Why did the Home Secretary let this man into the UK?

Last week I wrote to the Home Secretary Theresa May advising her about the visit of Australian assisted suicide enthusiast Philip Nitschke (pictured) and urging her to prevent him entering Britain to conduct a seminar on methods people can use to kill themselves.

Today Nitschke was detained at Gatwick airport, but eventually let into the country several hours later after having some ‘items’ temporarily confiscated by border police.

Nitschke (aka Dr Death) is an extremist and self-publicist whose presence in the UK puts the lives of vulnerable elderly, depressed and disabled people at grave risk.

His workshop in London on Tuesday under the auspices of ‘EXIT International’ now looks likely to go ahead and will advise on the sourcing, supply and use of barbiturates, helium, nitrogen and other means to commit suicide. 

In 2001, Nitschke said that his so-called ‘peaceful pill’ should be ‘available in the supermarket so that those old enough to understand death could obtain death peacefully at the time of their choosing’.

Asked who would qualify for access he replied that ‘all people qualify, not just those with the training, knowledge or resources to find out how to “give away” their life and someone needs to provide this knowledge training or resource necessary to anyone who wants it, including the depressed, the elderly bereaved, (and) the troubled teen’. 

A 2010 report demonstrated that coroners were aware of 51 Australians who had died from an overdose of Nembutal, a lethal barbiturate that Nitschke has promoted since the late 1990’s as ‘a peaceful way to die’.

Of the 38 cases fully investigated by coroners, only 11 people were known to have suffered chronic physical pain or a terminal illness before their deaths. Of the 51, 14 were Australians in their 20’s and 30’s.

Journalist Michael Cook put it to Nitschke in 2011 that ‘nearly two-thirds of the Australians who died after quaffing Nembutal... were under 60, and quite a few were in their 20s and 30s... [suggesting that] that mental illness or depression, not unbearable pain, was the reason for the suicide.’

Nitschke responded, ‘There will be some casualties... but this has to be balanced with the growing pool of older people who feel immense well-being from having access to this information, [about suicide drugs].’

In the past, Nitschke's workshops have focused on the use of drugs and gas to commit suicide, with around half the time being used to explain how Nembutal, a veterinary sedative, can be used to end life.  

He has explained to attendees the best way to administer drugs and gas in order to bring about death, and has advertised test kits for Nembutal.

Currently he is the subject of an inquiry by the Australian Health Practitioners Agency (AHPA) in connection with a company called 'Max Dog Brewing' which he has set up in order to sell nitrogen cylinders to the public. Its website claims that they can be used for home brewing (nitrogen produces the bubbles in stout) but Nitschke has admitted on Australian national media that they can equally be used to commit suicide.

The Suicide Act, as amended in 2009, states that ‘an act capable of encouraging or assisting the suicide or an attempted suicide of another person’ is illegal, ‘whether or not a suicide, or an attempt at suicide, occurs’; the emphasis is on whether the accused ‘intended to encourage or assist suicide or an attempt at suicide’.

I believe that what Nitschke has done at previous workshops falls within the scope of these offences, because the information shared was capable of encouraging or assisting an attendee to commit suicide and the workshop was intended to encourage or assist people to commit suicide by offering them advice about the ‘best way’ of doing it.

Nitschke’s activities present a real and present risk to vulnerable members of the British public.

With the growing elderly population, failure of the care system and worsening economic situation a growing number of frail, disabled, ill and depressed people in Britain will be feeling under even greater pressure to end their lives, either for fear that they will not cope, or so as to be less of a burden to relatives.

They deserve better protection from suicide predators like Nitschke than they are currently getting.

Let’s hope that no vulnerable person is ‘helped’ over the edge by attending his seminar or as a result of the inevitable media hype that will accompany his visit.

Quite why the Home Secretary allowed him into the UK remains a mystery but Britain deserves an explanation.

US House of Representatives vote for 20 week abortion limit raises the issue again for the UK

The Republican-controlled US House of Representatives has passed a bill that would reduce late abortions.

The plan to restrict terminations to the first 20 weeks after conception was approved by 228 votes to 196, largely along party lines.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, which was based on research showing that the unborn child can experience pain by at least 20 weeks gestation, marks the first time that the United States’ Congress have voted to give affirmative protection to unborn children.

