Life Issues Update
11th May 2007
In this update:
- New Bill to amend the abortion law, and other abortion news
- House of Lords debate stem cell research, and other bioethics news
- Mental Capacity Act
- Palliative Care
ABORTION
INFORMATION
AND ACTION UPDATE
PLEASE
SUPPORT ANN WINTERTON BILL TO AMEND THE ABORTION LAW
Mrs
Ann Winterton MP (Con) is introducing a Bill (under the Ten-Minute
Rule procedure) to amend the present abortion law. She is supported
by pro-life
MPs of all parties, including Mr Jim Dobbin (Lab) who is Chairman of
the All-Party Parliamentary Pro-Life Group.
The
Bill is to be introduced on Tuesday, June 5 and it is vital that MPs
are alerted as soon as possible urging them to attend the debate and
to support
Mrs Winterton. They may need time to cancel other possible
engagements, so please write to your MP as soon as you receive this.
Also have
notices published in your church Bulletins or placed on your Church
notice board as soon as it is possible, urging as many people as
you can to
write. The more letters MPs receive the more they will be made
aware of the Bill and the more support we will receive.
The
Bill is very modest and seeks only to clarify the grounds for
abortion as
well as giving women who apply for abortion balanced counselling
which will ensure that they are properly informed about the
possible
ill effects of the abortion on their physical and mental health,
and also of
the alternatives they may follow if they decide to continue with the
pregnancy. The Bill will also require women to be given one
week after
counselling before having the abortion to give them the opportunity
to change their minds.
The
Bill has been recommended by leading psychiatrists and
gynaecologists
who quote the latest major research project – published in The
Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry (January 2006). This
shows
that even women with no past mental health problems are at greater
risk of
psychological ill-effects after abortion. In the survey women who had
had abortions had twice the level of mental health problems and
three times
the risk of major depressive illness as those who had given birth or
had never been pregnant. The study caused the American
Psychological
Association last year to withdraw an official statement denying a
link between abortion and psychological harm.
The
present abortion law allows termination to be carried out because of
risk of
injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman. The
Ann Winterton Bill would require the notification form to state
specifically
whether the abortion was carried out on physical grounds OR on mental
grounds. The two would no longer be coupled together making it
far easier
for those needing to examine the figures. We would recommend that you
make the parish notice as simple as possible. We would suggest
the
following:
ABORTION
BILL
June
5th, 2007
Write
to your MP without delay urging support
Ann
Winterton MP – supported by Labour, Lib-Dem and Conservative
MPs - will
be introducing a Bill on Tuesday, June 5th as a first step in curbing
the present abortion law. The aim is to ensure that women
receive
proper counselling warning them of possible dangers to their
physical and
mental health, informing them of alternative help available, and
providing them with a delay of seven days before making a
final
decision. The Bill will also require doctors to state on the
notification forms whether the abortion was carried out on physical
OR on
mental grounds (instead of clubbing the two together as at present
and thus obscuring the real reasons for the abortion).
Please
write to your MP at the House of Commons, Westminster, London,
SW1A 0AA. Or
you can telephone him/her at 020 7219 3000. Ask for your MP (by name)
or his/her secretary. Give your name and address to show that
you are a
constituent. Alternatively, you can find out who your MP is and email
them at www.writetothem.com
Urge
the MP to attend the debate on Tuesday, June 5th and to vote in
support of
the Bill.
OTHER
ABORTION NEWS
Abortion
ship readies to sail again
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article1699514.ece
Mexico
defies Church on abortion
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article1706380.ece
Abortion:
let's start to say no
http://www.express.co.uk/ourcomments/view/5664
School
defends morning-after pill
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/leicestershire/6608297.stm
BIO-ETHICS
Stem
Cell Research
A debate was held in the House of Lords on Thursday 3rd May about stem cell research. While it is important that the amazing developments in adult stem cell research, which have led to new treatments for many diseases, are encouraged, it was worrying that the debate was characterised by support for embryonic stem cell research (which has so far produced no new practical treatments).
Of
the 22 speakers in the House on 3rd May, the vast majority
were outspoken in favour of embryonic stem cell research. Perhaps
more worryingly,
about half of the speakers took the opportunity to call for
allowing
the creation of hybrid animal-human embryos for research purposes.
Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve stated that there was strong
reason not
only to permit, but to require the creation of such entities, and
Baroness Warnock called for a need to "rethink the status of the
human embryo
and to take into account the possibilities of the use of the hybrid
embryos".
This
debate is of particular importance as the government are expected
to publish a
draft bill reforming the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act this
month. This Bill is expected to clarify the law on the creation
of hybrid
human-animal embryos.
