He had been invited by the All Party Pro-Life Group to be the first recipient of the new ‘Westminster Award’, presented to him for his courageous contribution to the defence of human rights and dignity.  It was a very moving and impressive meeting, dominated naturally by the gentle presence of the blind activist, and we congratulate all those responsible for this impressive initiative, allowing us to meet such a great hero.

One story he shared moved both Chen himself and the audience to tears, as he recounted the appalling death by starvation of a 3-year-old Chinese child who had been left behind in a locked house as her mother was taken away by the police.  Attempts to claw herself out of the house were unsuccessful and the toddler died after many days of desperate agony.

Read more in the Independent Catholic News: http://www.indcatholicnews.com/news.php?viewStory=22574

Current End of Life Cases at Court of Appeal

Tony Nicklinson's widow is continuing his campaign, and being joined by Philip Lamb, who has some use of one hand and is in a wheelchair. They are attacking the law against murder, by asking the courts to say that the defence of necessity should apply if someone who cannot commit suicide because of his disability asks to be killed by a doctor. 

This defence has usually been offered (though not often successfully) where the only alternatives were either to commit a crime, or to suffer, or cause someone else to suffer, extreme hardship. See for example: http://www.e-lawresources.co.uk/Defence-of-Necessity.php.

Lord Falconer’s Assisted Suicide Bill

This is more extreme than the second attack, in the House of Lords, on the law against assisted suicide. The House spent eight hours discussing a very similar earlier bill and comprehensively rejected it. (Lord Falconer was of course caught out trying to pretend that his so-called "commission" was official and unbiased, whereas it was blatantly an advertisement paid for and stacked with pro-euthanasia activists.)

The most noticeable feature of this bill is that it is supposed to apply only to those with terminal illnesses, although this is notoriously impossible to define or estimate, and patients, as for example Alison Davis, are often alive and cheerful years after being diagnosed as such. There is also the suggested time that would have to elapse between two requests for suicide – a whole two weeks! 

Public Support?

Pro-euthanasiasts claim public support, but this is based on two things. There are very slanted questions in surveys (Do you want unbearable suffering or to have a doctor end your life, with safeguards? etc. etc.) as if there were only two alternatives. But of course this is nonsense:  you really want your suffering, physical, mental and spiritual, to be given positive practical help. It is noticeable that the "safeguards" suggested have proved useless in preventing abuses abroad, in Oregon, Belgium and the Netherlands. 

The other thing is that the media continually show the same tiny number of disabled people over and over and over again, asking for a change in the law. The obvious kindly response to sufferers is to want to give them what they ask for. But the media do not show the overwhelmingly larger number of disabled people begging us not to change the law which protects them. See SCOPE and Disability Rights, both affiliated to CNK, for more.

In many parts of the world, especially the USA, euthanasiasts have claimed public support, but legislation has been resisted, as in the UK, when the dangers to vulnerable people who could easily be persuaded to be suicidal are understood.

Suicide is always a sad pessimistic defeatist end to a life. It harms the person, his or her family and friends, and the country as a whole. For healthy young people virtually everyone tries to prevent it: only the ill and disabled are being targeted.

A Deliberate Agenda

Let us end with two quotations, the first on the subject of the inevitable "slippery slope", though it should more properly be called a deliberate agenda of death:

Shimon Glick, of the Jakobovits Center for Jewish Medical Ethics in Israel said  "I remember Dr Pieter Admiraal, one of the earliest Dutch advocates of this procedure [euthanasia]  telling us at a special meeting on end-of-life of all the precautions taken to see that the process is initiated voluntarily by an adult competent patient etc.

Two years later at a follow-up meeting, Dr Norman Fost, a paediatrician ethicist, asked Admiraal what was the youngest age at which euthanasia was performed. When Admiral said "two years old" an audible gasp was heard from the gathered ethicists.

The physician who was featured in the Dutch film, Death on Request, to illustrate the ideal way the procedure was carried out, was convicted in the Netherlands several years later for killing a patient in violation of many of the touted precautions.

Finally I once participated in a panel with a Dutch physician who was asked by my colleague, how it felt to kill a patient. He replied, "The first time it was difficult".

