
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 evidence that patients in ‘Permanent Vegetative State’ may be consciously aware
A method of communicating with brain damaged patients who appear to be in a permanent vegetative state has been discovered by scientists in the UK and Belgium and reported in the Lancet online today, 10 November. Out of sixteen patients diagnosed in the vegetative state, three could repeatedly and reliably respond to two distinct commands, […]
New review highlights positive benefits of marriage
The Family Education Trust has just highlighted a report from the Institute of American values which is of huge relevance here given that the government intends to undermine the distinctiveness of marriage by legalizing same-sex marriage. Based on a survey of over 250 peer-reviewed journal articles on marriage and family life from around the world, […]
Opt in or opt out for organ donation? Pressure grows for change
There have been growing demands this week for the introduction of a system of organ donation across the UK in which everyone is automatically placed on the organ donor register. This would mean that, unless people specifically opted out, hospitals would be allowed to use their organs for transplants on their death. Monday saw the […]
Euthanasia of woman with advanced dementia in Netherlands sounds loud warning to Britain
A 64-year-old woman suffering severe senile dementia has been euthanised in the Netherlands – even though she was no longer able to express her wish to die. The unnamed woman was a long-term supporter of euthanasia and had made a written statement when she was still well, saying how she wished to die. But the […]
Practising compassion and justice
Having just got back from a two day conference in the Netherlands on researching and teaching spiritual care for nursing students, I was once again confronted on my return to our island shores by more stories about the failures of even the most basic care in our country. Indeed, one of the features of all […]
Some good news from Europe
The economic crisis in the Eurozone is dominating headlines, but it has not all been bad news from Europe. Hidden in the media reporting from Europe at the end of last week was some encouraging news about an ECHR ruling that upholds a ban in Austria on using donor egg and sperm for IVF. Interestingly, […]
Another study showing a strong link between abortion and mental health problems
I’m grateful to AAPLOG for drawing my attention to yet another study showing a strong link between abortion and mental illness. The paper, titled ‘Associations Between Abortion, Mental Disorders, and Suicidal Behaviour in a Nationally Representative Sample’ was published in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry in April 2010 and confirmed ‘a strong association between abortion […]
Pressure grows on David Cameron to support ‘Robin Hood Tax’ ahead of G20 summit
Last week I was one of 70 organisational leaders who signed a letter to Prime Minister David Cameron asking him to support a new international tax at the G20 summit. The letter, pasted below, was delivered last Monday. On 3-4 November the G20 convenes in Cannes as leaders from the world’s major economies gather to […]
Seven billion – BBC brings some welcome balance to the population debate
According to the BBC, when I was born, I was the 2,909,761,661st person alive on Earth and the 76,445,556,695th person to have lived since history began. You can calculate your own number on line and if you put in today’s date you will learn that there have been 83 billion people born since 50,000 […]
New test highlights a stark paradox at the heart of prenatal testing
It is easy to garner opposition to prenatal testing and abortion of fetuses found with a duplicate X-chromosome in each cell. This is a condition commonly diagnosed as “female.” The testing of a fetus to find out its sex, with the aim of aborting it if it is not the ‘right’ or ‘wanted’ gender is […]
Abortion for Down’s Syndrome – tragic story, review of trends and personal reflections
There was a tragic story in the Daily Mail yesterday titled ‘Having an amnio test ruined my life’. It relates the testimony of Marie Ideson who was coerced by doctors into having an abortion for her 16 week old baby with Down’s Syndrome, a decision she now bitterly regrets. The incident led eventually not just […]
Population control lobby seeks to impose its agenda rather than addressing the real causes of poverty
The world’s population is due to pass seven billion on 31 October and campaigners for population control are again using it as an opportunity to promote their agenda. Back in February 2009 Jonathon Porritt (pictured), former chairman of the UK Government’s Sustainable Development Commission, said that curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must […]