Two things worth adding YOUR voice to

John Smeaton draws our attention to two ways we can stand up and be counted, hopefully with profitable effect in terms of saving lives.

Stop Eugenics Now

This is a new European initiative which has launched an online petition open to individuals, families and disabled rights organisations to sign.  It calls upon the European Court of Human Rights to “reaffirm the principle of the prohibition of eugenics, and the obligation of the Member States to protect the life of every person, including of the disabled before their birth.”

The background against which the petition is being brought is that of the case of Anita Kruzmane v. Latvia. Anita's doctor suggested, at 18 weeks pregnant, that she have an appointment with a specialist to include an alpha-feto protein (AFP) test which is used to detect foetal abnormalities.  Anita, who claims that she was not in fact referred for this test, went on to give birth to a baby with Down's Syndrome.  She has taken her case to the Court of European Human Rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, claiming that the negligence of a doctor has meant she was denied adequate and timely medical care (the AFP test) resulting in her being unaware that her foetus was at risk of having a genetic defect - and that she therefore was denied the opportunity to choose whether or not to continue with her pregnancy.

John Smeaton points out that this case follows several other high-profile ones about abortion, including "several cases from France and the Netherlands concerning so-called 'wrongful births' of children with conditions such as Down’s syndrome".

What is the central issue at stake here?  The European Centre for Law and Justice (ECLJ) has said, “This case may provide an opportunity for the Court to clarify its case-law with regard to eugenics and abortion. This is necessary due to some visible confusion in the existing case-law, and this is made possible considering the large number of important cases currently before the Court on this issue.”

Mr Smeaton reports Gregor Puppinck of the ECLJ as seeing the key question arising from this case to be:

"Does the [European Convention on Human Rights] guarantee a right to eugenics for parents, and in particular to the procedure of prenatal screening-elimination of sick or disabled fetuses? If so, does the State have a positive obligation in this regard?"

That is, as Stop Eugenics now puts it,  Should the elimination of one’s unborn baby because it has Down syndrome be regarded as a human fundamental right? 

Many readers will be aware that in the UK, out of those babies diagnosed before birth as having Down's Syndrome, 92% will be aborted.  It is legal in our country to abort a baby right up until birth if it is found to have a disability or handicap.  Certainly, as a child growing up in the 1960's and 70's, I knew or met several Down's Syndrome people.  One lived in the same block of flats as us.  These days you rarely see any... because they haven't been born.

Certainly some of those I knew had varying degrees of health problems, but what I clearly remember is that they invariably had huge smiles on their faces!  Possibly this is a trick of memory of the it-was-always-sunny-in-summer-when-I-was-a-child type, but Down's Syndrome children are certainly more than capable of deriving a lot of pleasure from life and giving a lot of pleasure to those around them.  Why, then, are we killing them?

With regard to "wrongful birth" cases I admit I find it hard to get my head around the fact that a mother can look at her child and say she feels that child shouldn't have been born.  I am not judging such parents... or at least I am trying my best not to judge, because I know I am not standing in their shoes or feeling the pressure and demands they must cope with.  Presumably they are acting out of compassion for their child, who they must feel will not have a good quality of life.  I only know that it gives me the chills to think there are now prenatal tests for my daughter's condition and that a parent could choose to abort a child like her.  In fact I try not to think about it, because the idea that Aila might never have existed is too awful.  At the same time I know I have to do what I can to avoid other Ailas being denied their right to life.

That's why I signed Stop Eugenics Now's petition and encourage you to do so too.  What else is systematic testing for disability in an unborn child followed by the automatic right to abortion, other than eugenics?  There were many people in the last century who mounted passionate arguments in favour of eugenics and there are people doing the same now.  The fact remains that it is an unacceptable use of medical technology and an inhuman form of discrimination against those we deem not fit to live - however we couch our arguments in terms of a misguided compassion and concern for "quality of life" (a flexible term if ever there was one, defined differently by different people).