And from the point of view of the disabled:

Mrs Nikki Kenward said: “The bad news is that disabled people like me and rucks of others get depressed because, just when we thought we might have a place in society, along comes another ‘my life isn’t worth living’ campaign.”

She added: “Even though right-to-die campaigners keep banging on about euthanasia being only for terminally ill people, I believe that those changes in the law would pose a genuine threat to people like me”.

In an open letter, Mrs Kenward accused Sarah Wootton, the chief executive of Dignity in Dying, of “hooking in to people’s worst fears and using them for a campaign that will generate only more hatred and visceral fear of the unknown.”

She said legalising assisted suicide will lead to a future full of “greedy relatives, dodgy doctors, grabbing insurance brokers, mealy-mouthed horrors of parliamentary rogues”.
(Distant Voices campaign).

It is very much to be hoped that the courts and Parliament will not water down the law, which is so necessary to protect the vulnerable. 

Further Links:

See the following links to watch Peter Saunders discuss the significance of the current end of life cases, and Lord Falconer's Assisted Suicide Bill: 

http://www.christianconcern.com/media/dr-peter-saunders-explains-the-significance-of-end-of-life-cases-at-court-of-appeal.

http://www.christianconcern.com/media/dr-peter-saunders-comments-on-lord-falconers-assisted-suicide-bill

See: http://www.frc.org/frcinthenews/12may2013/anna-higgins-on-bbc-news

He was also found guilty of the involuntary manslaughter of patient, Karnamaya Monger, who died in his clinic after a botched abortion. 

See an interesting commentary in yesterday's Telegraph, which discusses the possible repercussions of this case on the abortion debate: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/timstanley/100216703/kermit-gosnell-found-guilty-in-abortion-trial-a-victory-for-human-rights-that-will-shame-many/

Also see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-22518979

The Pope also attended, and took a moment to endorse One of Us, the European-wide intiative which aims to bring an end to the funding of destructive research on human embryos.

If you have not done so already, please sign up to the One of Us campaign in defence of the human embryo. We need 1 million signatures across Europe and 54,750 in the UK, for the intiative to be considered.

The UK still needs to collect over 48,500 signatures to reach our quota, so please spread the word and play your part… every signature counts! CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP! 

If you would like to promote One of Us in your area, please contact the ProLife Alliance and we can send you leaflets and posters to distribute, with any information which you may need.

Unlike the National Lottery you will know exactly where your money is going – and what better cause could there be?

For £4 a month you will be allocated a number. Numbers are drawn once a month. 50% of the proceeds is donated to the ProLife Alliance and the remainder is issued as cash prizes.

If you'd like to support us by joining the lottery, please contact us and we'll send you a membership form. See the following link for more details: http://prolife.org.uk/lottery/

We commemorate with great sadness this appalling loss of life, and reflect on the tragic impact abortion has on women and their families, as well as society itself.  

The ProLife Alliance is currently involved in two practical initiatives aimed at combating abortion, helping those in crisis situations, and helping all those involved in pro-life work in the UK.

For the past year, together with colleagues in Christian Concern, we have been compiling a pro-life database of networks across the United Kingdom, where those in any way involved in crisis pregnancy situations can turn for counselling and practical support.   

As well as listing the numerous pro-life pregnancy care centres nationwide, this database also identifies practical support available from either Government or private contacts. This resource has been compiled through extensive internet research, and we trust it will be useful for anybody involved in this important aspect of pro-life work.  The database is functioning on a restricted trial basis at the moment, but if you are in any way interested, or need help, do get in touch for further details. 

The second initiative is the fruit of academic research into abortion law and informed consent undertaken by two young pro-life legal interns over the past two years. We have published this leaflet to coincide with the 45^th Anniversary of the Abortion Act and hope it will be a useful resource for those involved in combating abortion from a legal perspective.

If anyone would a like a copy of the leaflet, please get in touch by emailing us at info@prolife.org.uk or calling us on 020 7581 6939.

Appeal judges have ruled that they do have a right to conscientious objection, as recognised under the Abortion Act 1967.

With this successful judgment their right to conscientious objection is extended to the whole abortion process, not just the termination itself.

Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-22279857