I'm praying for God's mercy on the late Madeleine Simms, promoter of eugenic abortion

Thalidomide child: survived Simms' campaign

This week it was reported that Madeleine Simms had died. She was one of Britain's leading campaigners for eugenics via abortion, infanticide and euthanasia. Alison Davis of SPUC's No Less Human group, which defends disabled persons' right to life, tells me that:

"Her campaign against allowing disabled babies (both unborn and newborn) to see the light of day and, in later years against allowing disabled adults to continue living was central to her whole ideology."

Madeleine Simms joined the Abortion Law Reform Association (ALRA) (founded in 1936) in 1961. She was also a founding Trustee of the Birth Control Trust and one-time chair of the Family Planning Association (FPA). She was also involved in a short-lived organisation, founded around 1983, called “Prospect”, which campaigned for the direct killing of newborn disabled babies.

In 1971 Simms wrote:

“An abnormal foetus is not aborted because it would die, but on the contrary because it would be healthy enough to live a sub-human existence. Essentially it is for social, ethical and aesthetic reasons that some people recoil from the survival of such sub-humans and prefer to see them aborted."
(M Simms and Keith Hindell, Abortion Law Reformed, London: Peter Owen, 1971)

Simms also said:

"I became really active [in the abortion lobby] when the Thalidomide tragedy occurred ... The drug thalidomide was the motor that reinvigorated the Abortion Law Reform Association and paved the way for reform."

So I'm praying for God to be merciful to her and to all involved in promoting the killing of the unborn and the disabled.

Comments on this blog? Email them to johnsmeaton@spuc.org.uk
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