
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…
Homeopathy on the NHS – some Christian reflections
I was a little surprised to read on the BBC website today that a third of NHS trusts still fund homeopathy despite repeated calls for them to stop. GP magazine obtained data from two thirds of primary care trusts, showing 31% were paying for patients to use the highly-diluted remedies. This news comes after […]
Latest developments in RCOG abortion guideline saga and my letter to the College President along with reply
Today we learnt, in response (pasted below) to a Parliamentary question by Nadine Dorries MP (pictured), that we have another week until 25 February to make submissions to the RCOG consultation on the new draft abortion guideline ‘The care of women requesting induced abortion’. This is a tiny concession which does not address any of […]
New RCOG guidance misleading on effects of abortion on women
I never cease to be amazed by the accelerating rate at which new government and other official ‘consultations’ on important matters of public policy are appearing. The faster they come, the less they are publicised and the shorter the deadlines – meaning that it is less and less possible to make an intelligent response within […]
Home Secretary Theresa May under pressure to apologise to Dr Hans-Christian Raabe after embarrassing disclosure
The Home Secretary Theresa May (pictured) is coming under pressure from a variety of sources to offer an apology to Dr Hans-Christian Raabe. Raabe, a Manchester GP, was sacked by the Home Office from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last Monday for failing to declare that he had co-authored a paper […]
A Tokenistic Recognition? DFID considers the role of faith communities in maternal health strategy
On 30 December last year, the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development published its long awaited maternal health strategy ‘Choice for women: wanted pregnancies, safe births’. CMF was one of a number of Christian organisations involved in health and development issues that submitted comments to the consultation, making the point that multi level interventions were […]
In sacking Dr Raabe, the Home Office has demonstrated intolerance, cowardice, and ignorance.
A Christian GP has been sacked as a government drugs adviser after it emerged he wrote a study linking homosexuality to paedophilia. Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, of Manchester, was appointed to the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) less than a month ago. The Home Office confirmed that Dr Raabe (pictured), who was appointed […]
Senior neonatologist brands official report on fetal awareness as ‘Emperor’s new clothes’
Here is another story that you are unlikely to read about in any newspaper. In June 2010, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) published Fetal Awareness – Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice. The College’s purpose was to update their 1997 publication in the light of more recent evidence, and also to […]
Morning-after pills don’t cut teen pregnancy rates
Morning-after pills don’t cut teen pregnancy according to a new study due to be published in the Journal of Health Economics. Furthermore it appears that they actually increase the risk of sexually transmitted disease. These findings are the latest nails in the coffin of the Labour government’s teenage pregnancy strategy, dreamt up by the now […]
CMF members blog from Haiti
Over the last few weeks, nine CMF members have been working in Haiti, as part of a Samaritan’s Purse team helping with the fight against cholera. We’ve been hearing from Abi Boys (whose posts are below), but just before the end of the trip we had another update from Alex Bunn, who has a portfolio […]
Euthanasia bills fall at first hurdle
Last November I reported on the overwhelming defeat in the Scottish Parliament of Margo Macdonald’s End of Life Assistance (Scotland) Bill by the margin of 85 to 16. MSPs were persuaded that any weakening of the law to allow euthanasia or assisted suicide would put vulnerable people under pressure to end their lives. This was […]
The ‘ultrasound’ Jesus reminds us of the meaning of the incarnation
The creators of the 2010 ‘Christmas Starts With Christ’ campaign say that its purpose is to bring attention to the true meaning of the holiday season by putting the message of Christ’s birth in a modern context. ‘He’s on His Way’, it declares. But the image of the ultrasound ‘Christ’ in his mother’s womb that […]
How common is abortion to save the life of the mother?
Ireland’s ban on abortion was upheld this week by the European Court of Human Rights in a case brought by three Irish women backed by the Irish Family Planning Association. The women had argued that the lack of access to abortion in Ireland breached their human rights. But the court ruled that a nation may […]