The debate followed polls showing that 64% of the American public would support legislation prohibiting abortion after 20 weeks (more detail is in Parliamentary Network for Critical Issues article).  

But the bill has no chance of becoming law as Democrats control the Senate and the White House has threatened a veto.

Most US states allow abortions to when a baby becomes viable outside the womb, considered to be some 24 weeks.

The Republican leadership pressed ahead with the abortion bill after the case of Kermit Gosnell, a Philadelphia abortion doctor who was recently sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of killing three babies delivered alive.

There has also been a lot of support for lowering the upper limit amongst UK politicians.

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt came in for criticism last year  for saying that he believes the upper abortion limit should be lowered from 24 to 12 weeks. 

However he is not alone. Of the 16 Conservative MPs in Cabinet, 13 actually voted for a decrease in the abortion upper limit during the passage of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill in 2008. 

Of these, three, including Mr Hunt, voted for 12 weeks, two voted for 16 weeks, seven voted for 20 weeks and one, the Prime Minister David Cameron, voted for 22 weeks. 

They are not alone in this conviction.

Nearly two thirds of the British public and more than three-quarters of women support a reduction in the 24-week upper age limit. 76% of the public think that aborting a baby at six months is cruel. Furthermore a 2007 poll by Marie Stopes International found that two thirds of GPs wanted a reduction from 24 weeks.

Why has public opinion changed on late abortion? There are five main reasons: 4D ultrasound, babies surviving below 24 weeks, stories of babies born alive after abortion, fetal sentience, and European precedent.

We have all seen Professor Stuart Campbell's high resolution 4D ultrasound images of babies 'walking’, swallowing, coughing, hiccupping from 12 weeks gestation and experienced how mothers bond emotionally to their babies as a result of these scans. We have also seen photographs of babies alive in the womb at 20 weeks (left).

The public also know about individual high profile cases like Manchester'sMillie McDonagh, born after a 22-week pregnancy and the world's most premature baby, Amillia Taylor, who was born a week younger in the US. Experts may argue about survival figures and about comparisons between population-based studies like EPICure and those from top neonatal units but the fact remains that some babies do actually survive below 24 weeks.

Stories of babies born alive after failed abortions are also not uncommon. In a 2007 West Midlands study of 3,189 cases of termination for fetal anomaly, 102 (3.2%) babies were born alive. This included 65.7% of those between 20 and 24 weeks. Accounts such as these understandably upset people.

And then there is the question of whether fetuses feel pain. The general public intuitively concludes that they do when they hear that from 16 weeks babies will recoil from a noxious stimulus in the womb and that premature babies born earlier than 24 weeks, if stabbed in the heel with a needle, will withdraw and cry. The RCOG wheels out its experts to tell us that babies below 24 weeks do not have the neurological apparatus to sense pain but fail to tell us that this is a controversial view not shared by other experts who regard it as being based on an outdated understanding of physiology.

Which of us, honestly, can imagine telling the mother who feels her baby kick at 20 weeks that it is not a sentient being?

Finally, Britain is out of touch with most of Europe in this matter. Most countries in the EU, 16 out of 27, have a gestational limit of 12 weeks or less. These include Germany, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium and Austria plus most countries in Eastern and Central Europe who once had far more liberal laws. At 24 weeks Britain is up there with former Soviet States Lithuania and Latvia.

In 2010 there were 792 disabled babies and 1,936 able-bodied babies aborted in Britain between 20 and 24 weeks. Every single one of the latter group was aborted under ground C of the Abortion Act, which in 98% of cases means protecting the mental health of the mother.

Lowering the abortion limit to 20 weeks for able-bodied babies (as Miller and many other MPs would support) would give more legal protection to about 2,000 babies a year; just 1% of the total. It would put clear blue water between the upper abortion limit and the lower threshold of viability and it also would show that parliament is beginning to listen.

Of course it would also raise the question of whether we should be doing the same for disabled babies, who can currently be aborted up until the moment of birth, a question evaluated by a recent parliamentary inquiry which is due to report soon. 

All the latest news on euthanasia and assisted suicide

Here is the latest update from the Care Not Killing Alliance about recent developments with euthanasia and assisted suicide.

