
blogs


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…

Reclaiming dignity in dying
BBC scriptwriters, viewers and listeners fought back over the weekend to recapture the word ‘dignity’…

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.
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General Medical Council confirms the appropriateness of sensitive faith discussions with patients
Last Thursday I took part in a discussion on the BBC Radio 4 PM programme about whether or not faith…

At a Given Moment – recognising worldview as part of a healthy diagnosis
CMF member Dr Graham McAll has worked as a general surgeon and inner city GP. In a timely new book,…

A surprisingly upbeat end to the UN high level meeting on AIDS promises renewed global action
UN meetings and political declarations are often perceived as wordy and irrelevant. But every now and…

Twenty facts we did not learn from Terry Pratchett’s BBC ‘documentary’ on assisted suicide in Europe
The Sunday Times, in line with its new editorial policy, ran a typically effusive article last weekend…

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day (15 June) – A reminder to treasure, honour and protect the older members of our community
You are unlikely to read about it in the British press, but today, 15 June, is World Elder Abuse Awareness…

NHS reforms expose the British idolatry of our healthcare system
Nigel Lawson once famously said that the NHS is the nearest thing that the British have to a national…

New BBC Radio Four programme – Are we in for more bludgeoning of disabled people?
I've just been alerted to the fact that BBC Radio 4 is running another forty-minute 'documentary' on…

The collapse of Southern Cross – is capitalism crushing care and compassion?
As the country’s biggest independent provider of care homes for the elderly sinks deeper into a financial…
Welsh teenagers to get morning-after pill over the counter – a plan that’ll backfire
I recently blogged on the fact, surprising to some, that morning-after pills don’t actually cut teen pregnancy rates and instead increase the incidence of sexually transmitted infections. This morning we learnt that so-called ‘emergency contraception’ can now be obtained without charge from pharmacies across Wales, while still costing about £25 in the rest of the […]
Pro-choice critics of the Dorries/Field amendments on abortion counselling are misrepresenting the medical facts
There has been considerable media interest in the fact that two MPs (Nadine Dorries and Frank Field) have tabled abortion amendments to the Health and Social Care Bill (See Sunday Express, Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph). These two MPs are attempting to ensure two things. First they want women with unplanned pregnancies to have access […]
Putting the last first – medical mission on the front line
‘Every child should be able to access healthcare regardless of who they are and where they are born.’This is what Cat Morris and Mary Cusack passionately believe and what has led them to work in Orissa, one of the poorest states of India. CMF has 200 members working in developing countries, who have responded to […]
Chinese baby girl cull backed by Britain – gender imbalance in China with British funding
Sex-selective abortions have led to severe gender imbalance in China, India and South Korea according to a new report published this week. Furthermore, as I argue below, the British government has contributed to this problem through its financial and ideological support for abortion abroad. In the next 20 years in large parts of China and […]
‘23 week babies – the price of life’ on the BBC – a review
The recent BBC documentary ‘23 week babies – the price of life’ represented 6 months of filming on the neonatal intensive care unit at Birmingham Women’s Hospital. Brilliantly filmed and produced, the programme powerfully illustrated the conflicting emotions of parents confronted with a baby struggling for life at 23 weeks. Four words came to mind: […]
New study shows that UK doctors consistently oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide
A new study suggests that doctors in the UK have opposed both euthanasia and assisted consistently over the past two decades. Researchers from Limerick, Ireland, used 16 key studies into doctors’ attitudes between 1990 and 2010. The findings, which appear in the latest issue of the journal Palliative Medicine, highlight a gap between doctors’ attitudes […]
More hype about three-parent embryos – don’t hold your breath about the promises of new therapies
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has asked the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to assess a controversial fertility treatment. The ‘three-parent IVF’ technique developed at Newcastle University (on which I commented last April) involves creating a fertilized egg in a laboratory, then removing its nucleus and placing it into another embryo from which the nucleus has […]
A legal right for independent crisis pregnancy counselling?
I was interested to see that MPs Frank Field (Labour) (pictured) and Nadine Dorries (Conservative) intend to put down an amendment on abortion counselling to the Health and Social Care Bill. The amendment will require new GP consortia to make provision for independent advice and counselling for women presenting at the GP’s surgery with a […]
Pro-euthanasia lobby group encourages its members to give ‘evidence’ to its own discredited commission in attempt to boost flagging support
The lobby group Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) has been very quiet lately but it appears it is now attempting to build momentum for its next attempt to change the law to allow so-called ‘assisted dying’ (a euphemism for euthanasia and assisted suicide). This will not be an easy task. Three attempts […]
Health or wealth? US budget cuts threaten international aid, but the Church can respond
As I write this post, debate rages in the US Congress over the cuts in this year’s budget – with the Republican majority seeking over $100 billion in cuts over and above Obama’s already cut down proposals. Time to accept this as a symptom of the austerity measures forced upon us by the global economic […]
Open letter to David Cameron about lack of transparency, bias and undue haste of RCOG abortion consultation
Dear David, I am writing to express serious concern about the lack of transparency and undue haste surrounding the process by which the RCOG guideline ‘The care of women requesting induced abortion’ is currently being revised. This RCOG guideline, which provides the basis for the ‘evidence-based counselling’ of women with crisis pregnancies was first published […]
Philip Nitschke is back in the British Isles but is not finding a warm reception for his ‘how to commit suicide’ seminars
The Australian assisted suicide enthusiast Philip Nitschke (aka ‘Dr Death’), of Exit International, is again visiting the British Isles but his tour is not going at all well. Thus far two of his five meetings have been cancelled whilst protesters outnumbered attendees at a third. His workshop on how to commit suicide, scheduled for the […]