Marketing tactics used by BPAS and MSI to increase abortion pressure

My attention has just been drawn to a new report by Right to Know (RTK) which reveals the pressure that women come under to proceed with an abortion once they are referred to an outsourced NHS provider.

The full report provides new evidence on the financial motivation of abortion providers to grow their market share and shows where counselling comes into to conflict with a strong drive to promote abortion.

In 1991 the NHS funded 9,197 abortions carried out by the private sector in England and Wales. By 2010 that figure had risen to 111,775 - an increase of over 1100%.

In 1991 the NHS funded 10% of abortions carried out by the private sector. By 2010 that figure had risen to 93%.

In 1991 the NHS funded 84,369 abortions. By 2010 that figure had more than doubled to 181,304.

The growth of NHS-funded but privately-provided abortions entirely accounted for this increase.

The report shows that abortion providers, the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (bpas) and Marie Stopes International (MSI) are strongly driven by financial motivations and see success in increasing the number of abortions that they perform. Both organisations (which have a combined income of about £150 million per year, much of it from tax revenues) employ Business Development experts to promote abortion and increase revenues. They have business plan objectives and targets to increase the number of abortions that they perform.

The great tragedy of this business like approach is that women who are referred to bpas or MSI for an NHS abortion are denied access to any other source of independent counselling. These organisations depend on their income from providing and selling abortion and are not the appropriate place to provide pre-abortion counselling to vulnerable women who need support.

This is what the amendment to the Health and Social Care Bill proposed by MPs Nadine Dorries and Frank Field, is aimed at rectifying.

Japanese stem cell sperm study opens Pandora’s box of unethical possibilities

Fertility experts are hailing a mouse study in which working sperm cells were created from stem cells as ‘hugely exciting’.

A Kyoto University team were able to turn stem cells into early sperm cells called primordial germ cells (PGCs).

When these were transplanted into infertile mice, the animal played ‘host’ as the stem cells developed into normal-looking sperm. These were then used to father healthy, and crucially fertile, pups, Cell journal reports.

Dr Allan Pacey, senior lecturer in Andrology at the University of Sheffield said that ‘this may one day lead to a clinical application whereby we could make sperm for infertile men’ although he added that ‘clearly more work needs to be done to refine this process’.

The Japanese team, led by Mitinori Saitou, used both embryonic stem cells (derived by destroying embryos) and induced pluripotent stem cells (created ethically from body cells) to produce the sperm precursors.

However, in keeping with the BBC’s obsession for hyping embryonic stem cell work, the latter are not mentioned in the BBC report but only by others.

However the researchers actually suggest that the same procedure could be carried out using stem cells derived from adult skin cells, a claim consistent with the results of other recent research.

Should we be welcoming this advance?

On the one hand it would be a significant breakthrough if the process could be refined to the degree that it could be used to help infertile men father their own biological children.

But in the wrong hands such technology might conceivably be employed to produce male sperm from female skin or female eggs from male skin.

This could open the way to two male or two female homosexuals having children who were biologically related to both of them (eg. two biological mothers), or to people knowingly (or unknowingly) having sperm or eggs derived from their skin, bone marrow or other tissue.

In other words people might be able to ‘donate’ eggs or sperm without donating real eggs or sperm or even knowing that they had done so. Or we could have reproduction without men, or without women, being required to contribute genetically.

As with many infertility treatments, an advance that might be used ethically to help a small group of people, also opens a Pandora’s box of other unethical possibilities.

Any research and therapies would need to be very highly regulated, but one cannot see that happening in Brave New Britain which already has amongst the laxest fertility laws in Europe and already accepts embryo experimentation, disposal and destruction and sperm/egg donation (all of which are unethical in my view).

The research to produce sperm from stem cells is still at a very early stage and there are still huge technical difficulties to overcome prior to it having any application in human reproduction. But it also raises huge ethical issues.

I can’t help thinking that, rather than embarking on yet more expensive highly technological solutions to childlessness, our key priorities should be to reduce abortion, promote adoption and prevent infertility.

The infertility crisis is in large part fuelled by the fact that there are very few babies available for adoption (primarily because of abortion) and rising levels of infertility (in large part because of sexually transmitted disease and women delaying having children).

