Fight for life?
AS a retired midwife, and now mother and grandmother I was appalled by this week’s front cover, and “Comment”. 
While my heart goes out to Mrs Underhill and her family we have to consider the quality of life for Kian-John. 
When I worked as a midwife there, sadly, were occasions when a newborn was not viable, and it was always the hardest decision not to resuscitate. 
One’s instinct is to fight for a life, but there are instances when it is not kind. 
I have never forgotten these babies and I am sure that most medical and nursing staff feel the same.
There has been research carried out as to whether babies born before 24 weeks gestation can lead normal independent lives and hardly any are able to. 
To the extent that some who have reached adulthood say that they should not have been resuscitated
Personally, I have never “lost” a baby but in my extended family there have been miscarriages and neonatal deaths so I have some experience of how the family is affected. 
We also support members of our extended family who have to live with disabilities.
Mr and Mrs Underhill do have two children. 
I know women who have been unable to have any, so I hope that Mrs Underhill will get the correct support so that she can accept her loss and find consolation in loving her surviving children.
Your comment mentions Moral Issues and suitable guidelines about resuscitation of babies born before 24 weeks. 
I do not know who wrote that but whoever it was they need to consider the babies’ quality of life and the pain imposed on the baby to maintain it.
Can I recommend some reading? 
Susan Hill wrote a very thought provoking book “Family”. 
The book tells of her need to have a second child but realized that it was selfish as she had not appreciated what her need imposed on her babies. 
After several miscarriages Susan did have a second child. 
Lesley Wilkinson
Orcop

Life’s sanctity
EVERY parent must share the anguish of Mr and Mrs Underhill, forced to stand by helplessly and watch their living, breathing child die.
The blanket policy adopted by the hospital, to categorize pre-24 week foetuses (each one an potential adult in the making) as non-viable, despite case history to the contrary, and make no effort to give Kian-John a chance in life, was tantamount to to criminal neglect.
Their terrible experience is, however, symptomatic of a wider but inextricably connected moral issue.
This policy is in line with a gradual degradation, over the years, of the principles incorporated in the original Abortion Legislation.
It has always been that a justification, on medical grounds, had to be shown, through the approval of two doctors, that an abortion was in the overwhelming interests of the mother.
It has been widely recognized that this requirement has been increasingly abused, and abortion on demand has become more and more common.
We appear to no longer recognize that the child in the womb is a separate entity in its own right.
We now learn that doctors at the Mary Stopes Clinic have been signing blank consent forms, used to approve abortions, without ever seeing the applicant, contrary to current law. The Crown Prosecution Service has been unusually silent on this matter.
There is now a proposal before Parliament that abortions before 24 weeks will no longer require any meaningful form of approval.
In effect, abortion on demand. This will mean that any foetus considered inconvenient for social or financial reasons, or even on a whim, can be killed without any overall consideration.
In the round this is an indication of an insidious decline in our ethical values and humane perspectives.
It must be time, as a civilized compassionate society, to re-examine our view of the sanctity of life of the innocent child, harboured in the womb of its mother, and recognise that while it had no part in its creation, society as a whole has a duty of care.
LESLIE WILES
Kimbolton

Leominster in a sad state
AFTER an absence of some 30 years I have recently returned to Leominster to live. 
Imagine my disappointment at finding the very sad, worn out, dirty and neglected state of the town.
Having said that, in the past two years an organisation called the Leominster Business Group has formed and been busy promoting the town. 
I have to say that I have noticed a vast improvement to the town centre.
You just have to look at Butchers Row, see how clean that looks now, with flowers and plants along its length etc. I have even noticed the staff washing down and cleaning the outside area of both The Barber Shop and Subway; well done to them. Perhaps other businesses in town could follow their example. 
Please, it is your town, where your business is and where people come to shop and look around. Help keep the town looking good, clean and tidy, so that more visitors will want to visit.
For those people who live in and around Leominster, please pick up your litter and dispose of it correctly, including your cigarette butts! 
Let’s make Leominster a place we can be proud of, a place that tourists want to visit and hopefully spend money. It can only help the economy of the town.
DOREEN THOMAS
Leominster

Let’s go east
WITH all the road problems we have had lately, it doesn’t take much to bring traffic to a standstill.
Hereford needs a bypass and bridge in my opinion. 
It should go to the east from the A49 as the road goes all the way to Rotherwas and all it needs is the bridge to link up with the other roads making a flyover so that the wildlife will thrive underneath. 
The problem is that many rich people live along the river east and west and guess which way they vote! 
Yes you’ve got it. The same one that has been voted in for years. 
Have a change next time, we need a bypass. 
Pick a party that thinks outside the box and will do it and don’t have the old pals’ act.
Gwyn James Price
Hereford