I've said it before and I'll say it again!  True compassion tries its utmost to offer people reasons to live, not ways to die (or to be killed).

One Million Rosaries for Unborn Babies

Hat tip again to John Smeaton for drawing attention to a campaign being run by the Saint Michael the Archangel Organization.  They are collecting pledges to pray a rosary (or two!) for unborn children over 4-6 May, to bring an end to "the surgical and non-surgical killing of unborn human persons".  They didn't quite make their target last year but say that people from over 30 nations participated.  Why not go over to the website here and make your pledge?  Imagine the prayer power of hundreds of thousands of Rosaries being offered up around the globe for the same intention over those three days... what couldn't the Holy Spirit do with that?

But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that your labour in the Lord is not in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:57,58)

Promoting a positive view of disability

I've just been posting over at Crawley Catenian about the charity that the Crawley Catenian Circle is going to be supporting in 2012-13 and decided I'd like to mention it on this blog too, because it's one whose work I very much admire and which is very much in the pro-life spirit.

The Circle will be supporting Just Different.  This is a charity set up in 2008 by Toby Hewson, a young man suffering from cerebral palsy, to educate children and young people about the world of disability and thus promote positive social attitudes towards disabled people.  Just Different take interactive workshops on disability - written, produced and presented by disabled people - into mainstream schools.  One of Horsham's primary schools, St John's, recently enjoyed one of their workshops which was very well received.

Toby Hewson, Just Different's founder

Edek and I have found from our experience with our daughter Aila that out of the many challenges facing disabled people, one of the most crippling can be the fear of whether other people will be able to relate to them.  Will those they meet be able to see past the wheelchair to the "ordinary" person within?  How will this affect their working relationships?  How easy will it be to make friends?  Unfortunately their fears are not always unfounded, but this isn't necessarily because people bear ill-will towards them or are prejudiced.  Often it is because of simple misunderstanding which means that others aren't quite sure what to do, say or expect.

By working with young people, Just Different is tackling this problem at grass roots level.  A generation of youngsters growing up today with an understanding and appreciation of disabled people will lead to a more genuinely inclusive society tomorrow.

Just Different offer their workshops free of formal charge, although they ask a suggested donation from the schools they visit.  They are keen to keep things on this basis and avoid charging large fees which many might find unaffordable, thus restricting access to their life-changing message.  However they need financial support - to, in their own words, "pay for the recruitment and training of disabled presenters, the travel costs associated with reaching the schools, workshop equipment and workshop development, so that we can bring about the changes we feel so passionately about."  They are therefore seeking voluntary forms of financial giving to support their costs.

To read more about Just Different, visit www.justdifferent.org.

"We see a world in which difference is always valued. The earlier children and young people begin to learn about disability, the more likely they are to just accept it as a normal part of the world they live in for the rest of their lives. JustDifferent workshops demonstrate to children and young people that disabled people can achieve, participate and lead normal lives."

By working towards a society where disability is accepted as a normal part of the world we live in and where all and sundry accept that disabled people can lead happy, worthwhile lives just like everyone else, we are working towards one in which the pressure to abort or euthanase whole sections of society will have been consigned to a less enlightened period of our human history...

A pro-life perspective on letting go

Last night I watched Letting Go on BBC1, a documentary by disability campaigner Rosa Monckton telling the stories of several young people with learning difficulties as they make their first steps towards independent living.  If you didn't see it, it's well worth catching on iPlayer.

Rosa's 16 year old daughter Domenica has Down's Syndrome, as did some of the other young people featured.  As far as Domenica is concerned the sky's the limit when it comes to planning for her future - she loves dancing and at the end of the programme was thrilled to secure a place at a stage school which teaches special needs students together with their mainstream peers - but Rosa is only too painfully aware of the harsh realities her daughter is going to come up against as she tries to find her niche in the world.