Scientists make nerve cells directly from human skin bypassing stem cells altogether

Researchers have come up with a recipe for making functional neurons directly from human skin cells, including those taken from patients with Alzheimer's disease. The new method may offer a critical short cut for generating neurons for replacement therapies of the future, according to research published in the 5 August issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication.

When studied in a dish, the neurons derived from healthy skin cells could fire and receive signals, just like normal neurons. What's more, when placed into the brains of developing mice, the converted cells were able to connect up to the existing circuitry. ‘They really are neurons,’ said Asa Abeliovich of Columbia University, senior author of the study.

In earlier approaches to generate neurons from skin cells, those adult cells first had to be returned to an embryonic stem cell state. Those cells, called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, are hard to come by – less than one percent of cells are typically reprogrammed successfully. In addition, the entire process is time-consuming, requiring months to coax cells into iPS cells and then stimulate them to become neurons.

To get around these potential pitfalls, Abeliovich's team started with known transcriptional regulators and, through a process of trial and error, identified a cocktail of factors that could turn human skin cells into neurons. While the process was not initially very efficient, they refined the protocol, ultimately converting about 50 percent of the cells.

This is a massive new step towards providing ethical treatments for degenerative diseases that do not involve the destruction of human embryos.

This new development comes after three significant developments in ethical stem cell treatment in July that I reported on earlier this week and is further evidence that ethical treatments can be found if researchers are patient and persistent.

Another poll from the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (aka DID) to grab headlines ahead of new moves to legalise assisted suicide

The Voluntary Euthanasia Society, which renamed itself ‘Dignity in Dying’ in 2006 to disguise its real agenda, has commissioned yet another poll to bolster support for its tired ongoing campaign to legalise assisted suicide.

Having failed on three occasions in the last few years to convince Parliament to change the law DID is now trying to soften up public opinion ahead of a fresh assault on our legislature this autumn. It is now targeting Scotland, Westminster and the Isle of Man (more on that later).

When I heard this morning from the Press Association that DID was about to publish another opinion poll showing support for its position – I wondered what possible excuse they could have come up with this time for playing the same old stuck record. But apparently tomorrow, 3 August, is the 50th anniversary of the Suicide Act 1961 which decriminalised suicide but left assisted suicide as a crime carrying a discretionary custodial sentence of up to 14 years.

The poll shows that three out four people think assisted suicide should be available for terminally ill people but only one in three think it should be available for disabled people.

The pro-euthanasia lobby have commissioned this latest survey to bolster support for their campaign to make assisted suicide legal for people who are terminally ill but they have so far failed to come up with precise definitions of ‘terminally ill’ or ‘disabled’ that have satisfied decision-makers and legislators. Disabled people and terminally ill people are not distinct groups – many disabled people are terminally ill and many terminally ill people are disabled.

Parliament, the medical profession and all of the leading disability rights groups in Britain have consistently opposed any change in the law to allow assisted suicide or euthanasia for any group at all on grounds of public safety, believing that any such a change would inevitably place pressure on vulnerable people to end their lives and expose them to exploitation and abuse by those with an interest, financial or otherwise, in their deaths.

DID desperately want to get the camel’s nose into the tent by establishing a beach-head for assisted suicide initially for a small group of people but we should recognize that there is a lot more camel to follow.

This survey should be seen for what it is, a ploy aimed at shoring up support for Charlie Falconer’s discredited and flagging ‘Commission on Assisted Dying’, manned and funded by assisted suicide advocates and exposed as a bent jury by the BMA, which is due to report later this year and is expected to recommend changing the law to allow ‘terminally ill, mentally competent adults’ to have their lives ended on request.

It will be interesting to see if DID publish the actual questions they asked. It is not their usual practice, but if not I will post them on this blog later this week along with an explanation of what they really mean once you strip away the specious euphemisms.

Nitschke announces to the media his latest scheme to help more Australians kill themselves

I previously commented on a You Tube video of the assisted suicide of a British couple in their 80s who died in a suicide pact at their home in Victoria Australia.

Don Flounders, 81, suffered from mesothelioma, which is an incurable form of lung cancer and his 88-year-old wife Iris, who was not suffering from a terminal illness, had decided she did not want to live without him.

