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…
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…
Euthanasia bills fall at first hurdle
Last November I reported on the overwhelming defeat in the Scottish Parliament of Margo Macdonald’s…
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…
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…
A new exhibition touring the United States is highlighting lessons to be learned from the Nazi doctors
Most when remembering the holocaust will think of six million Jews but apparently this was only the final…
Two letters to the Times regarding Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Dying
I have had two letters regarding Lord Falconer's Commission on Assisted Dying published on the Times…
Former Lord Chancellor misrepresents law on assisted suicide in national newspaper
Yesterday the Care Not Killing Alliance wrote to Lord Falconer, the former Lord Chancellor (pictured),…
ICMDA HIV Initiative 2010 Dignity and Right to Health Awards
The joint winners of the 2010 Dignity and Right to Health award are Dr Gisela Schneider from Germany…
More knowledge of fetal development leads to new US laws making late abortion illegal
In April this year the US state of Nebraska legislature signed off a bill that could weaken further the…
Chile’s president says country’s respect for life mandated great efforts to save lives of Chilean miners
I see that 26 of the rescued Chilean miners have just been welcomed to Manchester United by football…
The NMC Case against Pauline Cafferkey: a working example of ‘Compassion Deficit Disorder’ in nursing leadership?
It is hard to find anyone who thinks the Nursing & Midwifery Council (NMC) did the right thing in taking Pauline Cafferkey to a misconduct hearing. If you missed the story, Cafferkey is a nurse who volunteered to work in Sierra Leone at the peak of the 2013-2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa. On her […]
Gene Drives: the ethics of destroying a species to save human lives
If one had the power to save millions of human lives by exterminating a whole species, could we and should we do so? Ethical questions like this have been around in one form or another in text books, seminar halls and popular science fiction shows for decades. With the advent of CRISPR/Cas9 technology offers the […]
Eugenics – could NIPT for Down’s Syndrome bring us full-circle?
Is it wrong to kill disabled people if caring for them costs more than identifying and destroying them? The Nazis believed killing in these circumstances was not only right but a public duty and the German public was softened up to accept it through a skilful propaganda campaign which began in the classroom. Leo Alexander, […]
How to make a story out of a non-story: hype, hubris and motherless embryos
I did not plan to write a blog on the ‘motherless babies’ story. I assumed that mainstream journalists would read at least some of the detail of new research that has combined sperm with non-egg cells to produce 30 mouse pups that then went on to have healthy offspring themselves, and to report the actual […]
Is Professor Basky Thilaganathan deliberately misleading parliament over the results of NIPT for Down’s syndrome?
Here’s a new story involving disabled people, taxpayers’ money, apparent scientific deception, a biotechnology company looking for profits and the NHS. The NHS is close to introducing a new test for pregnant women that will make it much easier to detect and search out any babies with Down’s Syndrome (DS) (see previous CMF blog posts […]
A Perfect Storm? An analysis of the NHS staffing crisis
The warnings have been around for years. After five years of turbulence in the National Health Service following the Health and Social Care Act (2012), and with increasing demands from an ageing population, plus the need to increase safe staffing levels following the recommendations of the Francis Report (2013), it has become more than […]
God may not take you out of the flames, but he’ll walk in them with you
“Doctor, can this patient please have some laxatives?” It was a simple question that filled me with dread as the drug chart was thrust into my hands. It was my first day as an FY1 on a surgical ward and I was terrified. What do I prescribe? Do I need to assess the patient? What […]
High Court rules in favour of NHS providing ‘HIV prevention drug’ but big questions remain
The High Court has today ruled that the NHS in England can fund a drug that can reduce the chance of people catching HIV whilst engaging in high-risk sexual activities. NHS England had previously argued that local councils should provide PrEP (‘pre-exposure prophylaxis’) as ‘health prevention’ is their responsibility. But Mr Justice Green said that NHS England […]
New parliamentary report on conscientious objection to abortion calls for widespread changes
A new parliamentary report has found that there is ‘widespread and increasing pressure’ on healthcare professionals to participate in abortions which is ‘in large part due to inadequate observance of the current legislation’. ‘Freedom of Conscience in Abortion Provision’, which was published on 21 July, is the culmination of a four-week consultation and makes nine key […]
The same sex parent debate is not about parenting but about missing parents
‘Talk to any child with gay parents, especially those old enough to reflect on their experiences. If you ask a child raised by a lesbian couple if they love their two moms, you’ll probably get a resounding “yes!” Ask about their father, and you are in for either painful silence, a confession of gut-wrenching […]
Young women are unknowingly putting their health at risk for £500
Journalists and commentators covering the ‘three parent’ embryos news consistently fail to consider, let alone ask the scientists about, an important ethical and safety question of direct relevance to women. There are plenty of questions asked about whether the new research will be safe for the embryos created – and ultimately the children born. I’ve […]
NHS staffing, funding and culture after ‘Brexit’ – Christian reflections
A week is a long time in politics, it is said. But few weeks could have been quite as momentous or eventful for the citizens of the United Kingdom as this last one. Whether you awoke to the news on 24 June with joy or dismay (or indifference), it is hard to deny that a […]