 September 2011

Niamh Moloney is a voice for voiceless embryonic children

Niamh Moloney, an active SPUC supporter and now a natural fertility practitioner, appeared recently on Channel Four's 4thought.tv, speaking about the question: "Should embryonic stem cell research be allowed?" (video of Niamh) (Anthony Ozimic, SPUC's communications manager, appeared in June, speaking on the question: "Should organ donation be made compulsory?" and I appeared in November, speaking on the question: "Is abortion even justified?")

Niamh spoke in an attractively informal and personable way, saying:
"Embryos are voiceless, they can't talk and someone's got to stand up for them."
Well done Niamh and thank you for being a voice for voiceless embryonic children.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Friday, 23 September 2011

Defending parental rights in Northern Ireland

An SPUC Northern Ireland conference entitled Defending Parental Rights will take place on Saturday 10th March 2012 at Belfast Castle in the north of the city.

Speakers will include Pat Ramsey (SDLP MLA and deputy chairman of the Stormont All-party Pro-life Group) and Jim Wells (DUP MLA, deputy chairman of the Assembly’s health committee).

Prof David Paton (Nottingham University School of Business) and Dr Patrick Fagan* (Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute, Washington DC), pictured, will also address the conference. It will look at the current practice of providing birth control to children under the age of consent without the knowledge of their parents and the impact of this policy on family life.
*Patrick F. Fagan
Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Research on Marriage and Religion

Patrick F. Fagan is Senior Fellow and Director of the Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI), which examines the relationships among family, marriage, religion, community, and America's social problems, as illustrated in the social science data. The Center has a particular emphasis on the relationship between marital stability coupled with the practice of religion and their joint impacts on our social infrastructure (issues such as happiness, health, mental health and general well being, income and savings, educational attainment and family stability as well as such negative outcomes as poverty, crime, abuse, and drug addiction).

A native of Ireland, Patrick Fagan earned his Bachelor of Social Science degree with a double major in sociology and social administration, and a professional graduate degree in psychology (Dip. Psych.) as well as a Ph.D. from University College Dublin.

Patrick Fagan started his career as a grade school teacher in Cork, Ireland, then returned to college to become a psychologist, going to Canada to practice then to Washington, D.C. to pursue a doctorate in clinical psychology. In 1984, Fagan moved from the clinical world into the public policy arena, to work on family issues at the Free Congress Foundation. After that he worked for Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, then was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Family and Community Policy at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services by President George H.W. Bush, before spending the next thirteen years at the Heritage Foundation where he was a senior fellow.
Contact Liam Gibson for further information at liamgibson@spuc.org.uk

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Disabled babies are killed because of a "lack of imagination"

Alison Davis, leader of No Less Human a group within SPUC, has responded to an appalling story that parents in Florida have successfully sued medics for failing to inform them that their child was disabled, on the grounds that had they known they would have aborted their child.

Bryan Santana, the child of Ana Majia and Rodolfo Santana, was born with no arms and only one leg. He is now three years old.

