British Section of the World Federation of Doctors Who Respect Human Life

Daily Mail (London)
April 17, 2007 Tuesday

INCREASING numbers of doctors are refusing to carry out abortions, forcing the NHS to pay private hospitals for the procedures. Here, Dr Robert Hardie, a former GP, explains why he resigned rather than refer women for terminations.

NO GP should go against their conscience. So says the General Medical Council. If only the Department of Health understood this ethical stance, the droves of young doctors now refusing to perform abortions would not have to worry about losing their jobs for sticking to their principles.

By Wesley J. Smith

From The Weekly Standard.

SENATORS DIANNE FEINSTEIN and Orrin Hatch have just introduced Senate Bill 812, which explicitly legalizes human cloning and--since a shortage of human eggs is currently impeding human cloning research (one egg is needed for each attempt at cloning)--the bill also authorizes researchers to pay women to undergo egg procurement.

And if the purpose of the legislation wasn't bad enough, there's its name: Feinstein and Hatch mendaciously named S. 812 the "Human Cloning Ban and Stem Cell Protection Act of 2007."

How can a bill to legalize human cloning be instead called a ban? Through the time-tested method of disingenuous legislating--the bogus definition. Here's a rarely discussed truth: Key words and terms in legislation mean only what a bill's authors say they mean, rather than their actual definitions. If a dung beetle was defined in legislation as a butterfly, for the purposes of that bill, the dung beetle would be a butterfly. Which is essentially what S. 812 does. It defines the term "human cloning" inaccurately and unscientifically so that Feinstein and Hatch can pretend their bill will outlaw human cloning.

The European Court of Human Rights on Tuesday awarded a 36-year-old Polish woman 25,000 euros, about $33,000, in damages after doctors refused to grant her permission to terminate her pregnancy despite serious risk to her eyesight.

After her delivery, her eyesight deteriorated considerably, and she has been declared significantly disabled.

The court ruled that Poland had no effective legal framework for pregnant women to assert their right to abortion on medical grounds.

The ruling means that Poland will have to introduce clearer guidelines on abortion on medical grounds. As a member of the Council of Europe, Poland is obliged to abide by the court's judgments.

The Polish government has three months to appeal the verdict.

Interview With John Smeaton of SPUC

LONDON, FEB. 16, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The United Kingdom is exporting anti-life and anti-family values, says John Smeaton, director of an organization campaigning for pro-life laws.

Smeaton, the national director of the U.K.-based Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, spoke with ZENIT about the present and the future of bioethics in Britain.

Read the original article here.

Wesley J. Smith
Saturday, February 17, 2007

As I just posted, the UK will permit poor women to be exploited by selling their eggs--all in the name of promoting the great god science, of course. Inconveniently, a study just was just published illustrating the pronounced risks that these poor women will face. As the Telegraph reported:"Women who donate their eggs for research are at risk from life-threatening side effects, scientists warn in a new study. They say that the powerful drugs given to the volunteers to help increase the number of eggs they produce can cause paralysis, limb amputation and even death.

The story points out that at least three women died in the UK alone last year from egg donation for IVF treatments: "Gita Nargund, the head of reproductive medicine at St George's Hospital, London, has campaigned for the use of alternative treatments to the strong hormones used to stimulate women's ovaries to produce more than the one egg normally released in each monthly cycle. She said that, in addition to those reported in the Italian study, there have been two deaths from OHSS in the UK, and a further death of a woman during an egg collection procedure in Leicester last year."

Feminists and pro-life groups should ally on this issue and create an advertising campaign in the UK warning women, "Donating Eggs for Research Could Kill You!"

Read the original at news.com.au.

CHINA'S military is harvesting organs from unwilling live prison inmates, mostly Falungong practitioners, for transplants on a large scale - including to foreign recipients- according to a study.

The report's authors - Canada's former secretary of state for the Asia Pacific region David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas - implicated dozens of hospitals and jails throughout China in July, after a two-month investigation.

Chinese officials denied those allegations.

Steven Ertelt

LifeNews.com Editor

January 30, 2007

London, England (LifeNews.com) -- Christians and Muslims came together for a pro-life conference on Saturday, proving that pro-life values extend beyond religious boundaries. The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, a leading British pro-life group, brought together the Bishop of Pontefract and members of the Indian Muslim Welfare Society.

