Briefing.
From CFNews: A new report shows that 66 babies were born alive on one year alone after abortions done with public money under the NHS's health care system. The babies were routinely left to die after their premature birth and some survived for as long as 10 hours afterwards. According to the report, the babies were in the latter stages of pregnancy and were aborted not with a standard surgical abortion procedure. Instead, the NHS says women were given drugs to soften their cervix and had labour induced to birth the child so prematurely that there is no way to provide enough care for the child to live. After birth, the babies received no medical care or attention, the report indicated.
According to the Evening Standard, the babies in these abortions mostly involved unborn children who suffered from severe physical or mental disabilities, some of which may have been life-threatening. However, the newspaper said the report showed some of the babies had very minor issues such as a club foot or cleft palate that could easily be repaired with surgery after birth.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
Infanticide on the NHS
Saturday, June 23, 2007
British Medical Journal rejects infanticide
Briefing.
From Care Not Killing (Newsletter): In a recent British Medical Journal commissioned editorial, professor of paediatrics Kate Costeloe reviewed the situation in the Netherlands, where neonatal euthanasia is occurring, before going on to consider the situation in the UK. She referred to the Nuffield Council of Bioethics' November 2006 paper, Critical care decisions in fetal and neonatal medicine, and stated that its position – rejecting neonatal euthanasia even when life is intolerable - was received with relief by most UK paediatricians.
Professor Costeloe considered the reasons why UK doctors are resistant to accepting active killing as a therapeutic option: the slippery slope argument; the negative impact of the psychology of professional staff; and the pressure parents may feel to accept euthanasia 'so that they do not become a burden on medical and social services'. She went on to discuss how difficult it is to judge another human being's quality of life, and described how indicators of severe disability in very preterm babies are not foolproof. She then emphasised the experience many neonatal nurses have in assessing babies' palliative care needs.
Her conclusion: 'the availabilty of active euthanasia as a therapeutic option would undermine this progress [of transparency of clinical decision making, with parents increasingly involved] and would be a step backwards'.
Professor Costeloe's recommendations give further support to the Nuffield Council's clear rejection of neonatal euthanasia.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Royal College of Gynacologists won't let a disabled person into its offices
Briefing: if the disabled person in question wasn't pro-life, we'd never hear the end of the media fuss.
From SPUC: The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) has today
refused to let a wheelchair-user present a petition on the infanticide of disabled babies. Officials told Alison Davis, leader of the No Less Human disability rights group, that she could not come in because she would need someone to push her wheelchair, and the RCOG would only let one person into its London headquarters. Alison Davis said: "It would be comical if it weren't also tragic that the RCOG, which has asked for a debate on the killing of babies with disabilities such as spina bifida, won't let me, a disabled person, hand over our petition which has some 28,000 signatures. Neither I nor my carer is a threat to anyone." Ms Davis has spina bifida.
No Less Human has decided that, because of the RCOG's refusal to admit Ms Davis, the petition will not be presented today. The group is determined that Ms Davis should nevertheless present the petition to the RCOG in person. [SPUC, 13 June]