The
full debate can be read at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/70503-0002.htm# 07050365000002
Lord
Alton's speech, challenging the use of embryonic stem cell
research, can
be read at:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200607/ldhansrd/text/70503-0006.htm
OTHER
BIO-ETHICS NEWS
First
designer babies to beat breast cancer
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article1706614.ece
Doctors screen embryos to avoid babies with squint
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article1752351.ece
END
OF LIFE
MENTAL
CAPACITY ACT - CORRECTION AND UPDATE
The
last life issues update included a briefing on the Mental Capacity
Act, which came partly into force in April and will be fully enforced
in October. There are two points which need correction and
clarification.
An advance directive ("AD") is an
instruction given by a competent person that in the event that
specified circumstances should occur in the future he/she does not
wish to receive specific medical treatment. The Court has recognised
that such directives are binding upon medical practitioners
provided that they are "clearly established and
applicable in the circumstances" (Lord Donaldson in RE T
[1993] Fam. 95 at 103).
Where the result of an AD would be
the death of a patient and it comes before the Court, the Court
scrutinises the AD with particular care in order to ensure that the
patient was of sound mind when he/she made the directive, that
his/her choice was truly voluntary, that he/she knew the treatment
that was being refused and the consequences of such refusal. Subject
to these constraints an AD is effective. It need not have been made
in writing and it can be withdrawn at any time. The burden of proof
is on those who seek to establish the existence and continuing
validity and applicability of an AD (HE v A Hospital Trust [2003]
EWHC 1017 (Fam) [2003] 2 FLR 408). There is no reason to suppose
that this will change after the Act comes into force. Then, as now,
it will be the health care professional who is placed in the dilemma
of having to decide whether an AD is valid.
In
Bland the House of Lords classified the provision of
artificial nutrition and hyrdration ("ANH") as "treatment".
There is, as yet, no reported case in which the Court has upheld the
withdrawal of ANH to any patient other than a patient in a permanent
vegetative state. The Court of Appeal recently affirmed that
"where...life is at stake, the evidence must be scrutinised with
especial care. the continuing validity and applicability of the
advance directive must be clearly established by convincing and
inherently reliable evidence" (W Healthcare NHS Trust v H
[2005] 1 WLR 834 at 839). On the facts of that case it was held
that there was not an AD which was sufficiently clear to amount to a
direction that the patient would have preferred to be deprived of
food and drink for a period of time which would lead to her death in
all the circumstances.
Sections
24-26 of the Act for the first time give ADs the force of statute,
i.e. Parliament's express support.
The
Act imposes various requirements on AD and modifies the common law by
requiring that an AD relating to "life-sustaining treatment"
must be in writing signed by the patient or by another person in his
presence on his behalf and witnessed by a third party.
("Life-sustaining treatment" means treatment which in the
view of a person providing health care for the person concerned is
necessary to sustain life.)
Secondly,
the example given in our last update of an AD refusing treatment for
a condition that has since become curable/treatable neglected to take
into account the safeguard in the Act that states that an AD will not
be applicable to a treatment if there are reasonable grounds for
believing that circumstances exist which the patient did not
anticipate at the time he made the AD.
There
are a number of safeguards in the Act which might go some way in
curtailing our fears. However, it remains to be seen how effective
these safeguards will be in practice.
The
Act has already spurred into action a Voluntary Euthanasia Society
campaign encouraging people to write 'living wills'. In addition,
they supported the case of Kelly Taylor, who was seeking to use a
suicidally motivated AD to force her doctors to withdraw ANH with the
inevitable consequence that she will die.
The
Act may result in more AD's being made than would otherwise be the
case. If a health care professional is not satisfied that an AD
exists which is valid and applicable to the treatment he will not be
liable if he commences or continues the treatment. If he reasonably
believes that an AD exists which is valid and applicable to the
treatment in question he will not be liable if he obeys the
directive. In the case of life sustaining treatment in case of doubt,
the treatment should be continued and an application made to the
Court for guidance.
The
effect of the Act was largely to restate the position in common law.
However, there remains the following concerns.
Firstly, so long as ANH is regarded as treatment it remains the case that ADs may be used to deny an incompetent patient ANH with the result that the patient is starved to death. The borderline between this and euthanasia seems so thin as to be non-existent.
Secondly, if ADs can be used in order to obtain death by starvation one can imagine this will be a stepping stone towards legalising euthanasia because it will be argued that it would be inhumane to cause someone to starve to death over a period of three weeks when the option of a 'painless' lethal injection is also available.
The Act is to be fully implemented in October.
If
you want more information on the MCA or have any questions please
contact us.
PALLIATIVE
CARE
The Care Not Killing website has updated it's homepage with a lot of useful and interesting new information, particularly on palliative care. To access the website click on the following link:
