Death of Alison Davis, head of SPUC division,"No Less Human"

SPUC report the sad news of the death of Alison Davis, the long standing leader of the SPUC division ‘No Less Human’, the division for disabled people within SPUC, Alison died this morning at 08:40 GMT, aged 58. She had been unwell for several years, and a long-term difficulty in eating resulted in her sad passing this morning.

SPUC Chief Executive John Smeaton in a statement earlier this morning said:

"Everyone in SPUC and the whole pro-life movement will be greatly saddened at her passing. Frail in body, she was full of strength in defence of the most defenceless human beings - disabled unborn children. Her keen insight and uncompromising solidarity have proved a powerful defence for the sick and disabled targeted with euthanasia. Her own early struggle with temptations to suicide made her an exceptional witness that life is always worth living. Alison's strong Catholic faith and her love of children moved her to care for orphans in India. Countless people touched by her life will now be praying that Alison, her family and her friends will receive the peace they seek."

Fr John Fleming, SPUC's bioethical consultant, said:

"Alison was a great pro-life warrior, and a wonderful example to us all of one who accepted her sufferings with astonishing equanimity. I also wish to pay tribute to Colin Harte, whose care for Alison was heroic, constant, and expert, and who greatly enhanced Alison's quality of life in every possible way."

Alison Davis and SPUC's division for disabled people ("No Less Human")

Alison Davis, who led SPUC’s No Less Human since 1982, had spina bifida and was a major commentator on anti-life philosophies and policies which discriminate, lethally, against disabled people http://www.spuc.org.uk/about/no-less-human/alison No Less Human, SPUC’s division for disabled people, their loved ones and carers http://www.spuc.org.uk/about/no-less-human/about// promotes the equal status, worth and rights of disabled people, including the most fundamental right of all – the  right to life, from conception to natural death. In spite of serious illness, Alison continued to write, publish and broadcast on the eugenic nature of the Abortion Act and on healthcare, government policies, which treat disabled lives as expendable – including major interviews on BBC’s Newsnight, the BBC World Service’s series Heart and Soul: Choosing Life and leading letters in the national newspapers throughout Britain. In addition, in August 2009 she published a paper showing how euthanasia has spread, starting with the 1992 Bland judgment, and how it has expanded as a result of the 2005 Mental Capacity Act and came to be implemented through the Liverpool Care Pathway.

In September 1982, in my report to SPUC’s national council, I proposed that Alison Davis should be asked to join the Council to represent SPUC’s Handicap Division, now known as No Less Human. The minutes state that my proposal "was warmly agreed by the Council".

Alison's early involvement in SPUC

Not long before, Alison, who had previously been in favour of abortion, had changed her mind on the issue, having read about a baby named Louise born in High Wycombe Hospital who was found to have both spina bifida and hydrocephalus. In Alison’s words:

"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 ...  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. 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."

Alison remained at the helm of SPUC’s work for disability rights ever since, speaking at SPUC’s Mother Teresa Rally in 1983 and joining SPUC's full-time staff in 2000.

Eugenics: aborting the disabled

The UK government following a lengthy legal battle has revealed the precise numbers, gestational ages, and types of disability of babies aborted between 2002 and 2010 in England and Wales. 

According to a Daily Mail report published under the  banner headline “Revealed: The thousands of pregnancies aborted for ‘abnormalities’ including cleft palates and Down’s syndrome” which was based on Department of Health figures, a total of 2,290 babies were aborted last year for so called “medical conditions.”
In 2010 alone, 482 babies with Down’s syndrome were aborted, including ten who were over 24 weeks gestation.

·         “There were also 128 terminations for the nervous disorder spina bifida, including 12 after 24 weeks.

·         “Musculoskeletal problems such as club foot were the reason for 181 abortions, including eight over 24 weeks.

Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) commented as follows

“Between 2001 and 2010, the number of abortions on the grounds of disability rose by one-third, 10 times that of abortions generally. It is clear that legal abortion is a system which discriminates, fatally, against the disabled.”

The full response from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children  SPUC can be found here SPUC report  and the response of the SPUC affiliate No Less Human can be found here No Less Human

Survival of the fittest

Will you take me as I am?

Now that you have seen the scan.

You fear I could be born deficient

Is my presence not sufficient?

Will you love me and accept me

Or will you callously reject me

Focus not on my defect,

Please accept and don’t reject.

What about the blind and lame

Surely they deserve a name

If only the perfect may be born

What you practice is profane 

Patrick Buckley        

Spanish Disability Rights Group Speaks Out

Catholic News Agency reports that Luis Cayo, president of the Spanish Commission of Representatives of Handicapped Persons, has spoken out against the law that permits abortion in cases of disability. He said that eugenic abortion was “immoral”, based on the premise that “persons with handicaps have less value.”