Don’t return
I WOULD just like to say what a pleasure it was to be able to welcome the representatives of Hereford FC that you sent to Salisbury last Saturday, March 25.
The group of intelligent, lucid and well-mannered people that carried your torch were a credit to your city and I can only imagine what a privilege it must be to be able to share living space with them.
If, however, you feel the need to send them to Salisbury again, please don’t bother. 
The city of Salisbury would be far better served if they stayed in their cages - with their keepers.
Oh! And coach companies around Hereford. Please don’t deliver any more coachloads of refuse to any other parts of the British Isles. 
You have a responsibility to keep Britain tidy.
R SALT
Salisbury

What ‘choice’
WELL, here we are. 
The last night for my child to attend overnight respite at 1 Ledbury Road. 
I have tried to explain to our child who is devastated, so sad to be leaving the wonderful staff and not being able to socialise with friends. 
Herefordshire Council has stated the benefit of the procurement process was to provide a wider choice. 
And yes, we have been offered alternatives. 
One ‘choice’ is a 75-mile round trip. 
Professionals have advised us that it is too far. 
What Herefordshire Council really wanted was for families to use foster-family respite. 
Professionals have advised us that this is not suitable for our child who requires a unit-based approach. 
It is also not necessary as our child has a loving family. 
We do just need a break to recharge our batteries. 
So in effect we have no ‘choice’. 
The badly planned and poorly executed procurement process was also left far too late. 
We now face no overnight respite at all. 
As families we will be exhausted. If we ‘break’ from the strain, who picks up the pieces. 
We are just expected to carry on regardless. 
False facts were circulated by the council having us believe that families do not want this service. Well, I can tell the council, yes we do. 
It is not just for those of us using the service now, but also for those who will need unit-based overnight respite in the years to come. 
Through no fault of their own, the families do not have 24 hours a day to give to one child. 
They have other children, relatives and work that all require their attention, too. 
Overnight respite gives the chance to recharge batteries and spend some quality time with our other children who often miss out. 
And yes, get some much needed sleep. 
Nobody told us it would be like this. 
S Herrington
Ledbury 

Such contrast
IN the Hereford Times issue of March 9 you headlined three local financial items. 
On page one, a fund of £35,000 was proposed by readers’ subscription to help disabled children, while on page two, you reported a 50% cut in council funding to the already current crisis in social care for the elderly. 
These contrasted sharply on page three with the £1m SAS stained-glass window to be installed in the Cathedral. 
The Dean commented that “It is going to be a marvellous addition to the beautiful artwork in the Cathedral” opening himself to a charge of a degree indifference to the real world outside of his privileged cloistered life.
I feel confident that a majority of the general public, plus probably the rank and file of the SAS, would prefer that this money be allocated to the care of returning critically injured service personnel.
K Brown
Three Elms

Spend wisely
ON Monday, March 20, the stone track leading to a few houses and the Live and Let Live public house off the A44 at Bringsty common was being resurfaced with quite a depth of tarmac.  
This track has been stone for hundreds of years and maintained by people living on the common. 
On contacting Herefordshire Council, I was told it was financed by them. How can the council spend valuable money with tight budgets on this project?  
The  A and B roads are in a dreadful state particularly in Herefordshire with potholes that are damaging vehicles e.g. tyres, wheels, suspensions and a danger to motor cyclists.  Would not the money be better spent on repairing these? 
On Tuesday two employees of Balfour Beatty came and put two buckets of tarmac in a pothole by my property.
The hole was full of water and tarmac was put in.
It took all of less than ten minutes.
I wonder how long before the pothole is back.
No other potholes in the same street were filled. I find this false economy.
Donald Collins  

Bromyard
Whose lights?
FIVE years ago I reported a street light up a footpath leading to Mappenors Lane that wasn’t working to Herefordshire Council. It was repaired.
On January 30, I reported it again for the same thing and the response was the highways team inspected the list of all lights they maintain and found it was not one of theirs, giving me the details of the parish council clerk, bearing in mind the lamp was listed as one of theirs on the herefordshire.gov.uk website, which they have subsequently removed.
The town clerk responded that Leominster Town Council doesn’t own any lamps in Leominster as they were all transferred many moons ago to Leominster District Council, and that Herefordshire Council, as an authority, would have inherited all street lighting when they became a unitary.
Therefore my question is whose light is it anyway?
PS I am still waiting, as at March 17, for it to be repaired.

SANDRA RAWLINGS
Leominster

Differing vote
ROBERT Palgrave of How Caple has a short memory about proportional representation. 
In May 2011, approximately 12 million people voted against PR in a referendum. 
Only six million voted for it. 
The petition with 100,000 signatures has along way to go.
C J Grover
Much Birch

Many thanks
THANK you so much for the splendid spread you gave our Local History Afternoon in the current issue of the Hereford Times!
The day went very well indeed, with more than 100 people dropping in at some point in the afternoon,  and all seemed interested in and appreciative of the material on display. 
The article and photo that appeared in the Times most certainly helped to draw the crowds – much appreciated!
SUE HUGHES
Committee
Garway Heritage Group