Shock! Smothering A Disabled Child An Act of Love?

‘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.’

This goes to show that no principle of civilization, no precept—no matter how holy, authentic, or certain—cannot be twisted into the service of evil.  Murder as an act of love.

The statement above is that of UK television pundit Virginia Ironside.  The video below shows the entire exchange.

The host, about to introduce another guest was shocked into continuing the conversation calling her statement a “horrifying thing.”  Indeed.

In another part of the interview, Ironside said that abortion too is an act of love.  ‘If a baby’s going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother.’

Ironside’s statements left the other guest, Reverend Joanna Jepson, with her mouth hanging open at the horror.  She has other reasons for being horrified.  If Ironside had her way, people like Jepson and her disabled brother would never have been born or perhaps lovingly smothered to death.

The Rev. Jepson, while attractive now, was not born that way.  She was born with a severe deformity of her jaw with her top jaw stuck out and her lower jaw hung down into her neck.  Her jaw, corrected in her late teens, now hung open at the causal depravity of Ironside.

You might think that all this is some wicked theoretical exercise on the part of Ironside, alas no.  Ironside willingly recounts (see video here) the tales of her two abortions.  The second of which she professed to be for the good of her baby.

As Christians, how are we to respond to such things?  It is hard to say.  For sure, we must pray for people like Ironside.  But while we pray to heaven we must have our feet planted firmly on the ground.  Ironside’s horrifying statements are the logical extension of many of the arguments in favor of abortion and euthanasia, but simply taken to their utilitarian ends.  And she is not alone.

The only good that comes out of this is the glimmer of hope that such things still have the ability to shock.