The privilege of a peaceful death

I use the word privilege with a certain trepidation here because a peaceful and natural death should not be merely a privilege in an affluent country that can afford decent medical and palliative care for its citizens. Earlier this month, after 28 years in a coma, a 76-year-old woman, Martha von Bulow, died at her New York nursing home. The cause of her collapse in 1980 was the subject of a number of sensational court cases and a Hollywood film, with her husband convicted first and then acquitted at a second trial, of trying to murder her using insulin injections.

She never regained consciousness and was diagnosed as being in a Persistent Vegetative State, but unlike Terri Schiavo, she was cared for until her death and nobody succeeded in having her starved to death with the blessing of the media. Caring for a vulnerable person (and there is no one more vulnerable than a person in a coma) should be regarded as a loving duty but in a society where human life is held cheap, there is little love and little sense of duty. As Ghandi said, the measure of a civilised society is how it treats its weakest members.

Courageous Act of Witness

Meet Kathleen O'Neill, a courageous 13-year-old from Scotland who took part in a silent act of witness for the unborn at her school. The Pro Life Day of Silent Solidarity is popular in the United States but is much less known in Britain and Kathleen was the only person in her school to wear the armband labelled 'life' and to hand out fliers explaining why she was remaining silent for the day.

I was interested to read in her account how supportive her teachers and fellow-pupils were about the stand she took. A certain FPA DVD I could mention, tries to give the impression that young people, particularly young women, are uniformally pro-abortion, but this is simply not the case. It is true that young people are being influenced by a largely pro-abortion media but it is also true that if a person has not yet been politicised, the inherent injustice of abortion is plain to see. We should not be discouraged from taking the pro-life message into schools and colleges where young people are still open-minded enough to listen.

You forgot to mention Love

This feature by a journalist who has a disabled son, came hot on the heels of an article which argued that women pretty much have a social duty to abort if they discover that their baby may have a disability. She describes this attitude as "the purest form of eugenics: it is Nazi doctrine", a point of which we in the pro-life movement have always been aware. The passage that really struck me was her point about love:

Still, let’s be generous: it is expensive and it is hard and your world-view shifts and sometimes you cry. What Marrin seems unable to grasp is that these things – time, stress, expense, anxiety, tears – are sacrifices that parents are happy to make because they love their children. There is no mention of love in the 1,050 words of her column, nor of hope or faith or compassion or even kindness.

It is a pity that India Knight undermines her otherwise powerful article by describing abortion - including eugenic abortion - as a 'powerful, subjective choice' all women should have. What happened to love, India?

Happy Christmas

May I take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a happy Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Baby found in manger

The Curt Jester carries the story of a German priest who was astonished to discover a newborn baby in the manger of the nativity scene he had recently put up in his church. He took care of the baby until an ambulance arrived and the little one is doing well at a local hospital. The mother turned out to be a Romanian woman who left the baby in the church in the hope that someone would be able to take better care of him.

The priest said that the parish was ready to help the lady and that she must be in a very difficult situation, but that she needs to be left in peace whilst she decides what to do.