Care Not Killing is a mainstream UK-based alliance of over 40 organisations and thousands of individuals which campaigns for better care and support for those who are sick, disabled and dying and against any weakening of the law to allow euthanasia or assisted suicide. The Alliance works in Parliament and in the courts and with health professionals, carers, general public and media.

Court of Appeal

From 13-15 May, three of England's top judges heard the appeals of Nicklinson, Lamb and 'Martin'; Paul Lamb joined the case after the death of Tony Nicklinson, whose widow Jane remains a party to the case. The Lord Chief Justice told the appellants that 'we are acutely aware of the desperate situation in which the appellants find themselves and we are very sympathetic. But we know, and they surely know, that we cannot decide this case as a matter of personal sympathy. We have to decide it as a point of law'.

Media interest in the case has allowed many members of the general public to hear from disability rights campaigners Katherine Araniello, Dr Kevin Fitzpatrick and Dr Colin Harte, who spoke eloquently about the risks posed to vulnerable people - notably disabled people - by a change in the law. Media coverage allowed our spokespeople to confront advocates with the unsettling facts of what legalisation would mean - summed up by discussion of the Groningen Protocol, which allows disabled babies in the Netherlands to be euthanised, in a heated Radio Fivelive exchange. It is crucially important that the dangerous reality of incremental extension not be allowed to be swept under the carpet, but exposed to public view.

Falconer Bill

On the final day of the Court of Appeal hearing, Lord Falconer tabled his 'Assisted Dying Bill' in the House of Lords. The first reading received virtually no press attention, and there is no date yet scheduled for second reading. The bill is the successor to Lord Joffe's failed attempt in 2006 and Lord Falconer's own failed previous attempt in 2009, and the Labour Peer is now seeking to use the findings of his stacked 'commission' to justify a third attempt, despite the continued opposition of those who would be directly affected by such legislation - doctors and disabled people - as well as his democratically elected colleagues in the House of Commons.

Legislation around the world

Evidence of how dangerous euthanasia and assisted suicide laws are for those who are most vulnerable continues to pour out of countries like Belgium - where euthanasia deaths increased by 25% in just one year - and Oregon - where suicide contagion has been proven by the daunting escalation in non physician assisted suicide rates since legalisation.

New South Wales in Australia and the US state of Maine have both decidedly rejected bills that would have permitted (respectively) euthanasia and assisted suicide in recent weeks, and Irish Taoiseach Enda Kenny has ruled out assisted suicide legislation in the light of the Fleming Supreme Court ruling. The US state of Vermont has, however, passed a law permitting physician assisted suicide, and becomes the first US state to pass such a law through its legislature. The law is based on that of Oregon, but with fewer 'safeguards' which will in any case expire after three years to be replaced by codes developed by doctors themselves. Quebec, meanwhile, has announced a euthanasia bill for the Canadian province, and Belgium has also moved one step closer to extending euthanasia to children.

Medics

The majority of the professional medical bodies have been strongly opposed to any change in the law which would change the nature of medicine, and the vast majority of individual medics across the board support this stance. The Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) has announced a consultation on assisted suicide, having last opened up the issue six years ago, and while we remain assured that the daily experience of GPs leaves them firmly opposed to any weakening of the law, we welcome an opportunity for practitioners to publicly reaffirm their stance. The consultation is restricted to members of the RCGP, who we would be delighted to hear from and to discuss the recent developments with.

The British Medical Association (BMA) saw attempts by advocates for change to press a neutral stance at last year's Annual Representative Meeting which was decisively rejected, and while we are glad that emerging end of life issues such as the Liverpool Care Pathway have been given priority at this year's ARM, we are pleased that the other important issues for the practice of medicine are unlikely to be sidelined due to further efforts by a determined minority so soon after the BMA last upheld its stance.

Liverpool Care Pathway

Lady Neuberger and her panel of experts have concluded oral evidence sessions, and are now considering the input from these, alongside written submissions and the findings of parallel inquiries. Care Minister Norman Lamb has announced that the Neuberger Inquiry will report in July, and we await its findings, hopeful that these will reflect the recommendations of our own submission.