This theme was repeated amongst the other young people and parents that Rosa talked to.  Like all parents, those we met in this programme wanted to encourage their children to live their dreams and achieve their full potential; like all parents, they knew that the normal course of things required them to let their chicks fly the nest and live their own lives, for their own good.  Unlike the majority of  parents, however, they were painfully aware that theirs wasn't quite the normal course of things and that there would be special challenges to address. One of the young people, a young man with Down's Syndrome, had already come up against some of those challenges. His attempt to live an independent life in his own flat had gone very wrong, despite a lot of support from his parents and carers, because his neighbours insisted on being so cruel to him that they made his life in the flat miserable and ultimately untenable.

As the mother of a disabled teenager, so many of the concerns of Rosa and the other parents struck me to the heart.  The dilemma of encouraging your child to have high goals and hopes for the future yet be realistic about the very real physical limitations that have to be addressed; the fear that others will not understand them, will mock them for being "different" and leave them lonely... and above all, always there, a spectral shadow subtly darkening even the sunniest day, the fear of how they will manage when you are no longer around - as one day you won't be.  The ghost of that fear is a terrible one, always with you, sometimes in the background and sometimes right there in your face gripping you by the throat.

All but one of the young people featured were still living in the parental home.  The one that did have her own home - a 28 year old - was still very dependent on her parents who came round daily to give her care, because as she lacked a formal diagnosis (although she very obviously suffered from a syndrome of learning and physical disabilities) she was not eligible for state funded care of the sort she needed.

It seems that so many people who are carers for relations with mental or physical disabilities end up struggling at some point to get necessary assistance or facilities for them.  It is an extra worry and burden that no-one needs when they are already expending (however willingly and lovingly) a demanding amount of emotional and physical energy on supporting their child.  A particularly demanding aspect of that support lies in encouraging your child to be happy and positive and see their future as worth looking forward to.  The parents of these young people were happy to sacrifice themselves to give their children all the backup they needed, but at the same time were worried sick about the future care and wellbeing of those children once they were no longer in a position to help, and the combined strain showed.

Isn't this - the provision of care and support for the most vulnerable in our society - where we should be concentrating our resources?  These parents were role models of how to convince a disabled person of their worth, but the sad fact is that the wider world out there isn't necessarily like that.  Aborting babies with Down's Syndrome (an absolute travesty: like most Down's sufferers, the youngsters featured in this programme were happy and adorable) and promoting euthanasia as the answer to life's difficulties are neither good uses of time and money, or the right ways to encourage the inclusivity and equality that we like to pride ourselves on these days.  In fact inclusivity and equality are going to become progressively emptier terms the more we deny life to those who aren't "normal" or "perfect", because our actions simply encourage the attitudes which the young man tormented by his neighbours came across.  If we really celebrate diversity, if we really believe that no-one should be shunned or teased for being "different", then let's embrace all life and every person and concentrate on giving them reasons to live, not die.

I'm afraid I can't remember the exact words she used, but at the end of the programme Rosa commented that if a society is judged by the way it treats its most vulnerable members then our society is sorely lacking.  We need to take a long, hard and deep look at why that is - starting from the very beginning.

Moral Mazes??

I poached this pic of a prematurely-born baby from Bump Babies Beyond.  She’s 24 weeks and a tiny, protect-me-I’m-beautiful miracle.  Chilling to think that until 1990 babies a whole four weeks older than this could be legally aborted; in fact, of course, abortion up until birth is legal even now in the case of “severe foetal abnormality”.  The definition of severe abnormality seems to be a movable goalpost, as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists itself admits: “The RCOG has stated that a strict definition is impractical because we do not have sufficiently advanced diagnostic techniques to detect malformations accurately all of the time and it is not always possible to predict the ‘seriousness' of the outcome (in terms of the long-term physical, intellectual or social disability on the child and the effects on the family).” 

