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 of 56 to 51, the PACE rejected the proposal of Christine McCafferty, a British politician and abortion activist, to ‘regulate’ conscientious objectors to abortion across Europe.

The McCafferty Report, titled ‘Women’s access to lawful medical care: the problem of unregulated use of conscientious objection’ is the latest in a string of EU and PACE efforts to establish abortion as a universal human right.

As of tonight, Resolution 1763, re-titled ‘The right to conscientious objection in lawful medical care’ (see revised wording), instead of creating a requirement for doctors to participate in abortion, actually affirms their right to refuse.

The provisional edition published tonight reads, ‘No person, hospital or institution shall be coerced, held liable or discriminated against in any manner because of a refusal to perform, accommodate, assist or submit to an abortion, the performance of a human miscarriage, or euthanasia or any act which could cause the death of a human foetus or embryo, for any reason.’

Irish senator Ronan Mullen (pictured) and Luca Volonte of Italy, led the assembly in passing a series of amendments which totally reversed the thrust of the report. These changes forced McCafferty and other pro-abortion Assembly members to vote against their own proposal.

Had the measure been passed in its original form it would have placed pressure on European governments to pass legislation limiting the right to conscientious objection. This will now not happen. The vote is being called ‘a victory for common sense and for freedom’.

The move to defeat the proposal received support from unexpected quarters earlier today when Ann Furedi, chief executive of BPAS, Britain’s largest abortion ‘provider’, outlined in her Independent blog the reasons she did not support McCafferty. ‘We think it is better that doctors with a moral objection to abortion do have the opportunity to opt out of services’, she said.

The principle of conscientious objection to abortion is upheld in the 1948 Declaration of Geneva, which was originally adopted by the World Medical Association in response to the atrocities performed by some doctors under the Nazi regime.

This declaration includes the phrase ‘I will maintain the utmost respect for human life from the time of conception; even against threat I will not use my medical knowledge contrary to the laws of humanity’.

The British Abortion Act 1967 enshrines in law the right for doctors to abstain from ‘participation’ in abortion. Although this clearly provides an exemption to those who object to physically performing the procedure, it is still not clear what protection it offers to those who refuse more peripheral involvement.

The application of the law has recently been reviewed in Triple Helix in the light of the General Medical Council’s 2008 guidance, ‘Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice’.

This review mentions a letter I received from the GMC at the time confirming that doctors who objected to involvement in abortion are not breaching the GMC guidance if they refuse to:

1. Sign abortion authorisation forms
2. Clerk patients for abortion (ie carry out pre-op examination and assessment)
3. Refer patients seeking abortion to other doctors who will authorise it

Were a law restricting conscientious objection to abortion ever to be passed in Britain, Christians would of course be obliged to obey the higher law of conscience and take whatever consequences came their way. But for now conscience remains legally protected.

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 including former GMC chairman Sir Graeme Catto and Geriatrician Dr Ray Tallis.

The event will, unsurprisingly, be supported by Dignity in Dying, formerly the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES), which has in recent years undergone an image makeover including a refashioning of its stated aims, in order to achieve its aim of establishing legally sanctioned compassionate killing in Britain.

McPherson is quoted in the Observer using words that could have been (and most probably were) drafted for her by the DID press office: ‘Many of us believe dying patients should not have to suffer against their wishes at the end of life. Alongside access to good quality end-of-life care, we believe that terminally ill, mentally competent patients should be able to choose an assisted death, subject to safeguards.’

In order to disguise their real intentions, DID have in recent years attempted to position themselves as champions of ‘good quality end-of-life care’ as a smokescreen for advancing their real agenda of legalised compassionate killing. But their malleable key terms ‘terminally ill’, ‘assisted death’ and ‘safeguards’ are, here as typically, left conveniently undefined.

The pro-euthanasia lobby have been repeatedly frustrated in Parliament, being twice defeated in the House of Lords since 2006, and have also been repeatedly blocked by the medical institutions; hence this new group.

Doctors have historically long been opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Hippocratic Oath forbids both as do more recent codes of ethics such as the Declaration of Geneva and The International Code of Medical Ethics.

