
blogs


‘Lies, damned lies and statistics’ from the Alan Guttmacher Institute
One of the principal techniques used by the pro-abortion lobby to advance their agenda of legalising…

The role of faith-based organisations in global health
‘Faith makes such an important contribution to development.’ So begins ‘Faith Partnership Principles’…

The Savita case in Ireland: media reporting was muddled and misleading
At the same time that the Leveson Inquiry has reported it is beginning to emerge that the media reporting…

Nurses to be trained to give compassionate care
Falling care standards have prompted a rallying call from the new Chief Nursing Officer. In an increasingly…

Investigation into the Liverpool Care Pathway – an update
On Monday 26 November, Care Minister Norman Lamb MP (pictured) convened roundtable talks with parliamentarians,…

Why opinion polls supporting euthanasia are a waste of space
The Daily Mail is today running a story titled ‘Majority of Brits want assisted suicide legalised as…

RCGP Chairman Clare Gerada moves to gag doctors on ‘assisted dying’
I’ve had a flurry of correspondence recently from GPs expressing deep concern at RCGP Council Chair…

Changing Ireland’s abortion law will not save any mothers and could lead to 11,000 more abortions annually
Savita Halappanavar was an Indian woman who tragically died on 28 October in Galway University Hospital,…

Savita’s death is a tragedy but is not a reason to change Ireland’s law on abortion
Savita Halappanavar (pictured) was an Indian woman who tragically died in Ireland from overwhelming infection…

BBC Panorama findings will heighten calls for review of Tony Bland judgement
Tuesday night’s BBC Panorama told the story of a Canadian man who was believed to have been in a vegetative…

Japanese Robots proposed as solution for declining birthrate and workforce and increasing elderly care needs
I have previously highlighted Japan’s huge demographic time bomb and the fact that virtually all Western…
BMA affirms Liverpool Care Pathway
Negative media coverage of the Liverpool Care Pathway (LCP) in recent months has been incredibly unhelpful, spreading fear and confusion amongst patients and relatives. A small number of well-publicised failures to use the tool properly have led to a widespread smearing of its name. Some media coverage has approached the hysterical, with implications that certain […]
Women must be informed of the overwhelming evidence linking abortion and later preterm birth
The link between abortion and premature birth is already well established but largely underplayed or denied by British authorities including the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG). Most doctors and women are therefore not aware of it. I have previously summarised the medical evidence on this blog and have recently highlighted major Finnish, Danish […]
The question that the police have not asked and Nitschke has not answered
Australia’s ‘Dr Death’ Philip Nitschke (pictured left) visited the UK this week and held a ‘workshop’ at Dragon Hall in London providing instruction in how to commit suicide. About 150 people attended. Not understandably the event evoked protests (see picture below) and some publicity. In the week before Nitschke arrived I wrote to both the Home Secretary Theresa […]
Three-parent embryos for mitochondrial disease? Twelve reasons for caution
The media is buzzing today with the news that Britain is planning to become the first country in the world to offer controversial ‘three-parent’ fertility treatments to families who want to avoid passing on mitochondrial diseases to their children (See Guardian, Times(£), Independent, Daily Mail and Telegraph). The Department of Health announced yesterday that it would draw up draft guidelines to […]
Teaching in medicine – what would Jesus do?
I recently had the slightly strange experience of running some seminars for GP Tutors at my old medical school. It was the first time that I had returned there (apart from a brief evening visit for our year’s thirtieth anniversary) for 37 years. Although I believe my alma-mater was no worse than most others at […]
Why did the Home Secretary let this man into the UK?
Last week I wrote to the Home Secretary Theresa May advising her about the visit of Australian assisted suicide enthusiast Philip Nitschke (pictured) and urging her to prevent him entering Britain to conduct a seminar on methods people can use to kill themselves. Today Nitschke was detained at Gatwick airport, but eventually let into the […]
Belgium and the Netherlands escalate their children’s euthanasia programmes
In this last week both Belgium and the Netherlands have taken major steps towards euthanasia for children. A consensus among members of the Belgian Federal Parliament has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as […]
US House of Representatives vote for 20 week abortion limit raises the issue again for the UK
The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would reduce late abortions. The plan to restrict terminations to the first 20 weeks after conception was approved by 228 votes to 196, largely along party lines. The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which was based on research showing that the unborn child can […]
My letter to the General Medical Council over its guidance to doctors on conscientious objection to abortion
When two Glasgow midwives won the right to opt out of supervising abortions last April I suggested that the General Medical Council (GMC) needed to revise its professional guidance on the matter which now seemed to be at odds with the law. At the time Niall Dickson (pictured), the GMC’s chief executive, actually told the Guardian […]
Exposing the lack of accountability by NHS funded abortion providers
A Government consultation on the collection of standard statistics on abortion may seem like a pretty dry and uncontroversial topic. And indeed it mostly is. However there are two important – and more controversial issues – which the collection of these statistics raises. One is the unexplained but very concerning discrepancy in the data for […]
Glasgow health board again tries to force midwives to supervise abortions
Two Glasgow midwives, who won a landmark legal battle to avoid taking any part in abortion procedures, may now have to return to court. Last April appeal judges ruled that the right of Mary Doogan and Concepta Wood (pictured) to conscientious objection meant they could refuse to delegate, supervise or support staff involved in abortions. […]
Government drags its feet over investigating doctors who pre-signed abortion forms
Last July I blogged about the 14 NHS abortion clinics which according to reports by the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the health service regulator in England, had broken the law by allowing doctors to pre-sign forms authorising abortions. The story was covered by the BBC, Telegraph, Daily Mail and Guardian. The breaches were uncovered in an investigation ordered by Health Secretary Andrew Lansley who asked […]