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Increasing survival of extremely premature babies again raises questions about upper abortion limits
The increasing survival of extremely premature babies is again raising serious questions about the 24…

Activists’ attempt to legalise abortion on demand up until birth is both unnecessary and unwanted
A campaign by activists to legalise abortion on demand up until birth hots up again this month, with…

End of Life Issues. What can we expect in 2017?
Things have been quieter than usual on the end of life front in the UK since the overwhelming defeat…

Sex and Relationship Education: should it be compulsory in schools or not?
The Government has just announced major changes to Sex and Relationships Education (SRE) in all schools,…

Regulator’s proposal to remove pharmacists’ conscience rights is unethical, unnecessary and quite possibly illegal
Should pharmacists be forced to dispense drugs for what they consider to be unethical practices – like…

Surrogacy – good rulings from Europe put the UK out on a limb
The disentangling of the UK from the European Union will inevitably, over time, put us more and more…

The age-old question: Science and political interests in the debate over abortion
Political agendas hiding behind science are nothing new. A particularly famous episode occurred in the…

Global Health – challenges for the coming year
2016 may have got a bad press in some parts of the media, but step back from the Anglophone world and…

Beginning of Life issues in 2017: what will we be talking about this year?
2017 will be another busy and challenging year on beginning of life issues
Abortion
October 2017 marks…

Bullying and NHS Culture
It seems hard to credit that an organisation whose primary focus is the care of the sick, disabled and…

Despite the marketing, egg freezing is not all it’s cracked up to be
IVF has become an almost routine procedure since the birth of Louise Brown in 1978. So much so that women…
Cut and Paste: A new revolution in genetics
Great excitement has been developing over the past few months about new opportunities to eliminate diseases using cheaper, more efficient and more precise gene-editing techniques. But these same techniques are also bringing fresh urgency to the safety and ethics of genetic engineering and ‘designer babies’. Ever since the discovery of the DNA double helix, different […]
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. In case you were wondering, it’s called ‘No 2’ because an almost identical Assisted Dying Bill has been tabled in the House of Lords by Labour Peer Lord Falconer. Marris wants to change the law to […]
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 by the Sunday Times who were planning to run a high profile story about a 75 year old retired nurse being helped to kill herself in Switzerland. The story of Gill Pharaoh’s death was later published last […]
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 week we heard about a surrogate mother who changed her mind about handing over the child she carried, to the gay couple who had paid £9,000 ‘expenses’ for her to do so. The baby boy is not genetically […]
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 July 2003, hearing about an exciting, new, joint initiative of the World Evangelical Alliance and the Micah Network for Integral Mission. Called ‘The Micah Challenge’, its aim was to wake the worldwide church up to the opportunity to […]
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 (no 2) Bill. Marris wants to give adults who are terminally ill and mentally competent the ‘right’ to have assistance to kill themselves using lethal drugs on the say-so of two doctors and one high court judge. The bill […]
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 and labelled it ‘spiritual’. In truth, all nursing and medical care has recognised that spiritual needs exist and need to be paid attention to as part of the proper care of any patient. These spiritual needs are variously defined, […]
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 last week spoken out strongly against the legalisation of assisted suicide. The British Geriatrics Society is the professional body of specialists in the health care of older people in the United Kingdom. It has over 2,750 members worldwide and draws together experts from all […]
Christians must speak out about the Marris Bill on assisted suicide
Labour MP Rob Marris wants to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales. His Assisted Dying (No 2) Bill would allowmentally competent adults (>18) judged to have less than six months to live to receive help to kill themselves once given approval by two doctors and a High Court judge. Marris’s Bill is essentially […]
Putting faith in global healthcare
I have long argued on this blog that there needs to be a greater engagement with faith based organisations and faith communities in health care planning and delivery in the UK and around the world. It is always encouraging when the wider medical community says the same thing back to you! Yesterday, the Lancet […]
The BMA: A trade union with integrity?
Can the British Medical Association (BMA) be trusted to ‘maintain the honour and interests of the medical profession?’ Or is the BMA another big organisation without full accountability, making recommendations ostensibly on behalf of its members whilst failing to operate democratically? The BMA published its parliamentary brief on 24 February regarding mitochondrial replacement techniques, otherwise […]
Abortion and preterm births: what women need to know but are not told
Prematurity – a birth prior to 37 weeks gestational age – has recently been described as: ‘the biggest challenge in western obstetrics, with severe neonatal morbidity (and a need for intensive care treatment for infant respiratory distress syndrome, feeding problems, neonatal jaundice and cerebral palsy) and infant mortality.’ In the UK 7.8% of babies […]