Outrage as ex-top judge tells cancer patient, 39: YOUR LIFE IS LESS VALUABLE
In lockdown debate on the BBC, former judge tells bowel cancer patient, 39, her life is less valuable – and provokes a furious backlash
FORMER Supreme Court judge Lord Sumption sparked outrage yesterday after he told a cancer sufferer her life was ‘less valuable’ than others.
Jonathan Sumption made the comment to Stage 4 bowel cancer sufferer and broadcaster Deborah James during a TV debate over whether lockdown measures were punishing ‘too many for the greater good’.
The retired judge argued that restrictions were harming a younger population rarely affected by coronavirus.
The 72-year- old told BBC1’s The Big Questions: ‘All lives are not of equal value – the older you are, the less valuable yours is because there’s less of it left.’ He said he believed his children’s and grandchildren’s lives were worth more than his ‘because they’ve got a lot more of it ahead’.
Miss James, 39, was brought into the discussion by presenter Nicky Campbell as a younger person with a life-threatening condition. The host of the BBC’s You, Me And The Big C podcast told Lord Sumption: ‘With all due respect, I’m the person who you say their life is not valuable. I live with
‘Extraordinary and outrageous’
metastatic bowel cancer.’ Lord Sumption then interrupted her and said: ‘I didn’t say it was not valuable, I said it was less valuable.’ Last night the former judge furiously denied the meaning placed on the comment, telling the Mail the remark had not been intended to imply Miss James’s life was less valuable because she had cancer.
He said the comment had been made in the context of his earlier remarks on the harm done to the young through lockdowns designed to save the elderly from Covid-19. Following Lord Sumption’s on-air interjection, Mr Campbell repeated his comment in order for Miss James to respond.
The broadcaster, who has had 17 tumours with her latest cancer operation just six weeks ago, told Lord Sumption: ‘ Who are you to put a value on life? In my view, and I think in many others, life is sacred and i don’t think we should make those judgment calls.
‘All life is worth saving regardless of what life it is people are living.
‘I’m fully aware – and I’ve seen first-hand and said goodbye to best friends – in terms of collateral [what] Covid is causing but at the same time I’m grateful to be somebody who is kept alive because of the NHS. Only six weeks ago I was in intensive care for a cancer operation that has got me back up on my feet and without that I wouldn’t be here. And we have to protect the NHS to allow the collateral to be as minimal on all health conditions as possible.’ Miss James said she has seen ‘many friends’ she met through cancer die in the four years since her diagnosis.
One was a fellow host of the podcast, Rachael Bland, 40, who died of breast cancer in 2018.
Last night, her widower Steve told the Mail Lord Sumption’s comments were ‘extraordinary and outrageous’.
He said: ‘It’s one thing to think what he said but another thing to say it to a cancer patient.
‘I’m super-proud of Deb for the way she came back at him.
‘If that had been Rachael [being spoken to like that] I would have been raging. But I thought Deborah handled herself really well.
‘To hear this man saying that their lives are somehow less valuable must be very painful for any cancer patient, some of whom may have suffered delays to treatment in the pandemic.’
Miss James later tweeted of the row: ‘ Politics aside, have we scooped so low in all this and lost our moral compass?’ Professor
Pat Price, a leading oncologist and founder of the Catch Up With Cancer campaign, said: ‘ This is outrageous – every patient’s life is important.’
Last night Lord Sumption, who sat in the Supreme Court from 2012 until his retirement in 2018, told the Mail the footage of his comments – available on MailOnline and tweeted by Miss James – was ‘ambiguous’ but had been misinterpreted. He said: ‘I object extremely strongly to any suggestion that I was inferring that Miss James’s life was less valuable because she had cancer.
‘I thought she was responding to my earlier comments about older people being protected by a total lockdown which is causing immense harm to the young who are unaffected.
‘That harm can be to their mental health or through cooping undergraduates up at university or through the loss of jobs.
‘I was saying this should not be inflicted on the young to protect old people like me.
‘If Miss James has misinterpreted that then I can only apologise to her as it was not my intention to suggest she was less valuable. Sometimes on videolinks it can be difficult to hear what the other person is saying.’
Lord Sumption added: ‘I was certainly not saying her life was less valuable. I was saying the lives of older people are worth less because they have less time to live.
‘I understood her to be disagreeing with my proposition.
‘I do not deny saying what is recorded on the footage.’
He said: ‘You are interpreting that as meaning her life is less valuable because she had metastatic bowel cancer. It’s a question of age.
‘I was saying that young people should not be sacrificed to save old people.’
‘Comment taken out of context’