My letter to the General Medical Council over its guidance to doctors on conscientious objection to abortion

When two Glasgow midwives won the right to opt out of supervising abortions last April I suggested that the General Medical Council (GMC) needed to revise its professional guidance on the matter which now seemed to be at odds with the law.

At the time Niall Dickson (pictured), the GMC's chief executive, actually told the Guardian that the GMC would need to consider the implications of the judges' decision on its guidance. He is quoted as saying:

‘We will study the outcome of this ruling, which has just come out, to see if there are any implications for our guidance. We already have clear guidance which says that doctors should be open with employers and colleagues so they can practise in accordance with their beliefs without compromising patient care.’ 

As I have heard nothing further from the GMC about the matter, and almost two months have passed, I have today written to Mr Dickson to ask what is happening. My letter is below:

Dear Mr Dickson,

I’m writing to enquire whether the General Medical Council intends to revise its guidance on ‘Personal Beliefs and Medical Practice’ in the light of the recent Glasgow appeal court ruling on participation in abortion and, if so, what the timescales for the revision are.

You will be aware that two Roman Catholic midwives won a landmark legal battle in April to avoid taking any part in abortion procedures.

Mary Doogan, 58, and Concepta Wood, 52, had lost a previous case against NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) when the court ruled that their human rights had not been violated as they were not directly involved in terminations.

However appeal judges ruled their right to conscientious objection means they can refuse to delegate, supervise or support staff involved in abortions.

The judgment is significant and has relevance also to doctors (full judgement here).

As you will know the Abortion Act 1967 gives healthcare professionals the right to conscientiously object to ‘participate’ in abortion but the scope of the word ‘participate’ has been the matter of some legal dispute.

But Lady Dorrian, who heard the recent challenge with Lord Mackay of Drumadoon and Lord McEwan, said: ‘In our view the right of conscientious objection extends not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose.’

She said the conscientious objection in the legislation is given ‘not because the acts in question were previously, or may have been, illegal’ but ‘because it is recognised that the process of abortion is felt by many people to be morally repugnant’.

She added: ‘It is in keeping with the reason for the exemption that the wide interpretation which we favour should be given to it. It is consistent with the reasoning which allowed such an objection in the first place that it should extend to any involvement in the process of treatment, the object of which is to terminate a pregnancy.’

In the earlier judgement Lady Smith had said that since the midwives were not covered by the conscience clause as ‘they (were) not being asked to play any direct role in bringing about terminations of pregnancy’.

But this has now been overturned.

The GMC guidance, which interestingly came into force earlier in the very week of the judgement, is at odds with this ruling. It currently reads:

‘In England, Wales and Scotland the right to refuse to participate in terminations of pregnancy (other than where the termination is necessary to save the life of, or prevent grave injury to, the pregnant woman), is protected by law under section 4(1) of the Act. This right is limited to refusal to participate in the procedure(s) itself and not to pre- or post-treatment care, advice or management, see the Janaway case: Janaway v Salford Area Health Authority [1989] 1AC 537′

In para 33 of the Judgment the court makes clear that professional guidelines can be legally wrong and cannot overrule statute, it says:

‘Great respect should be given to the advice provided hitherto by the professional bodies, but prior practice does not necessarily dictate interpretation. Moreover, when the subject of the advice concerns a matter of law, there is always the possibility that the advice from the professional body is incorrect’.

Because this Judgment is from a Scottish Court (and Scotland is a different jurisdiction to England and Wales) it is not strictly binding on an English Court. However it will nonetheless have significant persuasive force in England.

The Abortion Act 1967 applies in England, Wales and Scotland (but not in Northern Ireland) and when Scottish Courts have adjudicated on such ‘cross border’ legislation in the past their decisions have been taken very seriously in England and Wales and vice versa.

We have been concerned for some time that the GMC was over-interpreting the law in a grey area in issuing its guidance. But this latest judgement has clarified the law in a way that now makes that virtually certain.

Christian Medical Fellowship has over 4,000 doctors and 1,000 medical students as members and the vast majority would have a moral objection to participation in abortion. Many other doctors share these views and will want to know where they now stand with the GMC.