Alison Davis of No Less Human has fought for many years against the fatal discrimination of eugenic abortion. She has spina bifida and a number of other serious disabilities, she has to cope with pain that is not always well-controlled and speaks publicly about how, for ten years, she wanted to end her life and made a number of suicide attempts. One of the aims of No Less Human is 'To challenge the contemporary philosophy that disabled people are "better off dead".'

This is all too necessary in a culture where the majority support the killing of disabled babies before birth and where there is growing pressure to legalise euthanasia of disabled and terminally ill people.

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?

More on Down's Syndrome

Scientists from the Institutes of Health, Maryland, have made an apparent breakthrough in experiments on unborn mice with a similar condition to Down's. The scientists injected the unborn mice with proteins and found that the mice brains developed normally. It should be noted that this is not a 'cure' for Down's Syndrome as some reports in the media are suggesting and it will be some years before tests are carried out on humans, but it does raise the strong possibility that effective treatments may one day become available for conditions such as Down's.

One of the objections raised to potential treatments of this kind was that it could be used "just to ensure that somebody conforms to our idea of an ideal standard" but I find it difficult to see why there could be an ethical problem here. We do not talk about corrective surgery for cleft palate or bilateral squint as 'conformity to an ideal standard'. There are thousands of medical and surgical interventions that are used to treat disabling and potentially disabling conditions across the spectrum and all to the good.

Where there may be a problem would be if these drugs turned out to carry a high risk of miscarriage, in which case the risk to the child's life might outweigh the potential benefits. Like the Down's Syndrome Association, I will be watching this story with interest.

Assisted suicide challenge defeated

Debbie Purdy, an MS sufferer backed by the pro-euthanasia group Dignity in Dying, has lost her High Court legal challenge. Mrs Purdy challenged the Director of Public Prosecutions on whether her husband would be prosecuted if he accompanied her to a Swiss suicide clinic.

SPUC was an intervener in the case and has expressed relief at the ruling, along with other pro-life and disability-rights groups who have been watching the case with concern. Anthony Ozimic of SPUC was quoted in a press release as saying:

"Firstly, we extend our compassion to Mrs Purdy and her husband and hope that instead of assisted suicide, she will receive all the palliative care and other assistance she requires. Mrs Purdy's life is worth living to its natural end. She is not better off dead.

"Secondly, we are relieved that the court has rejected the claims made by Mrs Purdy's lawyers. The underlying objective of the case, brought by the pro-euthanasia lobby, was to undermine the law on assisted suicide. The ban on assisted suicide protects the value and dignity of human life."

"The death-for-disability lobby are a lethal threat to vulnerable individuals. Allowing assisted suicide would create pressure, either real or perceived, upon the vulnerable. Allowing suicide does nothing to address the medical, psychological or other needs of the terminally-ill."

Mrs Purdy has been granted the right to appeal the ruling and has said that she will take the case to the House of Lords.

Palin's Promise

Sarah Palin has promised support for special needs children in a major policy speech. Disability rights are, of course, very close to Sarah Palin's heart because her baby son Trig has been diagnosed with Down's Syndrome, but as she puts it:

"Too often, they [children with disabilities] are made to feel that there is no place for them in the life of our country, that they don't count or have nothing to contribute. This attitude is a grave disservice to these beautiful children, to their families, and to our country -- and I will work to change it."

"And what's been confirmed in me is every child has something to contribute to the world, if we give them that chance."

Unfortunately, in America and Britain, 90% of children with Down's Syndrome are aborted before birth and are never given the opportunity to contribute to the world. Whenever the subject of Down's Syndrome comes up, I am always reminded of the remarkable scene some years ago, when a group of young people with Down's Syndrome gatecrashed a conference on pre-natal screening that they have been refused permission to address. Anya Souza was finally allowed to speak and had this to say to the assembled doctors and scientists:

“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.”

Is Palin really setting a bad example?

A doctor and vice-president of Canada's Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has expressed his fears that Sarah Palin's Down's Syndrome baby may deter women from having abortions. Andre Lalonde talks as though Sarah Palin is somehow setting a bad example by bringing a disabled baby into the world and making it abundantly obvious that she and her family adore him. The family's happiness and love towards the child "could have detrimental effects on women and their families", according to Dr Lalonde.

But as Krista Flint of the Canadian Down Syndrome Society commented:

"We know overwhelmingly the message families get is 'Don't have this baby, it will ruin your life,' and I don't think people would look at Sarah Palin and see a ruined life. Regardless of politics, I think it's a good example."