Joomla! site syndication http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ 2010-09-06T22:45:53+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//images/M_images/joomla_rss.png text/html 2008-03-03T19:38:21+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=3 Welcome to the new look website for the European Life network. text/html 2008-06-19T18:07:12+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4 Executive summary of a response to the Irish Law Reform Commission’s report Bioethics: Advance Care Directives. Summary of criticisms of the report and draft bill · Advance care directives are an ethically flawed and potentially dangerous response to the problem of patient fears regarding end of life treatment and care. · Advance care directives rely on an exaggerated view of patient autonomy, encouraging patients to make life and death decisions outside of a healthcare setting. · This means that patients are encouraged to make decisions: o without the benefit of medical advice, o without assessment of their capacity to make such decisions, o without protection from the influence or coercion of third parties, o and without subjective experience of pain and other symptoms that future medical treatment might address. · Advance care directives are therefore in contravention of the principle of informed consent. · Advance care directives facilitate euthanasia by omission. · Advance care directives imply that incapacitated patients do not deserve the same standard of care and medical decision-making. · Advance care directives undermine the role and ethos of the medical profession, by replacing objective medical decision-making with a service delivery model directed by patients’ uninformed wishes. · The report establishes an arbitrary and convoluted distinction between medical treatment and basic care, concluding that artificial nutrition and hydration can be withdrawn if a patient is unlikely to recover. Summary of recommendations · The principles and practice of good medical decision-making in the best interests of the patient are the best response to advance care directives, and to the original problem of patient fears about end-of-life treatment. · The draft bill should be opposed. · If it cannot be defeated, the draft bill should be amended to: o Limit the activation of advance care directives to the terminal phase of a terminal illness. · doctors to ignore advance care directives that contravene the best interests of the patient. · Disallow suicidal refusals of treatment and basic care such as artificial nutrition and hydration. · Require doctors to ignore advance care directives, where treatment will restore the decision-making capacity of the patient. text/html 2009-05-01T15:22:51+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18 On 13 April, I reported on the cancellation of the lecture on euthanasia, which was to have been delivered at Cork University Hospital (Ireland). The well known speaker, Professor Len Doyal, whose lecture promoting euthanasia was sponsored, chiefly, by the Health Service Executive (HSE) for the Cork region, was not to be stopped, however, in his euthanasia-promotion agenda – he subsequently succeeded in having a lengthy article on the subject published in the Irish Times. text/html 2009-01-23T22:17:27+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17 A group calling itself ‘Sustainable Population Australia (SPA)’ has declared that Australia’s 22 million people must be reduced to 7 million in order to avoid ‘environmental suicide’. The way in which this population control pressure group would plan to reduce the Australian population is to restrict every couple to one baby – on the lines of the infamous One Child policy enforced in China. The group’s national president has also called for the abolition of the government baby bonus paid for all children in a family after the first child. text/html 2008-06-19T18:07:54+01:00 http://europeanlifenetwork.org/ http://europeanlifenetwork.org//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=5 A three-day international symposium on the theme of Human Pluripotent Stem Cells took place in Dublin on 22, 23 and 24 April. Initial short presentations on ‘Creating the appropriate environment for stem cell innovation in Ireland’, ‘Increasing Ireland’s competitiveness in the stem cell research sector : funding and policy’, and ‘Facilitating basic and applied stem cell research in Ireland through scientifically informed governmental policy’ were made. However, an alarming proportion of the twenty-five papers presented over the three days specifically concerned the involvement of human embryonic stem cells.