The right to live
Sir: The Guardian of 18 August contained an advertisement for '100 families who will join with us to give our disabled children in care the experience of happy family life'. This was placed by London's Fostering Information Service. On the same page, Manchester Social Service Department asked for foster parents for eight other children. Several of these children 'have spent most of their lives in children's homes and do not know what it is like to live as members of a family'.
Finding suitable foster care is always difficult and sometimes impossible. The real question that arises is surely whether heroic surgery shall always be performed, even in defiance of parental consent, if the baby subsequently needs constant attention from somebody — a paid servant of the state in the absence of nonconsenting parents. The expenses of such a course of action have recently been calculated at between £100,000 and £200,000 according to how long the child survives. Even severely handicapped mongol babies survive much longer now than in the past.
Can Ms Sanders (Letters, 22 August) tell us where this money is to come from, since we all know it is not going to come as additional funds from central government? Put more crudely, which local authority service or which bit of NHS ex penditure is going to be sacrificed to this cause — geriatric services, kidney machines, or what?
Mouthing platitudes about The Right to Life, is really no longer sufficient.
Madeleine Simms 17 Dunstan Road, London NW11
Previous page
