Stillbirths: tragedy and controversy
New figures from The Lancet reveal the tragedy of the scale of stillbirths, estimated at around 3 million…
YouTube video of assisted suicide could sway vulnerable people
The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have both reported on the tragic story of a British couple in their…
The health risks of obesity – a challenge to Christians
Having just returned from a Christian medical conference where large (especially male) abdomens were…
Russia leads the way in dealing with demographic time-bomb
I warned recently that unless something is done to reverse current demographic trends, economic necessity,…
More fiction and hype about embryonic stem cells as scientists fear withdrawal of funding in patent scrap
Stem cell scientists are kicking up an enormous fuss over a ruling expected very soon from the European…
Why is an offshoot of a euthanasia pressure group launching a ‘how-to-die’ helpline?
I see that staff of Dignity in Dying, formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, are planning to set…
‘Doing God’ is good for your health
Practising Christian faith is good for your health. That’s the verdict of a new report which shows…
Government fails in bid to keep statistics on late abortions secret
The Government has failed in a High Court bid to keep secret information on late abortions which it…
Pro-euthanasia campaigners use of celebrities to boost support may well fuel more suicides
Columnist Melanie Philips this week, in an article titled ‘Why are the Left (and the BBC) so keen to…
Why I told the Daily Mail that the BBC was acting as the ‘cheerleader’ for assisted suicide
Last Friday I was quoted on the front page of the Daily Mail as saying that the BBC was acting as ‘cheerleader’…
Unless we reverse demographic trends the generation that killed its children may well be killed by its children
Low fertility rates and an ageing population will present Europe with a big economic challenge. This…
The new healthcare professionals’ group seeking to legalise assisted suicide includes a number of well known campaigners
A new group of ‘health professionals’ has this week joined the growing number of ‘societies’ and ‘forums’ seeking legal permission for doctors to assist with suicide. ‘Healthcare Professionals for Change’ follows on the heels of Libby Wilson’s FATE (Friends at the End), Michael Iriwin’s SOARS (Society for Old Age Rational Suicide), Philip Nitschke’s EXIT International […]
If you want to know about advances in the treatment of spinal cord injury don’t read any British newspaper or ask the BBC
Reading the reports about the new embryonic stem cell trial for spinal cord injury that have been all over the BBC and the British papers today I am struggling to know what all the fuss is about and why in fact it is even news at all. I’ve come to the conclusion that it is […]
Christine MCafferty hoist on her own petard – full text of amended resolution on right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care
I recently blogged on the Council of Europe’s 7 October decision to throw out a resolution (see original wording) seeking to force health professionals across Europe to be involved in abortion. As a result of the humiliating defeat of pro-abortion activists the resolution actually passed was ironically one of strongest defences of conscientious objection in European […]
Sir Michael Caine’s report of his father’s death is an opportunity to educate the public about what good palliative care can achieve
Sir Michael Caine (pictured) has revealed how he asked a doctor to help his terminally ill father to die. Maurice Micklewhite, a Billingsgate fish market porter, apparently died in hospital at the age of 56 in 1955 after suffering from liver cancer. Sir Michael told Classic FM: ‘My father had cancer of the liver and […]
Some brief Christian reflections on infertility treatments to mark Robert Edward’s receiving the Nobel Peace prize in medicine
The decision to award the Nobel prize in medicine to Robert Edwards(pictured), the British scientist who developed IVF, has met with a mixed reaction. On the one hand there have been 4 million babies born to couples who would not otherwise have been able to conceive. On the other IVF has opened what many regard […]
Humiliating defeat for Council of Europe pro-abortion activists who attempted to criminalise conscientious objection to abortion
You may not read about this in any British newspaper but, as reported on LifeSite News, an attempt to erase the conscience rights of EU health care workers with respect to abortion was soundly defeated at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) this evening. The report reads as follows: ‘In a vote […]
When you see a new pro-euthanasia doctors group given a media soapbox next week remember that they constitute a small vocal minority
A new pro-euthanasia group called Health Professionals for Change is due to be launched on 13 October at the Kings Fund. The group will be chaired by Oxford GP Ann McPherson (pictured), who herself is dying of pancreatic cancer and the launch is expected to be attended by a small number of high profile doctors […]
Some of the public reaction to Virginia Ironside advocating smothering a suffering child was deeply disturbing
Many viewers watching BBC1’s religious programme Sunday Morning Live last weekend will have been shocked to hear agony aunt Virginia Ironside advocating smothering a suffering child as an act of motherly love. Her actual words? ‘If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be […]
American scientists make new breakthrough in producing embryonic-like stem cells by ethical means but British media doesn’t notice
The NECN headline this week ‘Harvard scientists make huge stem cell discovery’, is one of over 1,400 in the last few days announcing the latest development in the race to produce patient specific stem cells (pictured) without using human embryos. Ethical treatments for diseases like Parkinson’s disease, diabetes and multiple sclerosis are now one tantalising […]
Nottingham hospital officials shoot themselves in the foot by proposing Gideon Bible ban
I gather that hospital officials at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust want to ban Gideon Bibles from patients’ bedside lockers. The ban, at the Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, is intended to help cut levels of infectious superbugs such as MRSA. Apparently they want all bedside areas in Queen’s Medical Centre and City Hospital […]
Christianity provides medicine with a whole person perspective
When I was medical student I was required to write an essay on the nature of man. The secular world has developed many different models for human beings. There are psychoanalytical models like that of Sigmund Freud who saw man as the product of a complex reaction between superego, ego and id. Then there are […]
Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) extends its definition of ‘terminally ill’ to twelve months
The campaign group Dignity in Dying (formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society) prides itself on being more modest in the scope of its taste for medical killing that other more radical groups like SOARS, FATE, Exit International or Dignitas. But careful listeners to Radio Four’s ‘Exit Strategy: Choosing a Time to Die’ at 8 o’clock on […]