Medical Ethics Alliance

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Publications

Here are some of our publications

Care of dying children and adults. Ethics, principles and issues for law reform

For an article settling out the challenges of recent high profile cases involving children, along with an analysis of what is wrong with the law, look here.

Consent for Organ Donation.

A legal briefing by on Organ donation is available here

Consent for Organ Donation after Death

16th February 2018

A current government consultation is taking place on consent for organ and tissue donation after death. It concerns a proposal for presumed consent and closes on 6th March. See, https://engage.dh.gov.uk/organdonation/ Most people who are likely to be affected have little awareness of this consultation but the Medical Ethics Alliance offers thses observations. In the words of Pope John Paul II, "We should rejoice that medicine, in the service of life, has found in organ transplantation a new way of serving the human family". It is clear, therefore, that it is good to ... more

The right to food and water Written evidence to the Joint Committee On Human Rights

Written Evidence submitted to Parliament

THE RIGHT TO FOOD AND WATER

he provision of food and water is a basic human need. No human being can survive without food or water. Avoidable starvation and dehydration in a medical context must not be overlooked or excluded from deliberations as an "end-of-life issue". Allegations of death by dehydration and/or starvation in NHS hospitals are a source of considerable public disquiet, yet worried relatives .................read more

Two books by our Vice-President Emeritus Dr Gillian Craig.

Challenging Medical Ethics 1 "No water - No Life, Hydration in the Dying"

Challenging Medical Ethics 2 "Patients in Danger; the dark Side of Medical Ethics"

ISBN-10; 09552840 07, ISBN-13; 978 0 95528400 07

"Food and water are essential for life, so those who withhold food or water are, in effect depriving more.....a person of life. Yet some years ago , judges in their wisdom, decided that food and water, given by means of a tube, is medical treatment that can be withheld if the patient is permanently unconscious. Now patients with lesser degrees of brain damage are at risk of having tube feeding withdrawn with the result that they will die. Many people feel that this is morally wrong. .... read more

The Medical Ethical Alliance response to the LACDP

September, 2013

THE MEDICAL ETHICS ALLIANCE, would like to offer the following statement as a response to the

Leadership Alliance for the Care of Dying People.