As I said above I would most grateful for an indication of your plans for review of your guidance along with timescales so that I can keep our members informed about this important development which has practical implications for many of them.

Yours sincerely

Belgium and the Netherlands escalate their children’s euthanasia programmes

In this last week both Belgium and the Netherlands have taken major steps towards euthanasia for children.

A consensus among members of the Belgian Federal Parliament has reportedly formed in support of legislation to allow children to choose to undergo euthanasia in certain dire cases, according to a report in the Belgian daily newspaper Der Morgen, as translated by the Paris-based news agency Presseurop.

If child euthanasia is legalized in Belgium, the country would become the first in the developed world to have a law on the books formally allowing the practice.

Belgium became the second country in the world after the Netherlands to legalize euthanasia in 2002, but the statute currently extends only to people 18 or older.

The bill, introduced by the Socialist party last December, lays out guidelines for doctors to decide on a case-by-case basis whether or not a child is mature enough to make the decision to end his or her own life, as well as whether a child's health is grave and hopeless enough to warrant euthanasia.

‘The idea is to update the law to take better account of dramatic situations and extremely harrowing cases we must find a response to,’ Socialist party leader Thierry Giet said shortly after the bill was introduced, according to Agence France-Presse.

‘On both sides of the linguistic border, liberals and socialists appear to agree on the fact that age should not be regarded as a decisive criterion in the event of a request for euthanasia,’ Der Morgen wrote last week.

The decision to consider the bill follows months of testimony by medical experts, doctors, clergy members and others, and it marks a turning point in the nation's approach to the rights of young people, some of whom would be able to choose to die if the law were to pass, even while still being legally barred from driving, marrying, voting or drinking liquor until they turned 18.

The bill would also likely allow euthanasia for patients suffering from Alzheimer's and other diseases leading to advanced dementia, who may otherwise be deemed incompetent to make the decision to die. There were 1,133 cases of euthanasia recorded in Belgium in 2011, accounting for about 1 percent of the country's deaths that year, according to AFP.

Peter Deconinck, president of the Belgian medical ethics organization Reflectiegroep Biomedische Ethiek, has come out in support of expanding the practice to minors, as has the head of the intensive care unit of Fabiola Hospital in Brussels, who testified before a Belgian Senate committee.

‘We all know that euthanasia is already practiced on children,’ he told the committee. ‘Yes, active euthanasia.’

A majority of members of the Belgian Parliament are reportedly ready to pass the child euthanasia bill.  

In a separate move the Royal Dutch Medical Association (KNMG), which represents doctors in the Netherlands, has said that distress felt by parents can justify euthanasia of a dying newborn.

The Netherlands has since 2005 not prosecuted doctors who perform euthanasia on some minors as long as the doctors act in accordance with a set of medical guidelines dubbed the Groningen Protocol, drafted by Dr Eduard Verhagen in 2004.

Verhagen reported in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) in 2005 on 22 babies with spina bifida who were given lethal injections under the protocol over a seven year period.

However, in a new policy document, ‘Medical decisions about the lives of newborns with severe abnormalities’ (in Dutch only) the KNMG now explains why it is acceptable, and perhaps even necessary, to euthanase children.

What is new about this statement is that it says that the parents’ suffering may be a reason to kill the newborn.

Amongst other conditions, the policy states that a lethal injection of muscle relaxant is ethically possible when ‘the period of gasping and dying persists and the inevitable death is prolonged, in spite of good preparation, and it causes severe suffering for the parents.’

Dr Verhagen, who is also one of the authors of the recent KNMG report, explained to Volkskrant, a leading Dutch newspaper, why parental anguish is relevant.

Doctors should spare parents the ‘abomination’ of seeing their child die in distress, he argues.  It is part of good palliative care.

The criteria for euthanasing newborns are as follows (from page 54 of the report): if the child is suffering, if it cannot express its own wishes, if death is inevitable and if the dying process is prolonged, then the child may be euthanased and spare the parents further severe suffering.

Of the 175,000 babies born every year in The Netherlands, the KNMG suggests that about 650 might be cases which would be worthy of euthanasia.