The majority of doctors in the UK also remain opposed to a change in the law and medical opposition has actually intensified in recent years. The largest recent surveys show only 22-38% of all doctors in favour of a change.

Opposition to euthanasia and assisted suicide is strongest amongst doctors who work most closely with dying patients – neurologists, geriatricians and specialists in palliative medicine. In fact almost 95% of the membership of the Association for Palliative Medicine of Great Britain & Ireland, which represents over 800 UK specialists in palliative care, is opposed to any change in the law and the association has been a core member organization of the anti-euthanasia alliance Care Not Killing since the latter’s formation in 2005.

The British Medical Association (BMA), the Royal College of Physicians (RCP), the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP), the Royal College of Anaesthetists, the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the British Geriatric Society also remain strongly opposed to any legal change.

Why is it that doctors who have the most experience working with dying patients are most strongly opposed to euthanasia and assisted suicide? Probably because they both understand how vulnerable dying patients are and also know how to manage pain and other distressing symptoms (physical, psychological and spiritual) at the end of life. If you know what to do in a crisis, you are much less likely to reach desperately for a syringe of injectable poison when confronted with someone who is begging for relief.

According to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit published in July this year the UK leads the way globally in terms of its hospice care network and statutory involvement in end-of-life care. Specifically it ranks first in the ‘Quality of End-of-Life Care’ category, which includes indicators such as public awareness, training availability, access to pain killers and doctor-patient transparency.

Of course there is always room for improvement, and we must strive to be even better and to make the best care more widely accessible, but given that requests for euthanasia and assisted suicide are extremely rare when patients are properly cared for (most palliative physicians report less than ten cases of patients with a persistent wish to die in a practising lifetime) the question has to be asked, ‘Why is it that euthanasia and assisted suicide in Britain are so seldom out of the media spotlight?’

The answer is very clear. We have an extremely well-funded and resourced pro-euthanasia movement in this country, with plenty of media and celebrity support and public relations machinery which ensures that it is only seldom neither seen nor heard.

So when you see a small group of doctors given a soapbox next week to parade 'hard cases' and mouth specious euphemisms in an attempt to soften up public and parliamentary opinion on legalising compassionate killing, remember that they constitute a minority of a profession that remains largely opposed to any change in the law.

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 the first to want to put a pillow over its face... If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would.' She added, 'If a baby's going to be born severely disabled or totally unwanted, surely an abortion is the act of a loving mother.'

Another guest on the programme, Rev Joanna Jepson (pictured), was left open-mouthed and presenter Susanna Reid looked visibly shocked during the live debate, responding: 'That's a pretty horrifying thing to say, that you would put a pillow over a suffering child.'

Ironside’s comments understandably sparked a storm of complaints from viewers and an outcry from disability rights spokespeople but personally I was left even more deeply disturbed by the amount of apparent public support for her views.

If the rapid responses on the Daily Mail website represent in any way the views of the general population (and are not simply those of a vocal minority drafted in for the occasion by eugenic activists) then it seems that many British people actually agree with Ironside. Furthermore, those comments supportive of Ironside’s position attracted the most ‘thumbs up’ from readers whilst those criticising her stance were uniformly given the ‘thumbs down’.

One respondent, calling herself, ‘Widget’ of ‘Broken Britain’, attracted over 1,400 stars from fellow readers for writing, ‘I can see what she is saying - or rather trying to say - and I completely agree. What loving, caring mother would make the conscious decision to bring a child into the world that would live in continual pain and agony and have zero quality of life for its whole existence?’

We are now in Britain well used to pro-euthanasia advocates Dignity in Dying’s calls for a change in the law to allow ‘mentally competent adults suffering unbearably with terminal illness’ to receive lethal injections to end their lives.

But it seems that many members of the public, undoubtedly affected by the protrayal of seemingly desperate cases on the media, now wish to go much further than this. And in fact to do so actually follows logically from what we are already doing. If we abort over 95% of all babies with Down Syndrome diagnosed before birth on the basis that their lives are judged not to worth living, then why not allow infanticide just a few months later, or equally, why not legalise euthanasia for mentally incompetent patients with brain injury or dementia at the other end of life? Wouldn't this be simply taking the principle to its logical conclusion?

