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Women who keep their disabled babies face coercion, discrimination and disdain
I recently attended the second oral evidence session of the Parliamentary ‘Inquiry into Abortion…

The RCGP Council should reject Clare Gerada’s attempt to push it neutral on assisted suicide and euthanasia
Next Friday, 22 February, the Council of the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) willconsider…

Panorama highlights liberal interpretation of abortion law by British doctors
Last Monday I took part in the BBC Panorama programme ‘The Great Abortion Divide’ (watch it on I-Player).
It…

Thirst for life – raising alcohol prices to save lives
A study released today by the Center for Addictions Research of British Colombia has found that a 10%…

Francis Report shines revealing light on the NHS
When some ill-advised bloggers in the US attacked the British National Health Service in the…

Radio Four debate on ‘change therapies’ for unwanted same-sex attraction
This morning I took part in a short documentary on the Radio Four Sunday programme on ‘change therapies’…

Survival of twins born at 23 weeks and new Inquiry into abortion for disability reopen debate on abortion upper limits
When twins Mackenzie and Cameron Glover were born 17 weeks prematurely on 17 June last year, they were…

Inquiry into Abortion on the Grounds of Disability – a chance to remove discriminatory laws?
For the first time for years a cross Parliamentary group will be thoroughly reviewing the law on abortion…

Warning sounded to UK as Oregon assisted suicide deaths hit record high
Lord Falconer has just announced that he is about to introduce a new bill into the House of Lords…

Flesh and Blood – giving more than money
A campaign to mobilise churches to increase the number of blood and organ donors in the UK has been launched…

Lord Falconer announces yet another bill on assisted suicide
Lord Falconer (pictured) announced this week(£) that he would launch another bill to legalise assisted…
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 100 people commit suicide, died early last Friday morning in Detroit. Kevorkian’s lawyer, Mayer Morganroth, told the Detroit Free Press that the infamous euthanasiast appears to have suffered a pulmonary thrombosis after a blood clot in his leg broke […]
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 rotavirus vaccine available at a discount to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI). Rotarix is vital in protecting against diarrhoeal diseases that kill more than half a million children a year. GSK is offering a 67 percent discount to […]
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 fronted by Terry Pratchett has already come under heavy criticism. A five-minute sequence in the BBC2 programme, due to be shown on 13 June, shows celebrity author Pratchett witnessing Peter, a British man in his early 70s who […]
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 and euthanasia, I see that the Daily Telegraph has picked up on my earlier criticism that the End of Life Charter doesn’t address religious beliefs’ In an article titled ‘Dying charter “doesn’t address religious beliefs”’the Telegraph reports:Dr Peter Saunders, chief executive […]
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 Panorama of appalling patient abuse by nursing and care staff in Winterbourne View, a specialist private hospital for adults with learning disabilities. And rightly, bodies including the Nursing & Midwifery Council, Royal College of Nursing and Care Quality Commission have denounced the ill […]
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 the headline ‘is it right to alter the body?’ It seems that many are answering ‘yes’ to this. In 2006 nearly £500 million was spent in Britain on nips, tucks and botox, four times more than in 2001. That figure […]
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 care launched today. The document contains seven ‘pledges’to make the last few weeks and days of a person’s life as comfortable as possible.It also includes calls for healthcare teams to do all they can to preserve patients’ […]
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 suicide cause just as Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) is launching its latest propaganda barrage on parliament with the mailing of a new booklet to all MPs and Peers. The Times initially adopted a campaigning stance in […]
Abortion statistics raise profound questions about our priorities and attitudes as a society
The Department of Health published the 2010 abortion figures for England and Wales yesterday. There were 189,574 terminations in England and Wales during 2010. This was 0.3 per cent more than the previous year but 8 per cent more than the 175,542 recorded in 2000. In 1969, the first full year after legalisation, there were 4,990. […]
Christian GP’s appeal challenges the very heart of government
I note that Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, the Christian GP dismissed as a Government drugs adviser for his views on homosexuality, has launched a legal bid to win his job back. As reported in the Daily Maillast week, Dr Raabe was removed from the Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) in February following attacks on […]
A Christian GP is reprimanded as the GMC overreacts
A Christian GP has been reprimanded by the General Medical Council for talking about his faith to a patient. Dr Richard Scott (pictured) was accused of ‘harassment’ and told by the medical regulator that he risked bringing the profession into disrepute by discussing his religious beliefs. He has refused to accept a formal warning on […]
Emmerdale distorts facts about assisted suicide in apparent attempt to boost ratings
The problem with television dramas is that they make rare events appear common and so distort public opinion on key issues. Take for example the chance of surviving a cardiac arrest. A 1996 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (‘Cardiopulmonary resuscitation on television. Miracles and misinformation’), for example, showed that survival rates […]