
blogs


Embryonic stem cells from cloned human embryos – six reasons for caution
The newspapers are full today of the news that scientists in the US state of Oregon have produced embryonic…

Joy, sorrow and satisfaction – medical mission in Ecuador
My own personal journey to becoming a medical missionary began when I finished secondary school and went…

It’s exam time! Can smart drugs make you smarter at this testing time?
While a cup of strong coffee is probably the choice of drink for most people studying for exams, perhaps…

The ‘Groningen protocol’ for euthanasia of disabled babies in the Netherlands
In an interview this morning on BBC Five Live (at 0705) on the Paul Lamb case (listen here) I was asked…

Don’t be fooled by Lord Falconer’s ‘modest’ assisted suicide proposals
Lord Falconer has finally announced that his long awaited assisted suicide bill will be tabled in the…

Doctors should not be forced to provide emergency contraception
The Independent has run the story of a ‘Christian-run NHS GP surgery’ which has apparently ‘attracted…

Several leading bioethicists defend the practice of infanticide this week in leading medical journal
In February 2012 two bioethicists provoked international outrage with an article advocating infanticide.
Writing…

Marie Fleming loses Supreme Court appeal challenging ban on assisted suicide
A 59-year-old Irish woman today lost her Supreme Court challenge to the ban on assisted suicide.
Marie…

What the UK needs to learn from the worldwide Church
Last week there was a meeting between David Cameron and leaders of major UK NGOs on the process to find…

GMC and RCM must now move urgently to review their abortion guidance in light of Glasgow midwives court ruling
Two Roman Catholic midwives have today won a landmark legal battle to avoid taking any part in abortion…

Losing trust – why immunisation programmes fail
What do South Wales, North Nigeria and Northwest Pakistan have in common? They all have outbreaks of…
A footnote on Falconer
I posted on Monday the transcript from Charlie Falconer’s disastrous interview with Radio Four’s Ed Stourton, where the noble Lord was forced to concede that his commission on assisted dying was stacked full of the usual suspects and was tied in verbal knots trying to explain how it was still going to deliver an objectively […]
How guilty is the West in the missing millions of girls?
Blogging last week about the impact of sex selective abortion in Asia, I speculated on the cultural and socio-economic factors that were leading families to use ultrasound and other in-utero screening technologies to identify girl children and have them aborted. Little had I (or many of us) realised just how implicated the international aid community […]
BMA rejects request to reconsider its position on presumed consent for organ donation – bad decision!
The British Medical Association today (Tuesday 28 June) rejected a motion calling it to reconsider its position on presumed consent for organ donation. This has happened just as the Welsh Assembly has announced it is introducing a bill to legalise presumed consent. The BMA supports presumed consent but Welsh doctors were trying to get it […]
BMA rejects move to lower upper abortion limit to 20 weeks for normal babies as six US States bring in laws to support it
In view of the BMA debate today on lowering the upper abortion limit for able-bodied (as opposed to disabled) babies from 24 to 20 weeks (lost by 2 to 1 majority btw) I was interested to see this article yesterday in the New York Times, ‘Several States Forbid Abortion After 20 Weeks’. It’s primarily a […]
Falconer confirms bias in composition of his Commission on Assisted Dying ahead of BMA debate on its legitimacy
Former Lord Chancellor Charles Falconer (pictured) appeared on the Radio Four Sunday programme this morning as his controversial ‘commission on assisted dying’ will begin to consider the ‘evidence’ it has gathered this coming Wednesday. Falconer’s commission was set up last November at the instigation of Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society). The commission […]
BMA attempts to skew debate on abortion upper time limit
I was interested to see this week a briefing paper on abortion provided by the British Medical Association in advance of a debate at the BMA annual representative meeting (ARM) this coming Tuesday (28 June). The BMA’s Worcestershire division has proposed a motion (304) that the BMA support a reduction in upper time limits for abortion. […]
Assisted suicide is still suicide and has devastating effects on those left behind
The BBC2 documentary ‘Choosing to die’ was an attempt by the pro-euthanasia lobby, aided by the BBC, to romanticise and normalise suicide. After witnessing a man with motor neurone take his own life by drinking poison at the Dignitas facility, Terry Pratchett, fantasy novelist and patron of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (now rebranded ‘Dignity in Dying’), […]
Sex selective abortion is devastating the health of women and girls
A UN report published yesterday (23 June) suggests that not only is sex selective abortion becoming a growing trend in many Asian countries, it is also having huge health and social consequences for women and girls. Sadly, this is not news. Over twenty years ago, the Indian writer and thinker Amartya Sen wrote about the […]
A letter to Jeremy Hunt about BBC media portrayal of suicide
Last week I wrote on behalf of Care Not Killing (an alliance, of which CMF is one of over 40 organisational members) to Jeremy Hunt (pictured), the Secretary of State for Cuture, Olympics, Media and Sport. I asked him to carry out an investigation into the way assisted suicide is covered by the BBC and […]
New ‘withdrawal of treatment’ case poses major threat to disabled people
BBC Radio 4’s File on Four programme earlier this week, ‘A Living Death’, featured four case histories of people with serious brain damage. They included Ian Wilson, an Aberdeen man in his 50s, who suffered a severe head injury in a road accident 21 years ago and is now the longest surviving patient in the UK with […]
Reclaiming dignity in dying
BBC scriptwriters, viewers and listeners fought back over the weekend to recapture the word ‘dignity’ from the assisted suicide lobby. ‘Dignity in death is so important’ TV paramedic Kathleen “Dixie” Dixon told Saturday night’s peak time viewers on the TV drama Casualty. In this week’s storyline, Dixie, played by actress Jane Hazlegrove, took an elderly couple […]
Human rights of the elderly once again being neglected
Today saw the publication of yet another in a series of damning reports on the failures of our care system. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has reported interim findings in a major survey of how care is being delivered to vulnerable people, and has found that care of the elderly in their own homes […]