‘These babies, despite very intensive treatment, will certainly die in the short term. They have a poor prognosis and a very bleak life perspective. They may not be dependent on intensive care but they face a life of serious and hopeless suffering. Doctors and parents face the exceedingly profound question of whether to start or continue treatment or even whether a good action may actually be a harm, in view of the suffering and disability that may result from the poor health of the child.’ 

These disturbing latest developments in the two countries which were the first to legalise euthanasia in Europe demonstrate graphically the incremental extension that takes place once the door is opened and the public conscience begins to change.

The acceptance of two key concepts is what makes this extension inevitable – first it is accepted that there is such a thing as a life not worth living and second that the active ending of a person’s life is justified in order to lessen the suffering of others.

It was these two principles that were used to justify the killing an infant with limb abnormalities and congenital blindness (named Knauer) with parental consent by Dr Karl Brandt in neighbouring Germany in 1939.

This 'test-case' paved the way for the registration of all children under three years of age with 'serious hereditary diseases'. This information was then used by a panel of 'experts', including three medical professors (who never saw the patients), to authorise death by injection or starvation of some 6,000 children by the end of the Second World War.

The euthanasia programme in Nazi Germany, later headed by the same Karl Brandt, did not begin in prison camps like Auschwitz and Treblinka. It began far more subtly with doctors in hospitals and its very first victims were children who were killed on supposedly compassionate grounds.

It is bitterly ironic that child euthanasia is happening again seventy years later on the very same grounds in two countries that share a common border with Germany. 

This post has been republished on Life News and LifeSite News 

For ten year report on Euthanasia in Belgium see here.

Would giving royal assent to the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill place the queen in breach of her coronation oath?

At her coronation in 1953 Queen Elizabeth II was asked by the Archbishop of Canterbury:

‘Will you to the utmost of your power maintain the Laws of God and the true profession of the Gospel? Will you to the utmost of your power maintain in the United Kingdom the Protestant Reformed Religion established by law? Will you maintain and preserve inviolably the settlement of the Church of England, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government thereof, as by law established in England?’ 

She replied, ‘All this I promise to do’.

The Queen is a committed Christian believer who takes very seriously her duty to maintain ‘the true profession of the Gospel’. But what about her similar duty to 'maintain the Laws of God'?

The Laws of God about marriage are very clear.  Marriage is a lifelong monogamous bond between one man and one woman as established by creation ordinance (Genesis 2:24) and upheld by Jesus Christ (Matthew 19:5 ) and his Apostles (Ephesians 5:31).

Furthermore it points to the complementarity, permanence and fruitfulness of Christ’s own relationship with his bride, the church (Ephesians 5:31-2).

The redefinition of marriage which is the basis of the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill runs directly contrary to this.

It is therefore very difficult to see how the Queen can give it her Royal Assent without at the same time violating her Coronation Oath. 

Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Bishop of Rochester, made this very point earlier this month. 

Lord Mackay, former Lord Advocate and Lord Chancellor, at a recent event hosted by the Theos think tank, was also asked just this question - whether, in light of the Church of England’s opposition, signing the Bill might put the Queen in breach of her Coronation Oath. 

Lord Mackay, who opposes same-sex marriage, said that ministers should ensure any legislation was consistent with the Queen’s promise. He said:

‘The Queen under our constitutional arrangements is expected to act in accordance with the advice of her ministers, given ultimately through the Prime Minister. The idea of the Coronation Oath was that it would never be in conflict with that advice and therefore it is the responsibility of the ministers of the Crown to see that whatever advice they give is consistent with the proper construction of the Coronation Oath.’

He added: ‘My hope is that a contradiction between what is advised and what was sworn should never arise.’

But if the Lords pass this bill this exact situation will actually arise. The Prime Minister will be advising the Queen to do something which almost certainly violates her Coronation Oath in the very year she celebrates the 60^th anniversary of that coronation.

Even if passed by both Houses of Parliament the Marriage Bill cannot become law without receiving royal assent. So the Queen does have the power to block the bill, even if it is a power she has never yet used with any piece of legislation.

The last time a British Monarch withheld royal assent was over 300 years ago in 1708 – when the last Stuart monarch, Anne, withheld her Assent from a bill ‘for the settling of Militia in Scotland’.

However there have been more recent examples of royal assent being withheld in other European monarchies.

