blogs

The campaign to change surrogacy laws suffers a set-back
According to newspaper reports last week, a one year old boy has been left in limbo, as a ward of court,…

Defeat of the Marris Assisted Dying Bill – some reflections on how MPs voted
The Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill of Labour MP Rob Marris was the eleventh attempt in twelve years to…

Maternal mortality: is there a link with abortion legislation or not?
The question of whether restrictive laws on abortion lead to fewer maternal deaths, or more maternal…

Cut and Paste: A new revolution in genetics
Great excitement has been developing over the past few months about new opportunities to eliminate diseases…

Britain’s law on assisted suicide is not ‘broken’ and does not need ‘fixing’
On Friday 11 September MPs will vote on the Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill tabled by Labour’s Rob Marris.…

The assisted suicide of Gill Pharaoh reminds us that there are actually limits to choice
You can listen to my interview on this case on BBC West Midlands here.
Last week I was contacted…

The wisdom of Solomon is needed in today’s surrogacy cases
Disturbing stories on surrogacy are hitting the headlines on a regular basis at the moment.
Last…

Off Target? Do we have faith in the Sustainable Development Goals?
I remember sitting in a small room at Trinity Western University, British Columbia on a hot day in…

Disabled people assemble mass lobby to urge MPs to reject assisted suicide bill
Disabled people descended on Westminster today in droves to lobby MPs on Rob Marris’s Assisted Dying…

Excluding the spiritual from patient care: what is the NMC up to?
In some ways, it speaks of the nature of our times that we have created a special category of care…

Experts in care of the elderly speak out strongly against assisted suicide
The leading organisation representing health professionals caring for the elderly in Britain has this…
Altruistic kidney donation – the opportunities and challenges
Giving a kidney can be one of the greatest gifts one can offer to another person. The first successful human kidney allograft was carried out between the identical Herrick twins in Boston in 1954, Ronald giving a kidney to Richard and in so doing becoming the world’s first living organ donor. Richard lived another eight […]
How Christians can end the waiting list for a kidney
When I gave my kidney in 2019, it felt like a simple decision: someone might die without a kidney whilst I had a spare. Far from seeing it as the epitome of saintly generosity, I was convicted that it was an effective way of doing good and glorifying God. By giving a kidney, I enabled […]
Jany Haddad – surgeon, pastor, leader, mentor and family man
Jany Haddad (born Teheran, Iran, 13 March 1954, died Aleppo, Syria, 14 August 2020) ‘Doctor, we plead with you, please do not leave Aleppo, you are the salt of this land. You are the light of this city.’ So spoke Dr Jany Haddad’s Muslim patients during the dark days in Syria when hundreds of thousands […]
Three ways COVID-19 has changed me as a doctor
COVID-19 has changed the world, the medical profession, and the NHS in ways we are only beginning to understand. In my A&E department, we have seen patients with oxygen saturations lower than we previously thought were possible, treated our own hospital colleagues – some of whom went to ITU, broke more bad news down the […]
Priceless but penniless: The ‘heroes’ denied a pay rise
On 21 July, the Treasury announced a pay rise for almost 900,000 public sector workers. Months into a pandemic, this was surely a perceptive move by the government to cultivate a positive relationship with its valuable ‘frontliners’. However, not everybody embraced the pay rise, because the pay rise did not embrace everybody. In the NHS, […]
COVID-19: God in the gaps
One of my favourite things to do is walk in the mountains of Snowdonia. I spent many a day off in its breath-taking hills during my time working in Bangor a few years ago. One memorable day out was when a friend took me scrambling up the side of Tryfan, notorious not just for its […]
Bad news for the unborn
The latest figures from the ONS reveal that by the beginning of June, 47,820 people in England and Wales had died as a result of contracting COVID-19. Half a million had died worldwide. Yet there is a greater killer at large, one whose death toll, worldwide, was forty times that. In England and Wales, last […]
COVID-19 exposing global health inequalities
Last week, I looked at how COVID-19 was disproportionately affecting people of colour in the UK, and how existing social and health inequalities were being brought into the light once again by the pandemic. But while the rich world grapples with its legacy of social division, racism and systemic injustice, the other two-thirds of the […]
The NHS quietly changes its transgender guidance
Last week in The Spectator, James Kirkup revealed that the NHS had amended its transgender guidance for children. It is unclear whether or not this is directly related to the legal challenges currently being mounted by children, parents and young adults who say that transitioning has adversely affected them, but it is certainly interesting timing. […]
COVID-19 is exposing UK health inequalities
Recent figures from theDepartment of Health and Social Care (DHSC) show the UK death toll from COVID-19 was nearly 40,000 by the start of June. This makes the UK’s death toll among the worst in the global pandemic. Black and minority ethnic (BAME) communities make up a disproportionally large part of that figure. For the last couple […]
God, ethics and COVID-19
‘Oh – and by the way, I’ve recommended you for chairing the Covid Ethics Committee. Hope that’s OK.’ Really? Me? Why? God – Help! I had known, of course, that there was a plan to put together an Ethics Committee. It was necessary. With COVID-19 gathering pace and some immediate decisions to be made – […]
From the mouths of children…
In the old fairy tale of The Emperor’s New Clothes, a tailor tells a king that he has invented a wonderful new kind of cloth, that can only be seen by the wisest people. He makes a beautifully-tailored outfit for the Emperor, who proudly goes out into the streets, showing off his garments and, as […]