Call for action on handicapped from MP

[by Christopher Rails and MR JAMES DUNN, MP. for Liverpool Kirkdale, and a Catholic, called this week for Government action as a matter of urgency on the treatment of newborn handicapped babies.
Mr Dunn's action followed close on the heels of a political campaign launched last week by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, and took the form of a letter to Sir Ian Percival, the Solicitor General.
In his letter, Mr Dunn noted that since the ruling that Alexandra, the Down's syndrome baby. should be given an operation to save her life. the British Paediatric Association had issued a statement declaring that life or death decisions on the treatment of severely malformed children should be left to the parents.
Ambiguous
"After consultation with lawyers and doctors. I feel this is dangerously ambiguous and could lead some doctors to act in breach of law" wrote Mr Dunn.
He said that even good parents in certain situations might not make decisions which were in the child's best interests. In support of this remark, he quoted Mr Brian Rix, Secretary General of the National Society for Mentally Handicapped Children, who had commented recently: "... the trauma of being told your child is handicapped is so great that only a few parents are able to make rational decisions during the period just after birth."
Mr Dunn said it was "absolutely vital" that Sir Ian made it clear to the medical profession that "English law refuses to recognise that one person is less deserving of. protection or treatment than another person".
Equal value
He went on: "It needs to be stated unequivocally that English law is quite clear that disabled persons' lives (regardless of age) are of equal value to those of everybody else. Their treatment should, therefore, be assessed in the same light as that of healthy people which. of course, means ensuring that they are given adequate food and warmth as well as proper medical attention".
He referred to Mr David Plank, the Harnmersmith borough's Director of Social Services, as "a man of deep compassion and experience, who acted with integrity according to t he statutory obligations governing his work". Mr Plank was responsible for having made Alexandra a ward of court.
SPUC's campaign is the result of the recent claim made by the BPA and referred to by Mr Dunn. SPUC branches throughout the country will lobby MP's stressing that the whole subject should be debated in view of the BPA statement.
Mrs Ph yllis Bowman, spokesman for SPUC, expressed the Society's concern at certain statements from doctors regarding the case of Alexandra, which although well intentioned, showed an ignorance of the lifestyles of IT ientally handicapped people and of the potential of those suffering from Down's Syndrome.
She cam mented: "We feel tremendou sly sympathetic for the parents of Alexandra who were obviously thrown into a terrible pani c by what they were told (or moire probably by what they were 1-113t told) and could have lived to regret bitterly their decision, ha d they grown to learn more about Down's people."
Ignorance
Mrs Bow man also remarked on what she considered to be "a marked ignorance of the law". in doctors who had made statements on the Alexandra case.
SPUC's lawyers consider that the Childre n and Young Persons Act 1933 ( as amended by The Children arid Young Persons Act 1963 and th e Children's Act 1975) is quite specific and does not make any qualifications as to whether or • not a child is handicapped. Section I of subsection 1 of the 1933 Act states: "If any pe rson who has attained the age or 16 years and has the custody, charge. or care of any child or young person under that age wilfully ... neglects, abandons Or exposes him or causes him to be ... ne elected. abandoned or exposed i n a manner likely to cause him ... injury to health that person shall be guilty of an offence ..."
SPUC believes that if Mr David Plank, Director of Social Services for Hammersmith Borough Council. had failed to act as he did. he could have been in breach of that Act.
In the Society's opinion, the matter needs to be discussed at parliamentary level in an effort to clarify the law of the land. "So that people like David Plank," said Mrs Bowman, "who have the guts to act in defence of the disabled, cannot be subjected to the form of bullying to which he has been subjected in some newspapers".
• At a Rally in Paisley after a pro-life march through the centre of the town last Saturday. Mrs Marilyn Gillies-Carr. prospective pro-life independent candidate for Croydon North West. condemned the growing practice of assessing the value of a human being on purely economic terms,
Fr James Morrow, a priest from Paisley, called at the same rally for greater efforts to convince the medical profession of what he called its "terrible error" in killing 500 unborn children every day in Britain. He called for the stepping up of pickets at medical conferences, NHS abortion hospitals, and proabortion advisory clinics,
"We must see to it that doctors receive our leaflets and face our arguments." he said. "It was very revealing and in a way encouraging to discuss their behaviour with some of them outside the recent BMA conference at Brighton, where I joined the picket along with several handicapped colleagues, and note their complete inability to justify their treatment of unborn and newborn handicapped children," Er Morrow said pregnant women must learn to be particularly cautious in accepting the modern pro-abortion gynaecologist's advice.