The couple made no secret of their intention to die together and travelled to Mexico in 2008 to buy the veterinary drug Nembutal which they claimed they needed for a ‘controlled death’.

The couple killed themselves after receiving advice from Philip Nitschke, a dangerous self-publicist and extremist who is well known for promoting suicide amongst elderly people.

Nitschke is now claiming that he has found a legal loophole, to import nembutal into Australia where is planning to help six other people to kill themselves.

He claims to have discovered that it can be imported legally, if a doctor applies to the Therapeutic Goods Administration with an acceptable medical reason.
‘I’ll be quite open about what I’m doing. There is provision in the legislation for this import process,’ Nitschke said.

A new government notice claims it's illegal to import, unless reasonably prescribed, but Nitschke says ‘I’ll prescribe it as a sedative, what they do is up to them. Of course if they want to misuse it, I suppose they would peacefully end their lives - but of course they'll be advised about it and that's not the reason we're going down this path.’

Since Nitschke has advertised his intentions by speaking to the media, it seems likely that the government might indeed find that it is not being ‘reasonably prescribed’.

Nitschke has a track record of overplaying his hand.

In a 2001 interview on ‘National Review Online’ Nitschke was asked who would qualify for access to his ‘suicide pill’. 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, the troubled teen’.

In the same article Nitschke said that the 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’.

For more background informaton see also the following blog post:

Philip Nitschke is back in the British Isles but is not finding a warm reception for his ‘how to commit suicide’ seminars

Medical Defence Union finally publishes full version of new guidance on praying for patients

I recently blogged about new guidance from the Medical Defence Union which endorsed tactful prayer with patients. The full version of this new guidance is now available on the MDU website. It makes it clear that the guidance has been released as a result of the recent case of a GP, Richard Scott, who refused a formal warning from the General Medical Council following a complaint that he had discussed faith with a patient.

The MDU says it has received just seven requests for advice and assistance over the last two years about discussing religion with patients.

It outlines that the ‘issue is a sensitive one’ which ‘arouses strong feelings from those who see religious belief as a potential comfort for patients and those who see such discussions with patients as inappropriate in a clinical consultation’.

The key thing according to the MDU is ‘the context of the consultation and the doctors’ existing relationship with a patient’.

The MDU advises doctors to ‘think very carefully before raising the subject of religion with patients’ and to be aware that patients may already feel ‘vulnerable or distressed’ or ‘inhibited from talking openly or honestly if they believe your religious views may lead you to judge them’.

They also emphasise, from the GMC’s guidance on personal beliefs and medical practice, that doctors should not ‘impose beliefs on patients or cause distress by the inappropriate or insensitive expression of religious, political or other beliefs or views’. Neither should they ‘put pressure on patients to discuss or justify their beliefs’ but they should not ‘normally discuss personal beliefs with patients unless those beliefs are directly relevant to the patients’ care’.

However the MDU then quotes at length a letter from Jane O’Brien, the Assistant Director of Standards and Fitness to Practice with the GMC whose letter to the Daily Telegraph in February 2009 made the following points:

‘Nothing in the GMC’s guidance precludes doctors from praying with their patients. It says that the focus must be on the patients’ needs and wishes. Any offer to pray should follow on from a discussion which established that the patient might be receptive. It must be tactful so that the patient can decline without embarrassment because whilst some may welcome the suggestion others may regard it as inappropriate’.

The MDU also quotes controversial guidance from the Department of Health issued in January 2009 entitled ’Religion or belief: a practice guide for the NHS’. This guidance was highly criticised at the time for over-interpreting the law and erring on the side of gagging doctors rather than allowing free discussion about a patient’s spiritual needs.

As I have emphasised before, there is much in the GMC guidance which provides latitude for faith discussions and in particular it emphasises that ‘discussing personal beliefs may, when approached sensitively, help doctors to work in partnership with patients to address their particular treatment needs’.

Human beings are not biological or biochemical machines but complex unities of body, soul and spirit. This means that real whole person care should address not just issues of physical health but also psychological, social and spiritual issues which are having an influence on health. There is a huge and growing body of evidence outlining the health benefits of Christian faith.

Overall the MDU guidance seems to strike a good balance and gives a reasonable amount of latitude both to doctors and patients who are open to faith discussions that have a bearing on health.

