Minette Marrin, writing in the [UK] Sunday Times, draws a connection between Baroness Warnock, who said people with dementia have a “duty to die”, and Joanne Hill, who drowned her daughter because she was apparently ashamed of the girl’s cerebral palsy.

It ought to be obvious that what Warnock said and what Hill did was wrong and that one leads directly to the other. The thought is father, or rather mother, to the deed. What’s alarming is that Warnock has had official influence on public policy in such matters. All the same, I think there is room for more compassion and careful consideration in both cases.

… Having grown up close to such questions, I’ve come to realize that shame is not only natural but understandable. One feels at a deep level like a failure as a mother or father. Men often feel this much more strongly than mothers and don’t want to be associated with a damaged child. Well-adjusted people are able to put this shame behind them and I think it’s a mark of a good person in a civilized society that she or he can do so. But it may be difficult. A poorly adjusted person may find it impossible.

… None of this makes [Hill] innocent of murder, but it is ground for some compassion and understanding rather than righteous indignation. I suspect the indignation comes from an unwillingness –- an inability -– to confront the inescapable harshness of disability and the painful truth that it is indeed a burden.

See also:

Now our intellectuals think the old and frail have a ‘duty to die’, we are on the path to barbarism, op-ed by Melanie Phillips in the [UK] Sunday Mail

Do the demented have a duty to die? op-ed by Ken Connor on townhall.com. Connor is chairman of the Center for a Just Society

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