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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…
Patients with dementia and psychiatric illnesses included as Dutch euthanasia cases rise steeply
According to Dutch media reports today, euthanasia deaths in the Netherlands in 2011 increased by 18% to 3,695. This follows increases of 13% in 2009 and 19% in 2010. In fact from 2006 to 2011 there has been a steady increase in numbers each year with successive annual deaths at 1923, 2120, 2331, 2636, 3136 […]
What do Ludwig van Beethoven, Justin Bieber and Tim Tebow have in common?
A professor in a college ethics class presented his students with a problem. He said, ‘A man has syphilis and his wife has tuberculosis. They have had four children: one has died, the other three have what is considered to be a terminal illness. The mother is pregnant. What do you recommend?’ After a spirited […]
Warning to UK – Oregon Health Plan steers patients towards suicide
Members of the pro-euthanasia movement frequently point to the US state of Oregon, which legalised assisted suicide in 1997, as a model which Britain should follow. Lord Falconer and Margo Macdonald MSP are two British politicians who have frequently sung the praises of Oregon which allows assisted suicide for mentally competent adults with less than […]
BBC article on ‘gay therapies’ is simplistic, misleading and ignores much of the available evidence
Should people with unwanted feelings of same-sex attraction seek professional help? And if so what kind of help and what expectations should they realistically have? BBC Religion and Ethics have today published an article on this extremely controversial subject titled ‘Ex-gay survivor’s tales of exorcism in middle England’. I was asked to submit a quote […]
Major split in LibCon Coalition over assisted suicide
The Liberal Democrat conference voted yesterday to back the legalisation of ‘medically assisted dying’, a euphemism for assisted suicide and euthanasia. The complex motion included an explanatory note which applauded the Dutch legal model, which a House of Lords enquiry in 2005 predicted would lead to 13,000 euthanasia deaths annually in Britain. The result was […]
Liberal Democrats back Dutch style legislation which would lead to 13,000 British euthanasia deaths annually
On Sunday 23 September the Liberal Democrat conference debated and passed a motion on ‘medically assisted dying’. Chris Davies MEP and Lorely Burt MP called on the Liberal Democrat Conference to ‘press for the introduction of a government bill on (medically assisted dying)’ and, ‘in the event of a Bill being introduced through Private Members’ […]
Abortion after rape – the issues and emotions involved are not as straightforward as most people presume
I was interested to see published this week a statement from the ‘Ad Hoc Committee of Women Pregnant by Sexual Assault (WPSA)’. This group was formed eight years ago to petition the US Congress to hold hearings on the issue of abortion in cases of pregnancy resulting from rape or incest. So far, however, this […]
Current law supports eugenic abortion for disabled people – our letter in today’s Daily Telegraph
I am one of nine joint signatories to a letter in the Daily Telegraph today arguing that the success of the Paralympics should trigger a rethink of Britain’s abortion laws to make it illegal to terminate a pregnancy solely on grounds that a child will be born disabled. We describe the practice of aborting foetuses […]
Three reasons why CMF opposes creating three parent embryos
The news is full of debates today about whether or not new research techniques should be used to create children who do not have mitochondrial disease. New research, known as mitochondria replacement, could enable women to avoid passing debilitating and sometimes fatal mitochondrial diseases on to their children by using a donor’s mitochondria to create […]
Are there limits to free speech in dissuading women from having abortions?
Should protestors be allowed outside abortion clinics? And if so should there be any limits on what they can say and do? To what extent should the right to freedom of speech trump the right to an abortion? These were some of the questions being considered at a debate at the Conway Hall, London last […]
The mystery of the thirteenth constellation of the zodiac and its connection to medicine
The zodiac is that band in the sky followed by the sun, moon and planets. Just 13 of the 88 named constellations cross the ecliptic, its midline. 13? But aren’t there just twelve constellations in the zodiac? Yes indeed – Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces. So what’s […]
Most MPs oppose the legalisation of assisted suicide says new poll
More than seven out of ten MPs refuse to back calls to legalise assisted suicide, according to a new survey released today (See reports from Press Association, Telegraph and Conservative Home). The poll comes just a week after two newly appointed junior health ministers, Anna Soubry and Norman Lamb, suggested that assisted suicide should be […]