Surrogacy raises complex ethical issues

A recent BBC News report, ‘Womb for rent: A tale of two mothers’, highlights the fact that the high cost of surrogacy in Europe and the US means that many Western women are outsourcing pregnancy abroad. The BBC World Service follows two women, Carolina and Sonal, as they come to terms with the emotional costs of surrogacy.

Carolina is an Irish woman unable to bear a child as a result of surgery for cancer of the cervix. Sonal is an Indian woman married to a vegetable vendor earning just £21 per month who agrees to carry Carolina’s child in exchange of a payment of £4,200 which will enable her to live more comfortably and provide education for her children.

The case is the tip of a growing iceberg of international surrogacy arrangements. On the surface it seems to be a win/win negotiation – one woman gets a much wanted child and another receives money for her children’s education – but beneath the surface it raises many complex ethical and moral questions.

Surrogacy literally means ‘taking the place of someone else’ and a surrogate mother carries a baby on behalf of another couple (often termed the ‘commissioning couple’) having agreed to surrender the child to them after birth.

Surrogacy is not illegal in the UK but surrogacy arrangements are not enforceable in law either and a child born as a result of surrogacy is legally the child of the surrogate mother, not the commissioning couple, even though one or possibly even both of them may be the baby’s biological parents through egg and/or sperm donation.

It’s an offence in the UK to advertise either that one is looking for, or is willing to be, a surrogate mother and any commercial interest in the arrangement is illegal. ‘Necessary expenses’ only can be reimbursed.

A similar situation operates in Ireland although surrogacy is illegal in other European countries like Germany, France and Italy. However in developing countries like India the laws are much more lax.

Once a surrogate mother has given up a baby to the commissioning couple, that couple then apply for a court ‘parental order’ which makes the child theirs. However if the surrogate mother doesn’t wish to part with the baby then there is effectively nothing the commissioning couple can do about it.

Surrogacy raises many issues from a Christian perspective. First there is the issue of exploitation, especially with international surrogacy arrangements where a rich couple from the West pay a large amount of money to a woman, often living in poverty, who must then endure the risks of carrying a pregnancy in developing world conditions. Then there is the commodification of childbirth. As Christians we believe that children are gifts of God whose welfare must be paramount. They are not commodities who can be bought and sold.

Third there are the complexities of family relationships to consider. There is, on the one hand, the emotional cost of parting with the baby whom you have carried throughout pregnancy and then questions of identity that the child might have later with respect to whom his or her real parents, brothers or sisters, or relatives really are. Not to mention issues of custody and inheritance rights.

Finally there is the question of whether surrogacy somehow breaches the integrity of the marriage bond. God’s plan for marriage is that of an exclusive monogamous, heterosexual, lifelong intimate relationship where children are brought up by parents to whom they are biologically related within families. The baby being carried by the surrogate mother may or may not be biological related to her and may be biologically related only to one of the two members of the commissioning couple.

Surrogacy is very different from adoption in that a child with confused parentage is being deliberately and intentionally created.

The cases of surrogacy described in the Bible also raise big questions for us about the wisdom of surrogacy for society and family relationships. Abraham’s wife Sarah used Hagar as a surrogate mother and Jacob’s wives Leah and Rachel used Zilpah and Bilhah respectively.

But in both cases the surrogacy arrangements were embarked upon out of impatience a lack of trust in God’s promises. And there were ramifications for generations to come. The resultant intra-family hostility and conflict should ring loud warning bells for us. It is a sobering thought that, had Abraham been more patient and trusting, Ishmael, and hence Islam, might never have originated!

Having said that, every child born by whatever means is infinitely precious in the sight of God and worthy of love, protection and care.

The elephant in the room of course with the whole issue of surrogacy is perhaps why commissioning couples don’t simply adopt. And this brings us to the wider question of why there are so few babies under a year of age available for adoption in this country. I have recently highlighted that there is one baby adoption in England and Wales for every 2,235 abortions so our perhaps our efforts should be directed to restricting abortion thereby making more babies available for adoption. There are also many children with special needs in foster care or in residential care homes who are needing adoptive parents.

Surrogacy raises many issues and there are solutions to childlessness that don’t involve negotiating its stormy waters.