A recent legal ruling in Canada is a strong warning for British medical professionals who conscientiously object to involvement in abortion, or who would do so with assisted suicide if it were ever legalised. In 2018 the Ontario Superior Court ruled that healthcare professionals who […]
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After Three Decades The Department of Health Recognises Fetal Pain
The eighteenth century philosopher, Jeremy Bentham, wrote of animals: ‘The question is not Can they reason?, not Can they talk?, but Can they suffer?’ Professors Glover and Fisk, in their 2005 paper ‘Fetal Pain: Implications for research and practice’ say that this caused a change […]
The risks of neutrality on assisted suicide – lessons from abroad
Medicine has held a long-established opposition to assistance with suicide. Ira Byock, an American Palliative care physician, believes this is necessary so that: ‘the power of medicine is not used against vulnerable people’. One of the roles of medicine is the need to balance our […]
Why the Royal College of Physicians will go ‘neutral’ on assisted suicide and why that matters
The Royal College of Physicians (RCP) is going to poll its 35,000 members to ask whether ‘they would help a terminally ill patient to die and whether the law should be changed to allow assisted dying.’ Why, despite the RCP polling all its members just […]
A good day to bury bad news? New CANH guidance released by BMA
When Jo Moore infamously sent a memo saying in effect that 11 September 2001 was a good day to bury bad news, she inadvertently lifted the veil on a time honoured practice of releasing news and reports in the midst of major national or world […]