
blogs


Presumed consent, abortion and Falconer Commission on menu at BMA annual meeting
The British Medical Association’s Annual Representative Meeting (ARM) takes place at the end of this…

Using organs from euthanasia victims now an established procedure in ‘brave new Belgium’
Recently I blogged about Jack Kevorkian, the American pathologist known by many as ‘Dr Death’ for…

Papageno and Werther effects – public policy lessons for the prevention of suicide
I recently blogged about the new German film ‘Goethe’, a study of the early life of the celebrated…

Kevorkian’s life and death is sober warning of the dangers of legalising assisted suicide
Jack Kevorkian, the American pathologist known by many as ‘Dr Death’ for his role in helping over…

Paying less for vaccines – marketing strategy or an answer to prayer?
The giant pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has announced it will be making its Rotarix…

BBC to show Dignitas death – further bias and will fuel more suicides
The BBC’s decision to screen a man's dying moments at the Dignitas suicide facility in a documentary…

Telegraph highlights our comments on End of Life Charter not addressing religious beliefs
On returning from a trip to Canada, for the Third International Symposium on preventing assisted suicide…

The Problem with Care – more questions raised by BBC Panorama
Another week, and another story about poor care standards – this time an exposé on the BBC’s…

Altering the Body: the rise and rise of cosmetic surgery
This week the 90 second daily 4thought.tv programme on ethical topics tackles cosmetic surgery, under…

New End of Life Patient Charter is a good start but does not go far enough
More than 8,000 GP surgeries in England will be asked to display a new patient charter on end of life…

Times newspaper unwisely joins campaign to legalise assisted suicide
The Times newspaper has today (Monday, 30 May) devoted two whole pages and an editorial to the pro-assisted…
Mum beats lung tumour after refusing to sacrifice her baby to save her own life
There is an inspiring story in the Daily Mail this morning about a 21 year old mother who beat cancer after refusing to sacrifice her unborn child. Daniella Jackson was diagnosed with a tumour in her left lung shortly before discovering she was pregnant and refused doctors’ advice to abort her child so they could operate […]
‘Beauty is more than what you look like’: mother’s inspiring video about her blind baby boy
A YouTube video that a young mother has created about her blind baby boy and his rare cleft palate condition has spread virally, racking up some 7 million views and delivering hundreds of personal messages of support to her Facebook and email inboxes. In the short home made video the 25-year-old mother describes the struggles […]
BMA strike ballot – how should Christian doctors respond?
Today the BMA has begun to ballot members on whether to take industrial action over government pension plans. The ballot runs from 15 to 29 May on two questions – firstly whether doctors are prepared to strike, and secondly whether they are prepared to take action short of a full strike. However, the BMA has […]
New warnings on risks of popular infertility treatments
Hot on the heels of warnings last week about one in ten babies suffering birth defects after ICSI (intracytoplasmic sperm injection) come more warnings about the use of drugs in fertility treatments that is putting both women and children at real risk to their health. In some ways neither news item should come as a […]
Educating women is the key to lowering maternal mortality
The fifth Millennium Development Goal (MDG) put forward by the United Nations (MDG-5) proposes to reduce the world’s maternal mortality ratio by 75%, by 2015. But what is the best way of doing this? International programmes sponsored by the UK and US governments, and delivered under the auspices of international organisations like the UNFPA (UN […]
Phyllis Bowman, campaigner who led struggle against abortion and euthanasia, dies aged 85
The veteran British pro-life campaigner Phyllis Bowman has died aged 85. Bowman, who was described today as a ‘leading light of the global pro-life movement’, died peacefully this morning in Hammersmith Hospital, west London, with her family at her side. For over 40 years she played a leading role in efforts to overturn the Abortion […]
New GMC & Stonewall leaflet on getting ‘discriminatory’ doctors struck off
The General Medical Council, the official regulatory body for doctors, has published a leaflet in conjunction with gay rights activist group Stonewall, giving detailed advice about how to lodge a complaint against doctors who are felt to be discriminating against gay, lesbian and bisexual patients. The leaflet, titled ‘Protecting patients: your rights as lesbian, gay […]
A week with two good prayers and one bad one
I’ve just returned from a fantastic CMF National Conference at Swanwick on the theme ‘heroes of faith’. One of the talks by Pablo Martinez focussed on the three friends of Daniel the prophet who were thrown into a fiery furnace by the King of Babylon for refusing to bow down to a statue he had […]
Above all, the NHS needs an ‘avalanche of compassion’
At this year’s Rendle Short Lecture during the CMF National Conference, Dr Tim Lyttle (a GP and social entrepreneur in the Midlands and Northwest) threw out a challenge to CMF and its members to re-engage with the human dimension of medicine. In a moving and honest address, Dr Lyttle shared from his own experiences of […]
Remembering Millie
Radio 4 recently broadcast a touching story on the life of a disabled child. The program revealed how CMF members, Frances and Martin, were told that their daughter suffered from holoprosencephaly. Despite medical advice they chose to proceed with the pregnancy and in February 2007 Millie was born. Astonishingly, not only did Millie survive the […]
Disagreement amongst Christians is normal and unity does not mean uniformity
My father was a Congregationalist and my mother Anglican and after leaving home my brother joined the Baptists and I the Open Brethren. I married my Presbyterian wife in a Christian Missionary Alliance church, and during house-jobs we were members of an Apostolic Pentecostal fellowship. Later whilst working in another city we were members of […]
Margo Macdonald’s flawed proposals on assisted suicide
Today is the last day to respond to Margo Macdonald’s consultation on assisted suicide. The MSP is planning to bring another bill to the Scottish Parliament in an attempt to legalise assisted suicide just over a year after her last similar bill was overwhelmingly defeated by 85 votes to 16. Essentially this is a rerun […]