SPUC is not "silly" to back me as prolife candidate for Croydon North West as your correspondent Robert Kennedy says.
Frankly. Mr Kennedy has a hit of a nerve, to say the least, to suggest that SPUC should not back me in my stand.
Two points were abundantly clear in your report about my decison to be a candidate: firstly, that I am disabled (I was born without arms); and secondly, that in addition to the problems faced by the constituents of Croydon North West I would be taking as my platform the plight of the disabled in Britain and, in particular, their right to life.
Newborn handicapped babies are being starved to death in British hospitals; the Department of Health and Social Security, among other bodies, is purshing for more and more abortion of the handicapped for economic reasons.
I would have been a prime candidate for this kind of selection if I were an unborn or newborn baby in 19/11. Whether I win or whether I lose the only way I can be sure that the right to life of people like me will he brought clearly to the attention of the voters in Croydon — and the right to life of all unborn children — is if I stand.
It is, I may say, somewhat naive of Mr Kennedy to suggest that a political organisation, like SPUC, should not consider running candidates in elections before knowing who the other candidates are. What political organisation worth its salt would ingnore such a basic democratic' opportunity to put the issues it believes in to the fore by backing a candidate it believes in?
There are more ways than one of fighting the political battle to save human lives and I am glad that SPUC has the courage of its convictions to recognise this fact and to back my stand.
Anybody who goes into a war thinking that they are going to win every battle had better stay out. Wars are won through the efforts of people willing to make the biggest sacrifice.
In America the pro-life fight was not taken seriously until a woman had the courage to run in the Presidential election as an independent pro-life candidate.
She got the message across and the fact that she had the guts to be defeated, and called every name on earth did not weaken her determination to make people face up to what abortion involves, This was one of the major' turning points in the American campaign against abortion.
Marilyn Dillies Carr Prospective Independent Pro-Life Candidate for Croydon North West