The Royal College of Psychiatrists consultation on abortion and mental health – let’s put this into perspective
Some people have expressed concern about an article published in the Daily Telegraph yesterday which…
Live blog: new mood of militancy among nurses
CMF's Head of Allied Professions, Steve Fouch (pictured below), is at the RCN Congress in Liverpool.…
Dorries and Field are not pro-life but their abortion amendments are a small step in the right direction
If you type ‘abortion’ into Google News these days you will find that most of the reports thrown…
Nan Maitland’s assisted suicide demonstrates the incremental extension that will follow any change in the law
According to the Sunday Times, an 84 year old British woman committed suicide at a Swiss facility last…
Missing midwives costs mothers’ lives
On 1 April 2011 Save the Children launched a campaign to find the missing midwives.
Save the Children’s…
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…
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)…
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…
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…
‘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…
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…
Ten reasons not to legalise same-sex marriage in Britain
Britain is coming under increasing pressure to legalise same-sex marriage and Prime Minister David Cameron is determined to drive it through. A consultation on same-sex marriage closed in Scotland in December 2011 and a new consultation is being launched next month in Westminster to consider how (not if!) legalisation should proceed in England and Wales. […]
Controversial proposals from the BMA on organ donation
A raft of proposals have been put forward this week by the BMA to increase the number of organs for transplant, including a controversial suggestion to keep dying patients alive solely to harvest their organs, a process known as ‘elective ventilation’. The BMA report admits that elective ventilation is ethically contentious. It involves starting ventilation, […]
Government blocks attempt to fetter DPP
Last night the House of Lords discussed assisted suicide. The one hour dinner debate, in which 30 peers spoke, was focused on the role of the Director of Public Prosecutions in cases of assisted suicide. The DPP’s current prosecution policy for assisted suicide was published in February 2010 following Debbie Purdy’s successful appeal to the […]
VIDEO: Global response to malaria under threat as deaths soar
It’s not been a good week to bury bad news – and for the world’s poor, this week has had some very disheartening news indeed. A report published in today’s Lancet has shown that the World Health Organisation’s previous estimates of deaths from malaria have been seriously underestimated. In 2010 the WHO estimated 650,000 deaths […]
Elderly care: do we care?
A report by Age UK on Monday suggests that despite claims by Government that they are increasing funding for elderly care, the level of demand has outstripped funding as more and more people are living longer but with increasing levels of dependency. The report suggests that in the last half decade the actual funding has […]
Diane Abbott MP resigns from abortion counselling consultation group
A shadow health minister has resigned from a cross-party group of MPs which had been set up to lay the framework for a public consultation on how counselling should be provided for pregnant women. Labour MP Diane Abbott has claimed that the government wants to make provision for groups other than abortion providers to offer counselling […]
Christian GP in appeal against home office for unjust sacking
The Daily Mail this weekend has run a long feature on Dr Hans-Christian Raabe, which is well worth reading. Dr Raabe, a Christian GP from Manchester, was sacked by the Home Office from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) last February for failing to declare that he had co-authored a paper in […]
Holocaust Memorial Day – 27 January 2012
Most when remembering the holocaust will think of six million Jews but apparently this was only the final chapter in the story. What ended in the 1940s in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, Belsen and Treblinka had much more humble beginnings in the 1930s in nursing homes, geriatric hospitals and psychiatric institutions all over Germany. […]
The case of ‘Martin’ – grandstanding by lawyers and the BBC
Lawyers for a stroke victim who wants help to end his ‘intolerable’ life can continue to act on his behalf without fear of prosecution or disciplinary action after a High Court ruling today. They successfully urged two judges in London to grant them a declaration which will protect them and third parties, including doctors, during […]
Update on assisted suicide and euthanasia from Care Not Killing
Falconer Commission Lord Falconer’s Commission on Assisted Dying reported on 5 January 2012 predictably recommending a change in the law to recommend assisted suicide (and not euthanasia) for mentally competent adults with less than twelve months to live. CNK played a prominent role in discrediting the Commission with 40 media interviews. CNK has also created […]
Margo Macdonald dishes up the same confused euthanasia proposals again
Margo Macdonald today announced that she is going to try again to legalise assisted suicide and/or euthanasia (it’s not clear which) in Scotland, just over a year after her last spectacular failure. Ms MacDonald, Scotland’s only independent MSP, said in unveiling a new consultation on the issue, that she has ‘learned lessons’ from her previous […]
Eurozone crisis setting back global health advances
Today is the 10th anniversary of the founding of the Global Fund for HIV, TB and Malaria. This was an initiative promoted by then UN General Secretary Kofi Annan to put significant funding into fighting the three biggest communicable diseases afflicting the developing world. Sadly, it is a tenth anniversary with quite a shadow cast […]