British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

Lifesite News (22 Aug 05) reports: "Minutes from a meeting of the Portsmouth Trust board said 'The Trust would be prepared to go to the courts rather than send Charlotte to the intensive care unit. From past experience the court would agree with the doctors.'" On 25th August the Appeal Court duly backed the doctors, in spite of the evidence of Charlotte's recent progress. Judge Hedley will review his original decision in October. Fortunately Charlotte is now less likely to need ventilation.

The Portsmouth Hospital Trust is the one criticised by the European Court in the case of David Glass.

Baroness Warnock, mother of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990, was quoted in the Daily Mail on 6 June 05 as stating that babies born prematurely should be allowed to die rather than risk growing up disabled. "Last year, she called for elderly people who are becoming a burden on their families or the state to 'sacrifice' themselves.

"Julia Quenzler, of SOS-NHS - Patients in Danger, said 'She wants the elderly to do the decent thing. Now she is going to the other extreme and attacking our most vulnerable children.'"

Dr. William Hammesfahr, once described by the Florida Dept of Health as "the first physician to restore deficits caused by stroke," examined Terri Schiavo for ten hours during her lifetime. After the autopsy, publication of the results, which were converted by the media into a vindication of Michael Schiavo's description of Terri, Dr. Hammesfahr issued a statement.

"... I have had a chance to look at Dr. Nelson's analysis of the brain tissue, and essentially, as a clinician, these are my thoughts.

"The autopsy results confirmed my opinion and Dr. Maxfield's opinions, that the frontal areas of the brain, the areas that deal with awareness and cognition were relatively intact. To use Dr. Nelson's words, 'relatively preserved'. In fact, the relay areas from the frontal and front temporal areas of the brain, to the spinal cord and the brain stem, by way of the basal ganglia, were preserved, thus the evident responses which she was able to express to her family and to the clinicians seeing her or viewing her videotape. The Spect scan confirmed these areas were functional and not scar tissue, and that was apparently also confirmed on Dr. Nelson's review of the slides. Dr. Maxfield's estimates of retained brain weight were apparently accurate, although there may have been some loss of brain weight due to the last two weeks of dehydration."

"For months, Australia's Dr. Death, Philip Nitschke, has been doing an impression of Chicken Little, claiming the 'sky' is going to fall on him and his work," the US. International Task Force reports in Update, vol. 19, No. 2. "On June 23 2005, the 'sky' did fall: the Australian Parliament passed laws outlawing just about everything Nitschke and his organisation EXIT do via the Internet.

"The laws have banned the use of the Internet to incite people to commit suicide or to instruct them on how best to kill themselves. Violations of the new laws carry fines of up to A$110,000 for individuals and up to A$550,000 for organisations. The laws also apply to other means of communication, such as telephones and faxes."

Everything about the progress of Lord Joffe's Assisted Dying Bill seems to be pre-arranged. Under the heading "Target 09", the Voluntary Euthanasia Society's newsletter states "The Select Committee's Report will soon be debated and Lord Joffe is planning to reintroduce the Bill to the Lords in the autumn..... We have a target of getting a finalised version of the Bill into the Commons in this Parliament by 2009." (That is wise - if there were a change of Government after that its chances would not be so good). During the sittings of the Select Committee it became clear that the chance of persuading committed supporters of euthanasia to think again was absolutely nil, whatever the evidence put before them.

The Assisted Dying Bill is supposed to be passed nem. con. at 2nd Reading in the Lords and referred to a Committee of the whole House. It sounds like the old story of a man in hospital who looked down at his feet and found they were on a pathway marked in a map on the wall "REFUSE TO GO TO THE INCINERATOR". Will the Peers refuse?

The case against a doctor carrying out a late abortion for cleft palate, which was brought by the Rev. Joanna Jepson, and the beautiful pictures of unborn children making stepping movements in the womb from as early as 12 weeks, revolutionised the treatment of the issue in the Press. To a veteran of the 1967 abortion campaign, it was almost unbelievable. Michael Howard, leader of the Conservative Party, called for a review of the time limit.

