We’ve dehumanised the unborn. Now it’s the turn of the elderly and the ill

Mar 18, 2024 by Jill

by Peter Hitchens, Mail on Sunday:

Supporters of assisted dying need to grasp that they will almost certainly get more than they say that they want. You will have to judge whether they really are as moderate as they claim, or whether they reckon – with good reason – that legalising assisted death will allow them to expand their scheme in ways that would horrify many now.

The campaign to legalise abortion on demand was never, in my view, frank about its true aims. Nor is the similar campaign for assisted dying.

Reform of the abortion laws in 1967 was supposed to help a minority of women trapped by terrible circumstances and a brutal, unforgiving law into dangerous actions. In Britain, the argument of safety was paramount. This version is still current. The TV series Call The Midwife has more than once included vivid, emotive and one-sided storylines in which the pre-1967 law is portrayed as unjustified, harsh, inflexible and even fatal.

Claims were made in the 1960s that between 50,000 and 250,000 women were at risk each year from botched illegal abortions. Such cases were tragic but there is little hard evidence that these horrors were as common as claimed.

Read here (£)