This piccie (thanks Katherine at Five Feet Above Sea Level) shows an “abnormal foetus”, Taya Kennedy, who was not aborted on the grounds of a sinister but fallible diagnosis of quality of life.  The words below could surely be hers.  They were actually spoken by Anya Souza, who has Down’s Syndrome and showed up at an International Downs Syndrome Screening Conference - uninvited and unencouraged, needless to say.  I discovered them on SPUC’s website.

 "I can't get rid of my Down's syndrome, but you can't get rid of my happiness. You can't get rid of the happiness I give others either. It's doctors like you that want to test pregnant women and stop people like me being born. Together with my family and friends I have fought to prevent my separation from normal society. I have fought for my rights... I may have Down's syndrome but I am a person first."

A person first... We invent so many moral mazes for ourselves, splitting the path between left and right where in fact the way ahead is clear, if hard.  From the moment of conception a human life is a person with a right to life and all our subsequent decisions about them should be made on that basis.  If they are not perfect, if they will know suffering – these things will affect how we look after that person, but they do not affect the basic premise.  To say this isn’t to ignore the difficulties brought by hard circumstances, disability or pain.  It’s just to say that the only truly fruitful way ahead is start with the right to life and the dignity of the person.  After that, it is easier to know what to do, even if the road is uphill.  If we start to admit of the possibility of destroying the foundation stone of the path, of ignoring the first signpost – the right to life – then we get lost, badly lost, and the maze closes down.

Before my metaphors become too tortured, let me refer to an excellent post from the Sisters of the Gospel of Life dealing with the “hard case” that is often thrown at pro-lifers – why should a woman be forced to cope with an unintended pregnancy and birth if she is the innocent victim of rape?  The Sisters quote Ken Connor of Lifenews.com who refers straight back to that first principle, the right to life, in order to keep the argument clear.

“In this life, we cannot always undo the effects of sin and violence. We can only seek to mitigate the adverse consequences of such acts. Killing an unborn baby does not erase the pain and trauma imposed by rape. It is rather a form of misdirected retribution, revenge meted out against an innocent child because of the act of his or her parent. In the case of rape, the mother deserves our love and help and support. The perpetrator deserves punishment. But the child, once conceived, deserves to live.”

Things aren't easy when you are facing a crisis pregnancy or caring for a child with a disability.  There are still practical decisions to make and many of them are difficult.  But we can make it so much harder for ourselves when we muddy the moral waters right from the start.

Aila's Fund

Photo: Robert Bousfield

Most of our work as a pro-life group in the parish is awareness raising, encouraging our fellow Catholics to read up, speak and pray about the beauty and dignity of each and every human life from the moment of conception. But a natural part of our work is also fundraising for various events and causes; we had the White Flower Appeal last weekend in aid of SPUC, through cake stalls over the past year and a half we've raised funds to restore the Memorial to the Unborn Child in Hills Cemetery, things like that. But this time we're doing something slightly different, instead of collecting money for an organisation or a place we are helping someone a little closer to home.

One of our group members, Anneli, has a daughter with a neurological disorder known as Friedreich's Ataxia which was diagnosed a couple of years ago. Out of nowhere Aila was faced with the sudden, shocking news that as she got older her life would not follow the same pattern as other girls, that this condition would affect her balance, her speech, eventually result in her needing to use a wheelchair. This is difficult, frightening stuff for anyone to hear, let alone a teenager. And, along side the physical and psychological struggles that come with such a diagnosis (and I'm not trying to play them down by the way, but those are not my details to impart - you can read Anneli's take in an earlier post), part of what makes adapting to such a condition so difficult in our modern society is the fear of not being 'normal'. If you ask most of us precisely what a 'normal person' is we will promptly say that there is no such thing, that the 'average Joe' is totally false and that, of course, everyone is unique. This is, most definitely, true and we mean it when we say it, but this notion of a normal person still endures and has a strong hold in the minds of many of us ...well to be more exact the idea of what is not normal does.

