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A Christian campaigner is warning of the dangers of changing the law on assisted suicide as a new attempt to do that is launched.
The group Dignity in Dying is working with terminally ill Noel Conway (pictured above) to challenge the suicide laws.
It's seen as the first attempt to change the laws since MPs rejected the idea in September 2015.
Definition: Cynicism is 'believing that people are only interested in themselves and are not sincere'. (1) It's not the same as scepticism, which is 'doubting the truth or value of a belief'. (2) While scientists should question truth claims, cynics are pathologically mistrustful of people.
The medical professional can be deeply cynical. There is much truth in medical dramas such as MASH, Cardiac Arrest, The House of God, House and Scrubs that illustrate the archetype. Medical humour is littered with cynical slang, which may act as a coping mechanism to make light of harsh realities on the wards.
The January 2017 issue of National Geographic is dedicated to exploring what it calls the "Gender Revolution" - a post-Sexual Revolution movement that seeks to deconstruct traditional understandings about human embodiment, male-female sexual dimorphism, and gender. In an article titled "Rethinking Gender," Robin Marantz Henig cites evolving gender norms as a justification for the Gender Revolution. But Henig’s argument is not only unpersuasive, it’s also based on a radical proposal about human nature that is at odds with both natural law and biblical anthropology.
The purpose of this essay is not to address every facet of gender that Henig explores. Rather, our goal is to address some of the more glaring errors in the piece. Many of the criticisms below apply not only to Henig’s article, but to the broader philosophical problems inherent within the transgender movement.
A terminally ill man has begun a legal fight for the right to die.
Noel Conway, who's 67 and has motor neurone disease (MND), says he fears becoming "entombed" in his body as his muscles gradually weaken.
Mr Conway, from Shropshire, wants a doctor to be able to prescribe a lethal dose when his health deteriorates.
It’s been two years since the terror attack on Charlie Hebdo, but it feels more like two hundred.
After two Muslim brothers stormed its offices at 10 Rue Nicolas-Appert in the centre of Paris and massacred 12 people, "Je suis Charlie" became the rallying cry of those who condemned the attack. Over the following days, 40 world leaders travelled to Paris to stand in solidarity with the French government. Across France, more than three million demonstrators took to the streets in a show of unity against those who sought to reap terror. Charlie Hebdo’s following issue sold almost eight million copies.
Aside from Donald Trump’s call to "repeal and replace" Obamacare and Hillary Clinton’s promise to repeal the Hyde Amendment, bioethical issues were not much discussed during the 2016 election. But that doesn’t mean that such issues won’t be important in the coming year. Here are five bioethical issues that have the potential to explode into controversy.
Assisted Suicide: Last year, Colorado voters and the Washington, D.C. City Council legalized physician-assisted suicide. Ohio, by contrast, passed a law making assisted suicide a felony, no matter who does the helping, and attempts to legalize doctor-prescribed death in about half the states failed. Expect advocates across the country—funded in the abundant millions by George Soros—to push legalization again, with the greatest efforts focused in Hawaii, Massachusetts, New York, and New Jersey.
In steadfast pursuit of gender equality and to promote nonconformity, it’s become popular in some social circles to start early, very early, by raising young children in a gender-neutral way: not revealing the baby’s sex at birth, dressing them and their bedroom in various shades of oatmeal, encouraging them to play with gender-neutral toys. There’s also pressure on corporations to help; parental complaints led Target to stop sex-segregating its toys, for instance.
Offering kids the opportunity to pursue what they’d like, freed from societal expectations, is an undeniably positive thing — whether it has to do with toys, clothing, or their future aspirations. But the scientific reality is that it’s futile to treat children as blank slates with no predetermined characteristics. Biology matters.
A chain of private Christian fundamentalist schools, which teach creationism as scientific fact, claim they are victims of an "agenda" after Ofsted downgraded their inspection ratings.
The watchdog visited the schools in October last year at the request of the Department for Education due to a number of complaints made by former pupils against the schools and the curriculum they teach.
Overall, 10 out of 24 of the schools were re-inspected, after reports emerged in The Independent that children were "at risk" at the schools. The Ofsted reports published in December revealed that nine of the schools were subsequently downgraded.
A new blood test which can detect single-gene disorders in the first six weeks of pregnancy could be available within five years, reports the New Scientist.
The article says that the test would "enable prospective parents to choose whether to proceed with a pregnancy if conditions like muscular dystrophy or Huntington's disease". Single-gene disorders, which cause many inherited diseases such as sickle cell anaemia and cystic fibrosis, are collectively more common than Down's syndrome.
Scottish women wanting terminations for non-medical reasons from 18-20 weeks gestation must usually travel to England for the procedure.
A recent study also found wide variations in practice between health boards.
The Scottish government said it was working with health boards to improve services.