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New Study of Medical Students Reveals a Strong Support for Freedom of Conscience
A study in the Journal of Medical Ethics published yesterday showed that nearly 50% of medical students…

General Medical Council and Medical Defence Union endorse ‘tactful’ offers of prayer by GPs
The GP magazine Pulse reports in an exclusive this week on new guidance from the Medical Defence Union…

A life precious to God – how to cope when you find your unborn baby has special needs
There is a deeply heart-warming story in the Daily Mail today (July 18 2011) titled, ‘Doctors told…

Greater than Google – final reflections on the Developing Health Course
I'm back in the office after the Developing Health Course, analysing feedback forms, tying up loose ends…

Martin Pistorius: a story about faith, hope and love through ‘locked in syndrome’
The Sunday Times today tells the story of Martin Pistorius, a South African man who ended up paralysed…

Britain promotes media advertising for abortion whilst Russia attempts to curb it
The Daily Telegraph carried the story earlier this month that private clinics which carry out abortions…

Italy joins Bulgaria and France in blocking euthanasia legislation
Earlier this year I reported that France, Australia, Scotland, Israel and Canada had recently blocked…

Abortion and mental health: is there a link?
This is a question that has been the subject of many a debate in academia, in politics, in the public…

Is Treatment Becoming the New Prevention Fad for HIV & AIDS?
Two new studies (one in Kenya and Uganda, the other in Botswana) were published this week suggesting…

Emmerdale injects some reality into its depiction of the sequelae of assisted suicide
I am not an Emmerdale fan but I was interested to see the way the Soap is developing the story following…

Pre-implantation genetic diagnosis is too high a price for a perfect baby
Last week the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology (ESHRE) held its annual meeting…
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 […]