Let premature babies die, says expert

By Steve Doughty - Social Affairs Correspondent

BABIES born extremely prematurely should be allowed to die rather than risk growing up disabled, an influential ethics expert said yesterday.

Baroness Warnock, whose work helped establish British law on fertility treatment and embryo research, called for rules which would ensure the majority of the most premature babies do not live.

Those born before a set stage of development should not be kept alive 'without very thorough scrutiny of what the prognosis for that baby is', she said.

Her comments come at a time when doctors are considering setting a minimum age of 24 weeks of gestation for attempting to save premature babies.

Lady Warnock, 81, is a prominent advocate of euthanasia. Last year she called for elderly people who are becoming a burden on their families or the state to 'sacrifice' themselves.

Last night, patients' groups accused her of abusing her privileged status. Julia Quenzler, of SOS - NHS Patients in Danger, said: `She wants the elderly to do the decent thing. Now she is going to the other extreme and attacking our most vulnerable children.'

Babies born at 23 weeks and younger now have a chance of survival due to modern medical techniques. About one in ten of such babies survive.

Of those born under 25 weeks, however, just one in five has no disabilities by the age of six. Another one in five has severe problems such as cerebral palsy at this age. Lady Warnock told a Sunday newspaper: `Some doctors and nurses get competitive about the triumph of keeping these tiny premature babies alive. It would be better to set a minimum age than to have no form of scrutiny or regulation.'

In Holland, intensive treatment is routinely withheld from babies born before 25 weeks.

The gestation age at which a baby can survive is the subject of a row between opponents and advocates of abortion. As a result of this debate, Ministers are thought to be considering reviewing the law allowing abortion up to 24 weeks.

An inquiry into care for premature babies is being conducted by a medical research group, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, which is considering the merits of a 24-week limit for intensive treatment.

Miss Quenzler said: `Lady Warnock is a danger to the vulnerable. She wants to kill off the elderly -all condoned by the Government, which permits doctors to deliberately dehydrate to death non-dying elderly patients - and now she is going to the other extreme.

'Nowhere does she refer to families and the misery that deciding to kill their loved ones inflicts on them.'

Lady Warnock headed the first Governrnent-
sponsored investigation into human fertilisation in the 1980s. Her findings led to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act.