Historic codes of medical ethics, like the Hippocratic Oath and Declaration of Geneva, however, forbid all compassionate killing for very good reason.

Some years ago I came across the words of a doctor given in defence at a euthanasia trial and was struck by how compassionate they seemed.

'My underlying motive was the desire to help individuals who could not help themselves... such considerations should not be regarded as inhuman. Nor did I feel it in any way to be unethical or immoral... I am convinced that if Hippocrates were alive today he would change the wording of his oath... in which a doctor is forbidden to administer poison to an invalid even on demand... I have a perfectly clear conscience about the part I played in the affair. I am perfectly conscious that when I said yes to euthanasia I did so with the greatest conviction, just as it is my conviction today that it is right'.

It was seeing the name attached to the testimony that brought me up short. The words were actually spoken at Nuremberg by Karl Brandt, the doctor responsible for co-ordinating the German euthanasia programme during the Second World War. Ironically, many of those involved were in doctors who seemed to be motivated initially by compassion for their victims. But their consciences, and that of the society which allowed them to do what they did, gradually became numbed.

The Nazi holocaust, contrary to popular opinion, did not begin with jack-booted Nazis in death camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka in the mid 1940s. Rather it had far subtler beginnings with doctors in hospitals and psychiatric institutions in the 1930s. And the very first victims were 6,000 disabled children whose lives were judged not to be worth living and who were killed for reasons of ‘compassion’.

You see, once you start killing out of compassion, it can be very difficult to draw a line. And like a frog who makes no attempt to escape from water which is gradually brought to the boil, if the change in temperature is gradual enough, it can be very difficult to perceive what is happening until it is too late. Given some of the reaction to Ironside’s comments it might already be too late for Britain.

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 step closer.

But interestingly you will not read about it (yet) in any British newspaper or on any British online news outlet.

The tendency of the British media to sensationalise ‘advances’ in embryo stem cell research whilst ignoring or underplaying more promising ethical research using adult and umbilical stem cells is long-lived.

Ten years ago, after the 1999 Donaldson Report recommended allowing scientists to clone human embryos for stem cell research using somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), CMF branded the research 'unethical and unnecessary' in a Triple Helix editorial and sounded a strong note of caution. We argued that the enthusiasm for this new technology was 'based more on political expediency than wise reflection' and warned that 'the prospect of revolutionary new treatments (would) undoubtedly entice investors to move funds away from other less glamorous, but potentially more promising avenues of research'.

Since 2000 we have witnessed the glorious failure of scientists in Britain and elsewhere to produce patient-specific stem cells from cloned human embryos. Subsequently, the limited availability and dangers of harvesting human eggs for research fuelled the shift to using cytoplasmic animal-human hybrids ('cybrids'). This was supported by a massive propaganda campaign in 2007-8 involving scientists, patient groups, and politicians, and led by Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris with the willing co-operation of Times Science Correspondent Mark Henderson.

As a result, in an impassioned Observer article in May 2008, Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed animal-human hybrids as 'a profound opportunity to save and transform millions of lives' and expressed his commitment to this research as 'an inherently moral endeavour that can save and improve the lives of thousands and over time millions of people'. The measure was supported in a heavily whipped vote as part of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, now the HFE Act.

Ironically, before the new Act had even come into force, the news broke that stem cells from animal-human hybrids were seen as a poor investment and almost certainly wouldn't work. In January 2009, the two leading UK researchers granted licences for the work, Stephen Minger of Kings College London and Lyle Armstrong at Newcastle University Centre for Life, were denied funding by the Medical Research Council.

The British Medical Journal reported that the grant applications had been turned down because the reviewers considered that they were not competitive in the face of the lack of overall funding for medical research in the United Kingdom.

Minger himself admitted that he believed the distribution of research funding should be competitive, based on assessment of scientific value and cost, and noted that induced pluripotent stem cells are cheaper to set up than human-animal hybrid stem cell research. No one it seemed wanted to invest money in the new research, given the low likelihood of it ever yielding results and the emergence of cheaper ethical alternatives.

