Editor’s note. This first appeared on the blog of John Smeaton, executive director of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).

Alison Davis, the co-ordinator of No Less Human, a group within SPUC defending the right to life of the disabled, wrote a very powerful letter published recently in The Herald. Do read her letter in full on The Herald website [www.heraldscotland.com/comment/herald-letters/letters-sunday-31-october-2010-1.1064869] but I leave you with some key quotes, which speak for themselves:

"Mary Warnock [ the pro-euthanasia philosopher] makes a fundamental mistake when she suggests that so long as a bill legalising euthanasia/assisted suicide has sufficient “safeguards”, sick and disabled people need not worry that they will be first in the line of candidates for the lethal dose."

"Would the Warnocks of this world agree to add a waiting time – 10 or 20 years – to any bill they draw up, in case of a change of mind? Because human beings are fallible, because life can be good even with great pain, because nobody knows when doctors’ prognoses will be wrong, it is sheer folly to legalise assisted suicide for one group of people because they suffer in certain ways, while spending large amounts of money on “suicide prevention programmes” to prevent the suicides of others who suffer in a different way."

"Mary Warnock’s mistake is that she seems unable to look past the suffering to see the person, a sad affliction indeed."