Aila has had a lot of adjustments to make over the past couple of years and will have even more to make in the future. Because her mobility and balance are gradually decreasing (she is already having to use a wheelchair if walking for more than a very short distance is required and cannot manage any distance outside by herself without holding someone's arm), it is vitally important that we as a group and as a parish help her to move forward, to do this as smoothly as possible. One very obvious consideration in all this is that her bedroom and the toilet in her house are upstairs and it is very impractical, very difficult and potentially dangerous for her to be tackling the staircase several times a day. What she and her family want to do is have their house extended to create a downstairs bedroom and bathroom just for her. (Not an unreasonable request I'm sure you'll agree.) The council have agreed to fund the greater part of this but there is an excess of around £16,000 which her family will have to provide, and provide quickly. To help them do this we have started "Aila's Fund", a dedicated series of fund raising events to help pay for this extension. We have all sorts planned; cake sales (everybody likes cake), concerts, sponsored cycles, photo shoots and goodness knows what else we'll come up with. But rest assured all of the donations we receive will go straight to paying for the work to be done and, after that, for an overseas holiday for Aila too. Anything left over at the end will be donated to Ataxia UK for the work they do in working with people like Aila and in the research they carry out. 

Here's the list of what we have planned so far;

* Sunday, 19th February - Cake sale in St. John's RC church hall, 3 Springfield Road, Horsham, West Sussex after 9am Mass (i.e. about 10am)

* Saturday, 24th March - Photo shoot for families and individuals in rooms 2/3 in St. John's hall as above (by appointment: details to follow)

* A friend is making a sponsored cycle ride from London to John O'Groats (date TBC)
* More events are also in the pipeline and we'll keep you posted!

So please do come along to all of the events in the next few months and support Aila, she may be too shy to tell you herself but she really is very grateful.

Where can I find happiness?

Hat tip for this one to Richard at Linen On The Hedgerow.  It's taken from his listing of the week's top blog posts and consists of extracts from a speech given in the US by Archbishop Charles J Chaput at the Cardinal O'Connor Conference on Life.  For the full report, go over to Making Things Visible.

The speech refers to "Americans" but most of us in the First World can put our own names in instead, which is why I've bracketed "Americans" whenever it pops up!

There are rich blessings to be found in crosses accepted and sacrifices made for love.  In fact, as the parent of any disabled child must know, despite the difficulties and struggles we would hardly even describe our experience as a sacrifice.  It is a relationship with someone infinitely precious and a path into love.  How tragic not even to put one's foot onto the path to begin with...

How do we translate that message to the wider, secular world?  It's important, because it's a message not just about "pro life" but one that touches on the very question of what happiness is.  It's getting the answer to that question wrong that skews our perspective on everything else.

Archbishop Chaput said:

The great French Jesuit Henri de Lubac once wrote, “Suffering is the thread from which the stuff of joy is woven. Never will the optimist know joy.” Those seem like strange words, especially for [Americans]. We [Americans] take progress as an article of faith. And faith in progress demands a spirit of optimism.

But Father de Lubac knew that optimism and hope are very different creatures. In real life, bad things happen. Progress is not assured, and things that claim to be “progress” can sometimes be wicked and murderous instead. We can slip backward as a nation just as easily as we can advance. This is why optimism—and all the political slogans that go with it—are so often a cheat. Real hope and real joy are precious. They have a price. They emerge from the experience of suffering, which is made noble and given meaning by faith in a loving God.

A number of my friends have children with disabilities. Their problems range from cerebral palsy to Turner’s syndrome to Trisomy 18, which is extremely serious. But I want to focus on one fairly common genetic disability to make my point. I’m referring to Trisomy 21, or Down syndrome.

Down syndrome is not a disease. It’s a genetic disorder with a variety of symptoms. Currently about 5,000 children with Down syndrome are born in the United States each year. They join a national Down syndrome population of about 400,000 persons. But that population may soon dwindle. And the reason why it may decline illustrates, in a vivid way, a struggle within the [American] soul. That struggle will shape the character of our society in the decades to come.

