Woman Who Suffered from Locked-In Syndrome Defends Right to Life
Abortion is portrayed to the public as a necessary “right” for women. But all too often, those promoting this “right” have never bothered to find out what women actually think and feel on this subject … especially those who have actually been there. It is assumed that women are “better off” aborting, that having a baby would be burdensome, and that the baby is unwanted.
But if those advocating for abortion rights did ask women, they might be surprised to find that most women would rather not abort, but end up doing so only when they are denied support and resources or pushed, pressured, coerced or even forced to abort by others (up to 64 percent of abortions are unwanted or coerced).
A similar dynamic is happening in the “right-to-die” debate. Most advocating for the assisted suicide or euthanasia assume that those who are terminally ill or disabled would be “better off” dying, that their lives are too burdensome and that they want to end it.
Nikki Kenward of the U.K. group Distant Voices, suffered total paralysis and now lives with severe disability. In a piece in the Daily Mail, she writes:
Can you imagine a lonelier or more frightening place to be trapped in, unable to communicate, than your own body? These are terrifying times for anyone who cannot speak up for themselves. Whether they know it or not, they are lying prone in a world increasingly seduced by the idea that death is preferable to the life they are living.
The increasingly vocal advocates, who promote ‘assisted suicide’ for those who are too disabled to express their own feelings on the matter, cannot begin to imagine what it is like to live such a life.
They cannot begin to imagine how profoundly illness, or physical and mental disability, might actually enhance that individual’s appreciation of the value of life itself — even if it bears scant resemblance to the life they were living before.
But I can. I have lived that life and I know how precious it is. I have experienced the torture of total paralysis and I now live with serious disability. But I will be grateful until my dying day that no one had the right to ‘turn’ me off.
Continue reading Nikki’s article here.
