
blogs


British Medical Journal publishes my reply to its article on CMF and faith discussions with patients
A couple of weeks ago the British Medical Journal published an article in its Lobby Watch column about…

New pre-natal screening test makes eliminating all people with genetic disease an achievable reality
‘Fetal DNA tests: Are we finally entering an era of eugenics?’ This was the question raised by Nancy…

Christian pharmacists under threat from new guidelines on morning-after pill provision
Christian pharmacists who object to dispensing the morning-after pill are facing pressure from their…

London hospital backs down from forcing Christian nurses to participate in abortion after receiving lawyer’s letter
A London hospital which tried to force two Christian nurses to participate in abortion has backed down…

Commercials of convenience – plans to advertise abortion on TV and radio contested
HG Wells once said that 'advertising is legalised lying'. He would not have been thinking of TV adverts…

China vows crackdown on sex-selective abortion to close gender gap
You are unlikely to read this from any British media outlet in the midst of the London riots and falling…

Thriving 5-year old born at 23 weeks fuels calls for lowering of upper abortion limit
The mother of a boy, now five years old, who was born prematurely at 23 weeks gestation, has again ignited…

Dignity in Dying blog opts for assisted death after suffering unbearably
The Dignity in Dying blog has opted for assisted suicide after apparently suffering unbearably from a…

Matt Hampson – awe-inspiring article in Sunday Times on coping with tetraplegia
'Engage!' was the last word Matt Hampson heard before dislocating his neck while in rugby training with…

A politically incorrect final solution for Britain’s growing elderly population
The BBC has reminded us this week that today's 20-year-olds are three times more likely to live to…

Marketing tactics used by BPAS and MSI to increase abortion pressure
My attention has just been drawn to a new report by Right to Know (RTK) which reveals the pressure that…
Why helping a few women will harm many more: the untold cost of creating three parent embryos
It seems ironic that while ten or so women may be helped each year to have embryos free from mitochondrial disease (yes, the numbers are that small as a Government ‘estimate’ admits), many hundreds of other women will be put at real risk of harm to help them achieve this. There is a deafening silence […]
Why Lord Carey is so desperately wrong about legalising assisted suicide
Lord Carey, former Archbishop of Canterbury, has surprisingly come out today in favour of Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill which is due to have its second reading in the House of Lords on Friday 18 July. Falconer advocates licensing doctors to dispense lethal drugs to mentally competent adults with a life expectancy of less than six months and a […]
Restoring or Enhancing
If you love sport, then this weekend offered a surfeit of riches! We were spoiled for choice, with football from Brazil, F1 from Silverstone, the opening stages of the Tour de France across Yorkshire’s moors packed with 2.6 million spectators and, of course, the Wimbledon finals. Something for everyone! Our household was gripped by the […]
Oregon – steady annual increase in assisted suicide cases sounds warning to UK
Lord Falconer wants to legalise assisted suicide for adults who are mentally competent and have less than six months to live based on the ‘Oregon model’. Since assisted suicide was legalised in Oregon there has been a steady annual increase in the number of prescriptions written for lethal drugs and in numbers of people killing […]
Twelve reasons to think twice about going the Oregon route on assisted suicide
Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill, due for a second reading in the House of Lords on 18 July, is purportedly based on the US state of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act (DWDA). Dignity in Dying, the former Voluntary Euthanasia Society, who are backing Falconer, claim that everything is wonderful in Oregon. But is that really true? Over […]
Freedom of conscience in medicine is under sustained attack but is worth fighting for
I have previously highlighted the case of two Glasgow midwives who were disciplined by their NHS Trust for refusing to participate in abortion. Their Trust was found to be in the wrong by the Scottish Court of Appeal and the case has been referred to the UK Supreme Court where a further hearing is still awaited. A single […]
Might the large disparity in premature birth rates between black and white women be partly explained by abortion?
Prematurity is associated with a wide variety of health risks. In the UK, 7.8% of babies are born prematurely (60,000 per year) and this number is on the rise. The total cost of preterm birth to NHS is £2.9 billion a year, equivalent to that of smoking, alcohol and obesity. Reducing the rate of preterm […]
Three-parent embryos – an orange light doesn’t mean Go!
Any sub-heading to this blog post could ask a further question: ‘why should we be concerned about this issue anyway? After all, what’s not to like about new techniques that could stop a horrible disease, that seem to be safe (enough), that only involve manipulating a tiny bit of DNA on a tiny embryo […]
Why are men more in favour of abortion?
Most people assume that abortion garners more support from women than men. This is probably because being pro-abortion is seen as a pillar of feminism and calls to reduce abortion limits are usually attacked as being, in some way, a ‘war on women’. As one feminist claimed recently, any stance which seeks to limit women’s […]
Offer of sex change drugs to nine year olds should make us question therapists’ ideological presuppositions
Children as young as nine are to be prescribed drugs which delay the onset of puberty as the first step towards a sex change operation (Mail on Sunday and Daily Telegraph). Doctors at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust said a trial of the treatment on ‘gender dysphoria’ patients aged 12 to 14 had […]
Saving the NHS
Last Thursday the think tank Res Publica launched a report into the state of the National Health Service, and proposed that a greater role for mutual societies might be key in building a sustainable health service for the future. We are all familiar with the diagnosis – we have a growing elderly population, a dwindling […]
Talking about death – the importance of openness about one of life’s certainties
About two thirds of the way into Alexander Payne’s 2011 film The Descendants, Matt King (played by George Clooney) walks calmly into the hospital room of his comatose wife, Elizabeth. He closes the door gently and then proceeds to excoriate her for controlling and messing up the lives of everyone around her. This powerful scene […]