Disability and Death

As reported by the BBC and Catholic Herald, there has been a high profile case of misdiagnosis by doctors leading to the abortion of a child in Nottingham. Ms Wesson was encouraged by doctors to terminate her child at 14 weeks due to a diagnosis of Patau’s syndrome which was shown to be false after the abortion.

It is a story that can sadly be heard quite often, a child aborted because doctors said it would be born with a disability or disease.

In the Wesson case, a number of questions have been raised about Nottingham hospital’s safety record, numbers of stillborn babies, and the training of staff. However, one key question appears to have been overlooked.

What kind of a society kills people because of their disabilities?

We sadly have examples from history.

The Spartans famously threw their undesirable children into ravines, or left them to die on hilltops.

The Nazis held a policy of Lebensunwertes Leben (‘life unworthy of life‘) which led to the mass-scale euthanasia and sterilisation of the disabled.

And today, in the West, most of our countries practice selective abortions based upon the potential occurrence of disability.

Such abortions are, by definition, a form of eugenics.

‘Eugenics’ means ‘good birth’ – the idea that only the ‘good’ (genetically) should be born and live.

We still though, have not answered my question – what kind of a society kills people because of their disabilities?

The answer is – a society that values Quality of Life (QoL) over Sanctity of Life (SoL).

In short, QoL argues that a person’s value comes from extrinsic factors. The list of these factors can broad and varied, and considering who makes that value judgement also raises question.

SoL on the other hand, argues that a person’s value is intrinsic by virtue of their being human – normally because of the belief in a God-given soul. Therefore, SoL holds that innocent life should be protected at all costs.

In the case of the Nazis, QoL was based on government regulation. In Sparta it was on societal norms.

Today? Well today the reasons are more convoluted, but a range of QoL excuses are put forward for abortions including economic factors, life preferences, and the idea that the lives of babies with disabilities may constitute ‘lives unworthy of life’.

QoL has become the prevailing social attitude, and it is why a proposal like Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill was able to sail through the first round of voting.

But there is more to the Wesson case than just the societal factors – namely, our trust in doctors.

In the BBC article, there was no outcry about the abortion of disabled children. The article was concerned about mistakes by doctors in misdiagnosing the child.

But misdiagnoses should not surprise us – after all, doctors are not infallible.

Whilst medical advice is helpful, and doctors serve an important role, their predictions are, ultimately, just informed guesses. We do not know whether what they say will play out as expected. There are cases, as with the Wesson case, where doctors get things wrong.

Should we really kill innocent babies on the guesses, however well informed, of doctors?

A similar question needs to be asked about euthanasia.

If we judge who should live and die based upon external factors, our views will keep shifting. As I have previously written, the QoL judgements in countries that have legalised euthanasia have shifted – sometimes at quite a pace.

Euthanasia also opens the door to post-birth infanticide.

Take, for example, a case where a disability has been undetected and only been discovered shortly after birth. If our judgements are solely based upon QoL, there is no reason not to allow that baby to be euthanised. At thirty-eight weeks, there is no difference between a disabled baby inside or outside the womb except sentiment – so why not?

As the QoL bioethicist Peter Singer once disturbingly wrote – in cases where diseases have only been detected post-birth, ‘replicability’ can be deemed acceptable.

However, we don’t necessarily need to go this far down the slippery slope. Let’s consider ‘terminal illness’ itself.

In Leadbeater’s bill, terminal illness is defined as follows:

“…the person has an inevitably progressive illness, disease or medical condition which cannot be reversed by medical treatment and the person's death in consequence of that illness… can reasonably be expected within six months.”

Six months.

I, and I suspect many others, have heard cases of friends and family being told they only had ‘x weeks to live’, and the person has gone on to live longer.

Or that a baby, if not aborted, will only live ‘x number of years’, but is now a fully grown adult.

How can a doctor be sure that the person really only has six months? There are many cases of people living longer than expected even with terminal illnesses.

As for ‘cannot be reversed by medical treatment’ – to what extent?

There are many cases of people making surprising or even miraculous recoveries.

Or cases in which people who were terminally ill, have received innovative new treatments, and survived.

Had such people taken the doctor’s guess as prophecy, they may have opted for a euthanasia that they didn’t need or actually fulfil the criteria for.

So, what’s the antidote to this culture of death?

Catholicism.

Catholicism holds sacred the value of each innocent life.

In Catholicism, SoL is protected by the magisterial teachings of the Church that, from the moment of conception to natural death, all innocent life is to be protected.

Catholics must fight against this culture of death. A culture that treats unborn children as preferences, and the sick and dying as burdens.

We must continue to lobby, protest, and campaign to end a culture of death that preys on the most vulnerable.

But mostly, we must pray.

Pray to our Mother; the one who bore the Christ-child; who carried Him in her womb; who knows the struggles of motherhood. Asking that Mary prays on our behalf for the victims of abortion and euthanasia.

Pray that St Michael the archangel, scourge of demons, fights on our behalf in the spiritual war against the armies of death that seek to change our laws, govern our minds, and kill our most vulnerable.

And mostly, we must pray that the Christ who conquered death conquers the culture of death in our midst – changing our hearts to value the intrinsic worth of each human being, regardless of their quality of life.

Catholic Herald version - https://thecatholicherald.com/disability-and-death-how-the-british-mindset-on-abortion-will-manifest-itself-in-assisted-suicide/