Prenatal testing can now detect up to 95 percent of pregnancies with a strong risk of Down syndrome. The tests aren’t conclusive. They can’t give a firm yes or no. But they’re pretty good. And the results of those tests are brutally practical. Studies show that more than 80 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome now get terminated in the womb. They’re killed because of a flaw in one of their chromosomes—a flaw that’s neither fatal nor contagious, but merely undesirable.
 

I’m not suggesting that doctors should hold back vital knowledge from parents. Nor should they paint an implausibly upbeat picture of life with a child who has a disability. Facts and resources are crucial in helping adult persons prepare themselves for difficult challenges. But doctors, genetic counselors, and medical school professors should have on staff—or at least on speed dial—experts of a different sort.

Parents of children with special needs, special education teachers and therapists, and pediatricians who have treated children with disabilities often have a hugely life-affirming perspective. Unlike prenatal caregivers, these professionals have direct knowledge of persons with special needs. They know their potential. They’ve seen their accomplishments. They can testify to the benefits—often miraculous—of parental love and faith. Expectant parents deserve to know that a child with Down syndrome can love, laugh, learn, work, feel hope and excitement, make friends, and create joy for others. These things are beautiful precisely because they transcend what we expect. They witness to the truth that every child with special needs has a value that matters eternally.

Raising a child with Down syndrome can be demanding. It always involves some degree of suffering. Parents grow up very fast. None of my friends who has a daughter or a son with a serious disability is melodramatic, or self-conscious, or even especially pious about it. They speak about their special child with an unsentimental realism. It’s a realism flowing out of love—real love, the kind that forces its way through fear and suffering to a decision, finally, to surround the child with their heart and trust in the goodness of God. And that decision to trust, of course, demands not just real love, but also real courage.

The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is never between some imaginary perfection and imperfection. None of us is perfect. No child is perfect. The real choice in accepting or rejecting a child with special needs is between love and unlove; between courage and cowardice; between trust and fear. That’s the choice we face when it happens in our personal experience. And that’s the choice we face as a society in deciding which human lives we will treat as valuable, and which we will not.

And, just as some people resent the imperfection, the inconvenience, and the expense of persons with disabilities, others see in them an invitation to learn how to love deeply and without counting the cost. These children with disabilities are not a burden; they’re a priceless gift to all of us. They’re a doorway to the real meaning of our humanity. Whatever suffering we endure to welcome, protect, and ennoble these special children is worth it because they’re a pathway to real hope and real joy. Abortion kills a child; it wounds a precious part of a woman’s own dignity and identity; and it steals hope. That’s why it’s wrong. That’s why it needs to end.

Giving each other reasons to live

Lord Falconer’s report on Assisted Suicide is one of the issues exercising our group members at the moment.  As our group Chair, Katherine, remarks, it makes chilling reading: pop over to Five Feet Above Sea Level for her lucid yet passionate commentary on the report.  I suspect readers of the blog will already know about the report and its conclusion that there is a “strong case” for assisted suicide to be legalised in the UK (if not, Katherine summarises the gist very well.  See also the letter our group wrote to our MP, below).

Since the issue of disability touched our family directly, I have been increasingly conscious not only of the value we place on various human lives, but on how we encourage people to value themselves.  My daughter, now 16, was diagnosed two years ago with Friedreich’s Ataxia, a degenerative neurological disease which is gradually but inexorably robbing her of her coordination, balance and mobility.   The diagnosis came out of the blue when, almost overnight, she stopped being able to control her hand well enough to write or draw.  Until then we had thought she was just “a bit clumsy” (well, like mother like daughter), partly thanks to her own valiant attempts to conceal just how much she was struggling with simple daily tasks like doing up buttons and zips.  At diagnosis we were told that she would be confined to a wheelchair in 10-15 years.  In reality, she is already having to rely on a wheelchair or a crutch + somebody’s arm in order to walk for any distance.

