Agony aunt Virginia Ironside said on a BBC TV discussion programme: "Abortion can often be seen as something wicked and irresponsible, but in fact it can be a moral and unselfish act. . . If a baby's going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother."On the subject of infanticide, she said: "If I were the mother of a suffering child - I mean a deeply suffering child - I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face. . . if it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would."
In an article in the Guardian headed "Was Virginia Ironside Right?" Zoe Williams wrote: "There is a furious lobby that attaches a eugenicist tag to anybody who is pro-choice or euthanasia, but it silences its opponents in an underhand way by accusing them of hostility towards the disabled.
"Of course, Ironside is not waging a war against the disabled: she simply said 'life isn't a gift per se.' There are plenty of circumstances that make it more burdensome than joyful. The fact that Ironside ruffled any feathers at all illustrates how important it is not to take this as tacit, but to say it out loud."
(You see the argument: "We're not saying that the lives of the disabled are less valuable than the lives of the able. We're just trying to help them.")
Bioethicist Wesley J. Smith writes on his blog: "Many eugenicists of old advocated killing disabled babies and other unfit as if they were 'weeds.' This is no different. The neo-eugenicists have simply learned not to express direct hostility for those they would prefer eliminated. Rather, the killing agenda is couched in gooey euphemisms and words of oozing compassion. But the key point to remember is that the act advocated is the same. The underlying evil is no less loathsome merely because it is wearing prettier clothes."
