DEFORMED BABIES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28866, 10 April 1959, Page 11

DEFORMED BABIES

Euthanasia Advocated (Rec. 8.45 p.m.) ADELAIDE, April 9. Seriously deformed or mentally deficient children should be destroyed at birth a British scientist, Sir Ronald Fisher, said during an interview in Adelaide today. He said a law should be passed which allowed parents to make the decision. Present laws prohibiting child euthenasia were unfair to parents. Sir Ronald Fisher, who is president and former genetics professor of Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, is spending six months in Australia as a guest of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation’s genetics branch. He said: “At present parents have all responsibilities of caring for these children without having any right to solve their problems. “They should be able to approach a Magistrate with medical backing and terminate a useless life.” Sir Ronald Fisher said he had known young married couples who had ruined their lives in caring for children for whom there was no hope of being normal. Often this meant forgoing the chance of having other children. “As 1 or 2 per cent, of all births have some congenital deficiency euthenasia would obviously relieve a serious medical problem,” he said.