On 2 December 2008 Grand Duke Henri, Luxembourg's monarch and a Roman Catholic, refused to sign a euthanasia bill into law.

As a result the Luxembourg parliament stripped him of his constitutional powers by amending the constitution so that bills would no longer require his approval before passing into law. 

A precedent for Luxembourg's move was set in 1990, when Belgium's King Badouin found himself unable to approve an abortion law.

With the king's approval, the government made him a commoner for several days and passed the law, putting him back on the throne after the legislature had enacted the bill unilaterally.

Were the Queen to refuse to sign the Marriage Bill, it would provoke a similar constitutional crisis and would place the British Parliament in the situation of deciding whether to strip her of her constitutional powers in order to force it through.

Over 2,500 years ago, Queen Esther of Persia, a Jewess, was encouraged by her uncle Mordecai to risk her life by taking a stand of conscience in order to protect her own people.

Their conversation, carried out via messengers, is one of the most famous in the Old Testament:

‘Then (Esther) instructed him to say to Mordecai, ‘All the king’s officials and the people of the royal provinces know that for any man or woman who approaches the king in the inner court without being summoned the king has but one law: that they be put to death unless the king extends the gold sceptre to them and spares their lives…

When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai,  he sent back this answer: ‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?’

Then Esther sent this reply to Mordecai: ‘Go, gather together all the Jews who are in Susa, and fast for me. Do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my attendants will fast as you do. When this is done, I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.’ (Esther 4:11-16)

Is this Queen Elizabeth II’s Queen 'Esther moment' I wonder? Was she brought to royal position ‘for such a time as this’?

We must pray earnestly that she is given great courage and great wisdom. 

Glasgow health board again tries to force midwives to supervise abortions

Two Glasgow midwives, who won a landmark legal battle to avoid taking any part in abortion procedures, may now have to return to court.

Last April appeal judges ruled that the right of Mary Doogan and Concepta Wood (pictured) to conscientious objection meant they could refuse to delegate, supervise or support staff involved in abortions.

The verdict marked the first time in Britain that the right to conscientious objection was deemed to extend beyond direct participation.

But a spokesperson for NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde (GGC) has now said (apparently at the prompting of the National Secular Society) that it is the health board’s intention to appeal the decision of the Inner House of the Court of Session to The Supreme Court (Further reports here and here).

The Abortion Act 1967 gives healthcare professionals the right to conscientiously object to ‘participate’ in abortion but the scope of the word ‘participate’ has been the matter of some legal dispute.

Lady Dorrian, who presided at the previous appeal  with Lord Mackay of Drumadoon and Lord McEwan, said: ‘In our view the right of conscientious objection extends not only to the actual medical or surgical termination but to the whole process of treatment given for that purpose.’

The previous judgment was hugely significant and meant that official guidance from both the Royal College of Midwives (RCM) and the General Medical Council (GMC) would almost certainly need revision.

The RCM guidance currently reads as follows:

‘The RCM believes that the interpretation of the conscientious objection clause should only include direct involvement in the procedure of terminating pregnancy. Thus all midwives should be prepared to care for women before, during and after a termination in a maternity unit under obstetric care.’

The GMC guidance  similarly reads:

'In England, Wales and Scotland the right to refuse to participate in terminations of pregnancy (other than where the termination is necessary to save the life of, or prevent grave injury to, the pregnant woman), is protected by law under section 4(1) of the Act. This right is limited to refusal to participate in the procedure(s) itself and not to pre- or post-treatment care, advice or management, see the Janaway case: Janaway v Salford Area Health Authority [1989] 1AC 537'

The outcome of the case is important because the Supreme Court is the highest court in Britain and its rulings will therefore be binding on all lower courts and will have repercussions not just for nurses but also for doctors and all other healthcare staff.

As I have previously argued as Christians we should not be intimidated by state or other authorities who attempt to force us to do what we believe is morally wrong.

Abortion not only takes an innocent human life, it is also contrary to all historic codes of medical ethics including the Hippocratic Oath and Declaration of Geneva.

These courageous midwives, who have been victimised by their health authority, deserve our prayers and support.

‘We must obey God rather than human beings!’ (Acts 5:29)

(I have blogged on this case more extensively here, here and here)