Alison writes:
It has been reported that a Florida (USA) couple have been awarded $4.5 m to buy equipment for their son Bryan, who was born with no arms and only one leg. The "damages" suit was brought by Ana Majia and Rodolfo Santana under the Florida State "wrongful birth statute" under which parents can sue an obstetrician or hospital for "negligence" in not noticing, and/or not informing them of their child's disability. Mr & Mrs Santana claim that had they known that their son would be disabled, they would have aborted him. In other words, the fact that they were not warned in an ultrasound that their son had disabilities denied them the chance to kill him before birth.
Florida is one of 25 US states which have a "wrongful birth statutes" like this, suggesting that disabled children not only have no right to life, but actually have the contrary right - the right not to be born.
The $4.5m which Mr & Mrs Santana have been awarded is only half the $9m "an expert" claimed was necessary to aasure Bryan's future throughout his 70 year estimated lifespan. It should be noted here that some thirty years ago, when I first became involved in the pro-life movement, doctors and hospitals worldwide were claiming that abortion for disabled was necessary because the child would not live very long. It would seem that now it is being claimed that killing disabled unborn children is "necessary" because they will live a long time. Would it not be more honest to simply say "disabled people are unwanted and should be killed at any age"? Of course, this is what the infamous Australian eugenicist philosopher Peter Singer, who now teaches philosophy and ethics (sic.) and the supposedly "prestigious" Princeton Unversity USA has been saying for as long as I can remember.
This case takes me back to the very early days of my pro-life work. One of the first cases I read about, which was pivotal in my change of mind from being pro-abortion to being pro-life, was that of a baby named Louise. She was born in 1979 in High Wycombe Hospital and was immediately found to have both spina bifida and hydrocephalus. Her paediatrician, Dr. Donald Garrow, persuaded her parents that she would be "better off dead" as she would be unable to walk, and would thus compare herself unfavourably with her two able-bodied sisters. He then sedated her so she was too sleepy to cry for food, and she eventually died of starvation and dehydration. Dr. Garrow made a video of her last days which was shown on daytime TV, and which I saw. Louise's face was grey, her eyes sunken. She had stick thin arms and legs but a bloated stomach, and looked much like the victims of starvation due to famine which elicit our sympathy, and often our financial help, whenever they are seen on TV.
I wrote to Dr.Garrow at the hospital and explained that I was disabled to just the extent that Louise had been, and that I felt he had made a horribly wrong decision. In response he invited me to speak to his "team" at the hospital, which I accepted. I cannot remember exactly what I said, but I pointed out that life with spina bifida and hydrocephalus could be full and happy, and that it was in any case wrong to deliberately kill any child on grounds of his/her disability.
Dr Garrow then took me on a tour of his ill-named "Special Care Baby Unit." One cot had been pushed apart from the others and as he removed the baby girl's blanket, I saw that she had no arms or legs. Dr. Garrow pointed this out (as if it were not obvious) and told me that the baby's mother was 14 years old and the father 13 years old. He asked if I thought that this baby too would a good future. It should be noted here that both this baby's young parents wanted her to live, so he was arguing against their wishes.
I remember replying something along the lines that I could not foresee the future, but that I knew a young man named Eddie from a swimming club for disabled people I attended before I left home to go to university. Eddie also had no arms or legs, in his case due to his mother having taken the drug thalidomide during pregnancy. Eddie loved being in the water, with a rubber ring around him, and his wit and sense of fun made him a very popular member of the club. He attended a mainstream school, which was adapted not just for him but for any student who used a wheelchair and needed an accessible environment. I lost touch with Eddie when I went away to university, but only a few years ago I read in a local newspaper about another member of the same club, Ronnie, who was born with no arms, again because his mother had taken thalidomide. He had just started his own business as a mobile DJ, driving to each "gig" in his car, adapted to be driven just by his feet, and also working the equipment with his feet.

In the last few years I met a most charming young man in a remote Indian village who has no arms and only one useable leg. He has none of the advantages that Eddie or Ronnie had, and none of the huge amount of money that has now been made available to pay for Bryan's care. However, was also going to school with his peers and was accepted by them, his teacher, his family and his community.
It is lack of imagination, not pity, which causes doctors to dismiss the lives of disabled babies as "not worth living". I hesitate to comment on the reasons why parents feel they "deserve" huge sums of money, when what they need most is love and compassion from their families and communities and a realisation that their disabled children, like every other child, has the right to life. It is their loss to think that money can buy what only unconditional love can give - acceptance and the will to find solutions to problems that need not cost millions of dollars - or even hundreds of dollars.

To return to my meeting with Dr. Donald Garrow, who in a sense was the catalyst to my changing my mind on abortion, I asked him a question as I left his hospital on the day I met the limbless baby. I asked whether he would have treated me by ending my life in the same way as he had Louise. His reply was among the most chilling things I have ever heard. He said "No, because you have a pretty face."
Dr. Garrow died on 24th February 2001. Having also later changed my mind on religion and moved from being an atheist to being a Catholic, I pray daily for his soul and the souls of all doctors who think death is the answer to life's challenges.
This lawsuit and the laws which allow such a case to be successful are deeply offensive. The message is being sent to disabled people everywhere that they are not wanted.

Alison's analysis that it is a lack of imagination, rather than pity, that convinces individuals to kill rather than care for the disabled rings true. I would add that it suggests a chilling arrogance for any individual to diagnose the life of another as not worth living.

People with disabilities have an enormous amount to teach us about what it truly means to be human, as the following video makes abundantly clear.


Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
Sign up for alerts to new blog-posts and/or for SPUC's other email services
Follow SPUC on Twitter
Like SPUC's Facebook Page
Please support SPUC. Please donate, join, and/or leave a legacy
at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)