The conference was held at the Al-Hickmah Centre and featured John Smeaton, national director of SPUC and Dr. A Majid Katme of the Islamic Medical Association in the UK.

The Times (London)

January 8, 2007, Monday

Scientists believe that they have found a way of gathering embryonic stem cells that does not harm the unborn child and may end the ethical storm surrounding the procedure.

Stem cells, which can grow into different types of tissue that can be used to regenerate damaged body parts, are usually harvested from embryos.

A breakthrough in the United States has shown that by using ammiotic fluid human stem cells could be harvested without killing the unborn foetus.

Daily Mail (London)

December 16, 2006 Saturday

It sounds beyond belief . . . newborn babies killed for their stem cells to create beauty products. But as this Special Report reveals, the evidence is both compelling and deeply distressing

THE PLASTIC bag looks as if it contains meat. But then a right leg is taken from it and placed surgically on the morgue table, followed by the left one. Then the torso. The head follows, a gaping cavity where the brain used to be.

But it is only when the gloved hand of the pathologist examines the tiny fingers of a baby aged about 30 weeks that the full horror of what I am witnessing sinks in.

Read the original at WorldNetDaily.com

A nurse practitioner whose license was suspended by the state of Alabama earlier after she was accused of illegally giving medical abortions without a doctor's supervision now is facing the possibility of time in jail and fines if convicted on three specific counts.

Janet F. Onthank King, 58, whose license was suspended along with that of abortionist Deborah Lyn Levich early in 2006, has been arrested by authorities in Jefferson County, Ala., on two counts of "knowingly or recklessly performing abortions as a non-physician."

From SPUC.

London, 28 November 2006 - The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has criticised the assertion, described in The Times newspaper as having been made by Ms Ann Furedi of BPAS, that having sex without repercussions is a right.

Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, said: "The so-called right to have sex - and then to kill unborn children if they result - is a disturbing and sickening new argument from the pro-abortion lobby. It not only violates all sense of respect for the unborn child, but also demeans women, for whom abortion is often undertaken with huge reluctance because they feel they have no choice.

From SPUC.

London, 27 November 2006 - The Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) has responded to BPAS's call for abortion to be made more easily available.

Paul Tully, SPUC general secretary, said: "The BPAS, for its own ideological reasons, is pushing for abortion to become even more prevalent, and that is why they are calling for changes in the law. However, when 1,046 women were asked whether they supported either easier access to abortion or more support for women who wanted to keep their baby, only eight percent wanted easier abortion but 85% wanted more help for mums." (Six percent either did not know or declined to answer.)

LifeSiteNews.com

Tuesday November 21, 2006

Read the original here.

LONDON, November 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a statement yesterday Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor of England has warned doctors that they may face prison sentences if they refuse to starve and dehydrate patients to death. Criminal charges of assault could be laid against doctors or nurses who refuse to allow patients to die, even by removal of food and hydration tube.

LifeSiteNews.com

Tuesday November 21, 2006

Read the original here.

LONDON, November 20, 2006 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In a statement yesterday Lord Falconer, the Lord Chancellor of England has warned doctors that they may face prison sentences if they refuse to starve and dehydrate patients to death. Criminal charges of assault could be laid against doctors or nurses who refuse to allow patients to die, even by removal of food and hydration tube.

Story from BBC NEWS

The 53-year-old, who has not been named, will be given zolpidem which early research has shown can bring people out of a vegetative state.

Her family do not want the test to go ahead, preferring to let her die, as she may be left seriously disabled.

But Sir Mark Potter, head of the High Court's family division, ruled against their wishes earlier this month.

From Herald Sun, 17 November 2006

A RIGHT to life group has attacked SBS for its plans to air a euthanasia documentary.

Do Not Resuscitate is a film about three Victorians with terminal or incurable illnesses who want to take their own lives.

But Right to Life Australia spokeswoman Margaret Tighe said SBS should not televise it.

"A Licence to Kill would be a more appropriate title for this film," Ms Tighe said. "I think this documentary is very dangerous and harmful and it will unfortunately encourage some people watching it to take steps to end their lifes."

If only medicine were this simple in practice. If only our moral responsibility towards premature babies - and their parents for that matter - was this easily satisfied. Born on Day X, we will allow you to live. Born on Day Y, and I'm afraid not. Decision from above, you see; it's in the book - and we have to go by the book.