Pro-life campaigner Alison Davis who was a wheelchair user and battled life-long illness has died at the age of 58.
Davis became a pro-life campaigner after hearing how one doctor wanted to end the life of a little baby girl called Louise, diagnosed with the same conditions as her.
Davis wrote to the doctor about the girl, and “explained that I was disabled to just the extent that Louise had been, and that I felt he had made a horribly wrong decision”.
Happy
“I pointed out that life with spina bifida and hydrocephalus could be full and happy, and that it was in any case wrong to deliberately kill any child on grounds of his/her disability”.
Davis – who previously had a ‘settled wish to die’ – later stood firmly against assisted suicide, thanking doctors for allowing her to see that “life is worth living”.
In 2010 she wrote a moving letter explaining: “If I had died, I would have missed the best years of my life”.
Missed
This week her long-term carer said: “In due course there will be a better understanding and deeper appreciation of this extraordinary woman who is now irreplaceably missed.”
Davis led the No Less Human group, which campaigns to promote a positive view of disability and forms part of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).
SPUC’s director John Smeaton spoke warmly of Davis, saying: “Frail in body, she was full of strength in defence of the most defenceless human beings – disabled unborn children.
“Her keen insight and uncompromising solidarity have proved a powerful defence for the sick and disabled targeted with euthanasia.”