Less than three weeks later, in a landmark paper in Cloning and Stem Cells, Robert Lanza and colleagues from Advanced Cell Technology, Massachusetts, demonstrated that animal oocytes lack the capacity to fully reprogramme and activate adult human cells, and specifically the pluripotency-associated genes needed for stem cell production. The hybrid embryos from mouse, cow and rabbit eggs looked microscopically normal but were genetically flawed. Journal Editor Sir Ian Wilmut, the British cloning pioneer involved in the 1996 creation of Dolly the sheep, concluded that 'production of patient-specific stem cells by this means would (now) be impracticable'.

Wilmut had himself already abandoned embryonic stem cell research, in favour of iPS, induced pluripotent stem cells (produced ethically by dedifferentiating somatic cells to produce embryonic-like stem cells). Yamanaka and Thomson's seminal work in this area in late 2007 was later dubbed the scientific breakthrough of the year by the magazine Science.

Some scientists had expressed concern that Yamanaka had used virus vectors to transfer the genes which would reprogramme the somatic cells. But on 1 March 2009, in a later twist, a UK and Canadian team succeeded in turning somatic cells into embryonic-like stem cells, without using viruses.

But now, in a further major advance this week, American scientists have gone a step further. Derrick Rossi and colleagues of Children's Hospital Boston and the Harvard Stem Cell Institute have reported in a paper published online by the journal Cell Stem Cell that they have produced induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) from skin cells using modified forms of messenger RNA. The new technique appears to be one hundred times more efficient than that initially pioneered by Yamanaka.

Other experts have praised the work. Marius Wernig, an iPS researcher at Stanford University called the process ‘highly efficient’ and added that if the initial promise is borne out this ‘would be the first practical method for generating iPS cells that could be used for transplant therapies’. He added, ‘If it turns out to be a very efficient way of generating iPS cells without any genetic modification, then it would be a big advance’.

Kathrin Plath of the University of California, Los Angeles, called the work ‘very impressive’ and said it appears to show the best approach so far for making such cells for transplant tissue.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, there are currently over 1,400 articles on the web about this new breakthrough but not one I can find in a British newspaper. Instead the British press has been highlighting the story of a doctor struck off by the GMC for the unethical use of bogus stem cell treatments.

I suspect that when this new advance is finally reported it will be underplayed and made without any reference to Britain’s ten years of blind alley investment in embryonic stem cell research.

Perhaps the last word belongs to leading US stem cell scientist James Sherley: 'For those trained in the science, this is not news, but instead a completed fate that was known from the beginning' – a timely reminder that in good science the end does not justify the means (Romans 3:8).

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 kept tidy and ‘clutter-free’ to stop disease spreading.

A similar proposed ban in Leicester in 2005 was called off after being criticised as ‘political correctness gone mad’ and after an outcry from local Christians Nottingham hospital officials are now consulting staff, patients and chaplains before bringing in the ban.

A ban on Gideon Bibles makes little sense as an infection control measure. The MRSA risk is low and to be consistent hospitals would have to ban newspapers, library books and all paper from patients’ bedsides. One wonders about the real motivation here.

The move also betrays a profound ignorance of the link between spirituality and health. A major review of 1,200 studies in the British Medical Journal showed a 60-80% relation between better health and spirituality and summarised a growing body of medical research showing that religious faith has a positive impact on disease prevention, coping with illness, recovering from surgery and improving treatment outcomes. The majority of these studies specifically evaluated the Christian faith and the majority of them have now been gathered in Koenig’s magnum Handbook of Religion and Health,which is regarded by many as the key authoritative text on the subject.

This and other scientific evidence has convincingly demonstrated that a natural by-product of religious faith is longer life, less illness, better physical and mental health, more marital stability, less divorce, less suicide and less abuse of alcohol and other substances, all outcomes that we would expect a health authority might be keen to promote.

The Gideons is a respected organisation operating in 181 countries that for over 100 years has been distributing Bibles free of charge. It is deeply ironic that this latest ban is being considered on highly tenuous grounds in a country where 70% still claim to be Christian and where members of other faiths have not been offended.

It is also sad that by doing so hospital managers risk depriving vulnerable people of spiritual comfort and may well be shooting themselves in the foot with respect to promoting health.