Suddenly all our expectations of the future were fundamentally altered.  At first my daughter thought her life was over.  She withdrew and wanted to die.  It was a very black time.

We’re lucky.  My husband and I have faith, family and a parish community around us.  Drawing on these and on some wonderful caring professionals we have been able to support my daughter and together we have staggered through the initial blackness into what I’d maybe describe as a state of “lightening grey”.  But the effects on my daughter’s emotions and psychological balance have been huge.  It’s not just that she is coping with an illness whose progress cannot be accurately predicted because it varies from individual to individual, something which is frightening enough.  Over and above that, her own self-image and her estimation of her own worth have been rocked.  She’s 16, after all, and female, and bombarded with images of women air-brushed to such a level of perfection it wouldn’t even be found in paradise.  The messages she’s getting from the media about sex and relationships give matter for a whole blog post in themselves. And on top of all that, she has a wheelchair accessory to add to every outfit and she thinks it ruins her look... That’s a somewhat facetious way of saying that she’s struggling to establish her worth now that she can’t walk or write and finds it easier to drink out of a cup with a lid on it, and she can’t see how that fits in with the often very superficially based expectations around her.

What do we, as a society, have to say to her?  “Chin up love, none of that matters to us, you’re still the same person you ever were and we love you just the same.  Just by being you you’re making a huge contribution to the world.  You’re infinitely precious and valuable and your vulnerabilities serve to bring out the best in us and give us opportunities to serve, to care, to do good, to focus on what’s really important in life.  We’ll invest our money and our efforts into making sure that you have what you need to help you cope with your challenges, because at the end of the day, it’s human friendship that will make your life worth living and give you things to look forward to. We’ll be there for you, right there with you in your suffering.”  

Or, “Chin up, it’s true that your life has limitations, you’re not perfect and you’re not going to have the perfect life that is the obvious right of every one of us; you have pain, you may never be able to hold down a full-time job and you’re going to be making demands on the resources of the State and your loved ones... but don’t worry, we’ve been spending loads of time and money ensuring that we can give you something that will take all that away forever.  You can look forward to dying before it all feels too much.”  Advocates of assisted suicide may well have good intentions, but is this the mindset we want to become prevalent?  There’s a better path for compassion to seek.

We work hard, every day, at trying to reinforce our daughter’s self-image, to cheer her up, to help her develop a positive “can-do” attitude – generally, make her realise how much she’s worth. Bit by bit, little by little, she’s getting there.  Thank goodness for that, because she means everything to us and we want to give her reasons to live, not die.  Lord Falconer’s report helps us not one jot. 

Below is the letter our group have sent, as individuals, to our MP.  If you’re reading this in the UK, feel free to send a customised version to your own MP.

Dear...

I am writing to regarding the Falconer report and the recent campaigns for euthanasia and/or assisted suicide to be legalised in the UK.  We believe the Falconer report gives great cause for concern and should the question of the legalisation of ‘assisted dying’ be raised once again in the Commons, we would urge that you please vote against it.

Bias in the report

The Commission which produced the report was heavily biased from the outset having been funded by Terry Pratchett, a known supporter of euthanasia and the patron of Dignity in Dying, and with nine of the eleven members of the panel being strongly in favour of the legalisation of assisted suicide. The deal to run the Commission was negotiated by Demos with the think tank run by Kitty Usher, a former colleague of Patricia Hewitt who, along with Lord Falconer, tried unsuccessfully to change the law in 2009. The Commission was founded with the clear intention to bring about a conclusion in their favour, as its stated aims betray: to ‘…investigate the circumstances under which it should be possible for people to be assisted to die; recommend what system, if any, should exist to allow people to be assisted to die; identify who should be entitled to be assisted to die and recommend what changes in the law, if any, should be introduced’.  In light of all the above over 40 organisations (including the British Medical Association), as well as many high profile individuals, boycotted the Commission.

