
blogs


Lucy Letby- a deep grief
This is such a deeply disturbing case. One of the most horrifying scandals to ever hit the NHS. A neonatal…

Doctors on strike – reflections of a conflicted consultant
On 1 August 1983, my life changed forever. I started work in the NHS. I lost all that I had known of…

Complete societal capture on abortion
The sentencing of a woman for two years imprisonment for performing a home abortion with pills obtained…

Mitochondrial manipulated births: a muted reception
For a prospect anticipated for almost 20 years, the announcement in a Guardian exclusive of the successful…

When is a ‘synthetic’ embryo a real embryo?
Embryonic stem cell-derived embryos (ESCDEs) have been around for a long time.
Last year, an ESCDE,…

You wouldn’t do it to a dog! Current fetal pain relief in NHS abortions
This blog should perhaps carry one of those BBC-style warnings, ‘some viewers may find the following…

Moral flip-flopping over doctors and the death penalty
I have long argued that ethicists who advocate euthanasia while at the same time being opposed to capital…

‘Because you’re worth it?’ The BMA and the junior doctors’ strikes
Easter 2023 is likely to be remembered for a long time in the NHS. Straight after a four-day bank holiday…

‘Of Mice and Men’
The Second International Summit on Human Genome Editing in 2018 really hit the headlines when Prof He…

When is a baby not a baby?
Last week Panorama ran an ‘investigation’ into pregnancy advice centres which they claimed give misleading…

Neuro-silicon interfaces: a new mode of being?
The idea of humankind being merely machines has a long history, stretching back to Julien Offrey De La…
New report shows close links between public health and private relationships
What do the following have to do with relationships? Cardiovascular disease, child poverty, alcohol/substance misuse, depression, and mental health, mortality rates, obesity/child obesity, children’s mental health/cognitive development and infant attachment. The answer is that all these are specific public health concerns and each one is closely linked to the quality of relationships between couples and […]
Jesus Christ was unashamedly speciesist
In 2011 British farmers slaughtered 26,000 cattle and introduced emergency measures to curb the spread of bovine tuberculosis, costing the taxpayer £90 million. In response, government ministers approved the cull of up to 100,000 badgers thought to be responsible for harbouring the disease. The move provoked the largest animal rights protest since those over fox […]
Euthanasia – what does the Bible say?
There are two instances of euthanasia in the Bible. In the first, Abimelech, believing himself to be fatally wounded (with a fractured skull after being hit on the head by a millstone), asks his armour-bearer to kill him to spare him the ‘indignity’ of being killed by a woman (Judges 9:52-55). In the second, an […]
Lord Falconer’s ‘assisted dying’ bill is ‘asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque’ say Peers
In a report published today by think-tank Living and Dying Well three Peers with distinguished legal backgrounds explain in layman’s terms what the law on ‘assisted dying’ says and how it is applied. They also examine a number of claims made by proponents of legalised physician-assisted suicide and conclude that they fail to stand up […]
Cheap grace – a false gospel and a deadly enemy of the church
Many evangelicals are suspicious of ethics. They think it undermines grace and distracts from the preaching of the gospel. They also fear that it leads to legalism. They want to emphasise, quite rightly, the fact that salvation is a gift that we cannot earn. Salvation is through God’s grace alone and received by faith alone. […]
Lord Falconer’s ‘assisted dying’ bill is ‘asking Parliament to sign a blank cheque’ say Peers
In a report published today by think-tank Living and Dying Well three Peers with distinguished legal backgrounds explain in layman’s terms what the law on ‘assisted dying’ says and how it is applied. They also examine a number of claims made by proponents of legalised physician-assisted suicide and conclude that they fail to stand up […]
British government hesitates on three parent embryos as international opposition mounts
The legalisation of three parent embryos for mitochondrial disease in Britain has been facing massive opposition all over the world with so far little response from Westminster. But an answer to a parliamentary question this week gives the first sign that the government may be pausing to draw breath before implementing the new technique. Apparently […]
Lord Falconer reveals that his ‘Assisted Dying Bill’ effectively places doctors above the law
Lord Falconer’s Assisted Dying Bill (details here), which aims to legalise assisted suicide for mentally competent adults with less than six months to live and a ‘clear and settled intention to end their lives’, had its first reading in the House of Lords last May. It is due to return for a second reading (debate stage) in […]
Resolution promoting abortion, undermining conscience and perverting sex education gets short shrift at European Parliament
The European Union voted last week to deny acceptance of a draft report which would have established abortion as a human right, and simultaneously squelched conscientious objection as well as established a perversion of sexual education for children. In a resounding victory for common sense, following a short but lively debate in the European Parliament, […]
Some brief Christian reflections to mark the birth of 5 million children by IVF
Over 5 million children have been born through IVF. The figure comes from a study, the first of its kind, into IVF statistics from countries around the world. According to Bioedge, Researchers scoured government archives for information about how many women had used the procedure since its introduction and estimated that 900,000 children had been born […]
Parents should be informed about the impact of Down’s Syndrome on families
The recent debate on abortion for anencephaly in Northern Ireland has reopened the wider debate on abortion for fetal disability. It is worth, in this context, remaking the point that the most common disability for which babies are aborted in the UK is not anencephaly but Down’s syndrome (DS). This is usually on the basis […]
Bill to legalise euthanasia defeated in Australian state of Tasmania
A bill to legalise euthanasia and assisted suicide in the Australian state of Tasmania has failed in the lower house this week by a vote of 13 to 11. The result was anticipated after Premier Lara Giddings and Nick McKim MP, who proposed the 52-page bill, were undone by a series of powerful critiques. However, the […]