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 the behaviourists like B F Skinner who see human beings as complex stimulus-response machines. Then there are the physical anthropologists who see man as simply a clever monkey, and finally the biochemists who see man as nothing other than a complex chemical reaction, the product of matter, chance and time in a universe without meaning or purpose.

All these views are 'reductionist' in that they reduce man to simply the sum of his individual parts.

As doctors we know that the biochemical, anthropological, behaviourist and psychoanalytical models are all useful in understanding how human beings function. We learn our biochemistry, physiology and anatomy because we know that human beings are physical entities. We learn our psychology, social anthropology and sociology because we know that human beings are more than just physical entities - they need to be understood also as thinking entities existing in relationship. We learn our philosophy and religion because we know that human beings ask deep questions about morality, purpose and destiny. Human beings are also spiritual.

Biblical Christianity teaches that human beings are a complex unity of spirit, soul and body; and that these elements together form an inseparable whole. We can be understood in physical terms because we are made from physical elements, but we are more than just physical beings. We have souls and spirits too, and these three parts of our natures – body, soul and spirit - interact in a complex fashion.

We know that our physical health has profound effects on the way that we think, and that illness causes us to ask questions about meaning and purpose. We know that the mind can also affect physical health in the case of psychosomatic illness. We know that major life events like bereavement or divorce can have profound effects on our health.

If we treat our patients simply as physical bodies we will be doing them a gross disservice. It is true that they have physical bodies and that they may need their biochemistry corrected, their physiology normalised and their anatomy realigned.

However they are also souls enmeshed in a complex set of relationships and spirits asking serious questions about hope, meaning and destiny. These factors have profound implications for health and need to be addressed too.

Jesus Christ healed physical illness but he also restored broken relationships, forgave sin and reintroduced people to their creator.

What can St Paul teach us about evangelism to Muslims?

Christians and Muslims agree… on the reality of God, revelation, scripture, angels and judgment. But they also disagree; about Christ’s identity, death and resurrection and the authority of the Bible. Given these similarities and differences, what evangelistic approach should we adopt? Should we ‘build bridges’ or attack false teaching? Should we contextualise or confront?

Contextualisers claim that confrontation alienates unbelievers. Muslims must be gently coaxed. A horse led unwillingly will not drink. Argument doesn’t convert.

On the other hand confronters reply that contextualisation dilutes the gospel. Strongholds must be demolished. False teaching must be exposed.

What were Paul’s methods? On one hand he was a contextualiser, using a different approach for each audience. In the synagogue he established common ground by appealing to Jewish history and Old Testament Scripture (Acts 13:13-51); with the farmers at Lystra he spoke of God’s control of the seasons (14:14-18); with the philosophers in Athens he quoted their own poetry (17:22-31). He took the truth they already knew to establish rapport.

On the other hand he ‘reasoned’ (17:17), ‘discussed’ (19:9), ‘argued persuasively’ (19:8) and confronted (13:46). He summed up his ministry by saying ‘...we try to persuade’, (2 Cor 5:11), ‘... we demolish arguments and every pretension’ (2 Cor 10:5).

Contextualisation lays a foundation for debate. But if we do not move on to challenge the wrong beliefs of our listeners we are not telling the whole truth. On the other hand if we merely confront Muslims without establishing common ground our arguments will fall on deaf ears. Just as contextualisation can become the refuge of the cowardly, so confrontation can be the defence of the uncaring.

However, Paul did more than just contextualise and confront. He preached the gospel: Christ’s divinity, incarnation, death, resurrection and coming in judgment. This resulted in one of two responses. Some ‘received the message with great eagerness’ (Acts 17:11), ‘were persuaded’ (17:4) and ‘believed’ (17:34). Others ‘sneered’ (17:32), ‘became abusive’ (18:6) and ‘stirred up persecution’ (13:49).

If we build bridges or attack false teaching without preaching the gospel, then we are failing in our witness. Paul’s primary concern was neither to build friendships nor win arguments. Rather, his heart’s desire and prayer was that people be saved (Rom 10:1) through hearing the gospel (1:16). His priority was to win people to Christ. His strategy involved both contextualisation and confrontation; but always with the aim of preaching Christ crucified.

We are wise to follow his example.