Our major concerns

·         The report readily uses the term ‘assisted dying’ when referring to both euthanasia and assisted suicide, thus clouding the distinction between them.  This fudging of terms could potentially lead to 13,000 deaths a year in Britain should ‘assisted dying’ ever be made legal (as outlined in the 2005 House of Lords report).

·         The report over-emphasises the need for assisted dying without suggesting that any extra effort or investment be placed in improving our current long-term and palliative care systems. Sadly PCT-run palliative care facilities and hospitals vary vastly in terms of care depending on one’s postcode. Hospices, especially the local St Catherine’s Hospice, deliver excellent care and devotion to their patients but are usually over-subscribed. This situation leaves the terminally ill and elderly in a very vulnerable position.  

·         Given the circumstances mentioned above, depression would undoubtedly play a huge role in affecting the patient’s judgement; yet the Commission did not make sufficient allowance for the possibility that some people would be pressured into choosing assisted dying at a time when both their physical and psychological health are at their most fragile.

·         We are concerned that the report will encourage pro-euthanasia campaigners to renew their efforts to have assisted dying made legal in Britain.  These efforts will tend by their very existence to promote a subtext which runs as follows: when someone can no longer support themselves due to illness or old age they constitute a ‘burden’ to family and friends or a drain upon State resources; as they are no longer economically productive there is no basis for them to enjoy a sense of self-worth; it is therefore a kindness to allow them to choose to end their lives with ‘dignity’ before their condition worsens.  

      Unless we work to change the way illness, disability and age are perceived by our society, there will be no incentive for us to concentrate effort and finance on developing pain management, aids to help patients keep their independence as long as possible and compassionate nursing care.  Legalised euthanasia will be seen as the logical and easy option for those faced with the prospect of a long, painful illness. As a result many will miss out on months or years of worthwhile life and our society will be impoverished by the lack of individuals who, by their very vulnerability, can foster the best in human nature in others.

·         We fully appreciate the apprehensions of terminally ill patients who are facing the prospect of a long, painful illness, perhaps with the loss of faculties.  However we feel that the report fails to give due consideration to the difference in quality of life that can be made through palliative care as mentioned above.  The support of other human beings can in itself make life worth living even when it involves suffering. 

·         Should it become relatively commonplace for people to kill themselves when they are at their most vulnerable this would affect the human value of each and every ill, disabled or aged person. In effect we would have defined them either as non-productive ‘second-class citizens’ or hopeless victims of irredeemable suffering.

·         In reply to those who argue that not everyone would choose to die we would draw attention to the words of Els Borst, the former Health Minister for the Netherlands, who pushed for euthanasia to be legalised in her country. She has since said that the Dutch government responded too quickly to demands for euthanasia to be legalised without correct attention being given to support for the dying. She admitted that this was ‘not in the proper order’ and that, ultimately, many have suffered and chosen to die because of this upside-down, hasty decision. This is a truly tragic set of circumstances, one we must not allow to be repeated here in Britain.

·         We are writing as a Christian group and as such have a strong belief in the sanctity of human life and the innate dignity of each and every human person, each one of whom is not only made in the image of God but is also a unique individual loved beyond measure by his/her Creator.  Whilst we appreciate that not everyone will share our belief in God, we strongly feel that the Christian voice has a right to be heard along with all others in our democratic society, particularly as Christian values have been foundational to the shaping of our country’s laws and governance, a fact of which the Prime Minister David Cameron reminded us only recently.  We also believe that the Christian perspective on the value of each human person in his/her own right, independent of their economic productivity or physical ‘perfection’, is equally valid across all spectrums of belief and philosophy and has an important contribution to make to this particular debate.

We hope that you will consider our statement along with those published by organisations such as Care Not Killing, LIFE and dozens of others along with the countless individuals who view human life as inherently dignified and valuable beyond economic price.

Yours sincerely