News, 15 September 2009

Top stories:

A national audit of 4,000 patients put on the Liverpool Care Pathway last year has found that more than a quarter of families are not told when life support is withdrawn from terminally-ill loved ones. The audit was conducted by researchers from the Royal College of Physicians and the Marie Curie Palliative Care Institute in Liverpool. Under the Pathway, doctors can withdraw food and fluids from terminally-ill patients and sedate them continuously until death. Peter Millard, emeritus professor of geriatrics at the University of London, said: 'The risk as this is rolled out across the country is that elderly people with chronic conditions like Parkinson's or respiratory disorders may be dismissed as dying when they could still live for some time ... Only when death is unavoidable should you start withdrawing treatment. [Daily Mail, 15 September] http://is.gd/3ipR3

Pro-lifers have held a vigil for Jim Pouillon, a 63-year-old pro-life activist who was shot dead in Michigan, America. Mr Pouillon had been shot whilst carrying a pro-life sign in front of a school in the town of Owosso. A man has been arrested by police on suspicion of murder and reportedly told prosecutors that Mr Pouillon's pro-life activity was the motive behind the murder. Mr Pouillon had received numerous threats, including death threats, in the past. [LifeSiteNews.com, 14 September] http://is.gd/3ipNR

A report commissioned by a population control group claims that contraception is the cheapest means of addressing man-made global warming. The report, commissioned by the Optimum Population Trust from the London School of Economics (LSE), claims that contraception is almost five times cheaper than conventional so-called green technologies. The group is calling for birth control to be included in funding for climate change. [Telegraph, 9 September] http://is.gd/38PdZ Anthony Ozimic of SPUC commented: "Whatever the evidence regarding man-made global warming, the right to life and the right to found a family are fundamental, universal human rights enshrined in legally-binding international conventions. Will the members of the Optimum Population Trust please tell us which of their children should not have been born in order to save the earth?"

Other stories

Abortion
Embryology; stem cells
  • "Tens of thousands of Scots might be donating cells for research to create cloned animal-human embryos without their consent, an ethics campaigner has warned" [Scotsman, 15 September] http://is.gd/3iPtc
  • "Tens of thousands of samples of human tissue will be offered for use in controversial human/animal hybrid embryo research without the consent of the patients who donated them" [Telegraph, 12 September] http://is.gd/3iPvd

IVF; fertility treatment
Sexual health; teenage pregnancies
Maternal health and unborn health
Euthanasia and assisted suicide; disability
Marriage and family; sexual ethics
General and miscellaneous

To subscribe to SPUC's email information services, please visit www.spuc.org.uk/em-signup. The reliability of the news herein is dependent on that of the cited sources, which are paraphrased rather than quoted. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the society. © Society for the Protection of Unborn Children, 2012


Stumble It Stumble It Digg this Digg This Add to del.icio.us Add to del.icio.us

© SPUC 2012