Now the "Alive and Kicking Campaign" has been launched at a fringe meeting at the Labour Party conference in Brighton to "make abortion rare". Pro-abortionists protested outside.

Martin Foley, chief executive of LIFE, wrote in LIFE News, Summer 2005:

"If it is clear that a particular Bill or legislative proposal will improve the current situation - will save some of the almost 190,000 unborn children that are being aborted each year and safeguard women's health - then surely we have a duty to give such legislation our wholehearted support as a first step towards the repeal of the iniquitous Abortion Act."

What if it is a quite different sort of Bill?

SPUC reported (19 July 05) "Today's debate in Parliament on abortion has revealed an agenda for easier and more frequent abortions.

"Dr. Evan Harris MP (Liberal Democrat) led an adjournment debate today in Westminster Hall, in which he called for abortion law and practice to be relaxed alongside a parliamentary inquiry into the upper time limit for abortions. Dr. Harris specifically called for 'first trimester abortions to be made easier; for the safeguard of two doctors' signatures for abortion to be abolished; for chemical abortion (using RU486) to be permitted at home ('bedroom abortions'); and for the 1967 Abortion Act to be extended to Northern Ireland.

"Caroline Flint, the minister replying on behalf of the Government, ominously told the House that the Government is 'putting a lever on primary care trusts' to reduce waiting times for abortions and is currently trialling 'bedroom abortions.'" A review of time limits was rejected, but at the "Alive and Kicking" launch the ghost of a Government "bargain"could be seen approaching: a reduction of the upper limit in return for abortion-on-demand up to 12 weeks.

The Pro-Life Alliance is alarmed by "suppression of data" by the Government, the Catholic Herald reported on 5 Aug 05. "Last year official statistics on abortions were not released because of the Joanna Jepson case and the high media profile of the abortion issue. Now the 2003 and 2004 abortion statistics have been published, but they do not include sensitive information about controversial abortions because of foetal abnormalities."

Anthony Ozimic of SPUC said (27 July 05) "Politicians and commentators must realise that the government's approach of promoting early abortions is increasing the number of abortions."

The Association of Lawyers for the Defence of the Unborn reminded readers in their newsletter of Spring 2004 that "the removal of the law's protection from older unborn babies was the work of a Conservative Secretary of State, the Rt. Hon. Kenneth Clarke, QC. MP. who introduced this further grave injustice into our law in his government's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act of 1990."

Peter Oborne, quoted in the Spectator of 30th April 2005 wrote, "Hostility to a 'reality-based' analysis of events can be traced back to postmodernism, which has become a fashionable orthodoxy among teachers of philosophy, and indeed other academic disciplines.

"Postmodernism is one modern manifestation of extreme philosophical scepticism, a tradition which can be traced right back to the beginnings of thought and the ancient Greek school of Pyrrho. This school despaired of the notion that truth was accessible and deduced that no ultimately stable distinction could be drawn between truth and falsehood."

In the view of the American philosopher Richard Rorty, following the French writers Foucault and Derrida, truth claims could never be incontestably grounded and "an alternative way of giving weight to words was to 'to construct what he called a narrative.' This has the effect of shifting the emphasis of argument from truths which can be verified to 'narratives' that can be manufactured." Peter Oborne accuses New Labour of latching on to this.

Commenting on the death of Terri Schiavo, Professor Sheila McLean, Scotland's leading supporter of euthanasia, wrote (Sunday Herald, 3 Apr 05):

...."Bringing about death in this way may be a potential breach of yet another Article of the Human Rights Convention, Article 3, which prohibits cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. This Article, unlike the other Convention rights, permits of no derogation."

Dr. Helga Kuhse's famous forecast in 1984 comes to mind.