A debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday drew attention to reports claiming that up to 500,000 elderly people in the UK are victims of physical, psychological, financial or sexual abuse at any one time. Government ministers were urged to take action regarding widespread malnutrition in care homes...

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A nurse on trial in Germany has admitted killing a number of patients in his care and has said that his actions were motivated by compassion but 'cannot be justified under any circumstances.' Stephan Letter, 27, faces 16 murder counts which he has asked to be converted to manslaughter charges, 12 ma...

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News, Police are to question a Birmingham journalist who recently revealed that she had killed her aunt during the sixties using morphine. Maureen Messent said that she has never regretted killing Eileen O'Sullivan when she was in the final stages of lung cancer. [BBC, 8 February] A nurse on trial...

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News, The Telegraph has reported that the UK Government may make it compulsory for medical professionals to alert police if a girl under 13 seeks contraceptive advice. The British Medical Association and General Medical Council advise doctors that they should report such cases to the police or soc...

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Weekly Update: 1 - Catch up on all the big news stories from the past week - here are some you may have missed:The Telegraph has reported that the UK Government may make it compulsory for medical professionals to alert police if a girl under 13 seeks contraceptive advice. The British Medical A...

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The Telegraph has reported that the UK Government may make it compulsory for medical professionals to alert police if a girl under 13 seeks contraceptive advice. The British Medical Association and General Medical Council advise doctors that they should report such cases to the police or social work...

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The British government is to become the founder donor of a fund intended to cover the funds withheld by the US government to organisations that promote abortion overseas. The Department for International Development will contribute £3 million over two years. Gareth Thomas the international developme...

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News, The British government is to become the founder donor of a fund intended to cover the funds withheld by the US government to organisations that promote abortion overseas. The Department for International Development will contribute £3 million over two years. Gareth Thomas the international d...

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News, A row has erupted in Guatamala between the President and Congress over a law requiring the government to promote birth control and sex education. President Oscar Berger has vetoed the law but Congress has decided to enact it unilaterally, even though only 80 out of the 106 necessary legislat...

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A Birmingham journalist has admitted killing her great aunt in the 1960s. Maureen Messent described in an article how a doctor left her a bottle of morphine which she gave to Eileen O'Sullivan who was in the late stages of lung cancer. The doctor came back to the house the next morning and took away...

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In a parliamentary motion entitled 'Bill of Rights for Elderly People', British MPs Anne Main and Daniel Kawczynski called on the Government, in the light of proposals in the Animal Welfare Bill on a Bill of Rights for animals, to 'ensure an equal duty of care to the elderly', including 'protection ...

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News, In a parliamentary motion entitled 'Bill of Rights for Elderly People', British MPs Anne Main and Daniel Kawczynski called on the Government, in the light of proposals in the Animal Welfare Bill on a Bill of Rights for animals, to 'ensure an equal duty of care to the elderly', including 'pro...

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News, Dr Michael Irwin, the former chairman of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society and doctor who was struck off the medical register last year, is being investigated by police after a man complained that Dr Irwin had encouraged him to contact Dignitas. Dr Irwin has denied the allegation that he 'pro...

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The Human Genetics Commission has expressed concerns about the exploitation of 'designer babies' created to be donors to a sick sibling. In a report, the HGC warned that once children have been created for the purpose of aiding another, they could easily be viewed as a permanent source of spare part...

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Catch up on all the big news stories from the past week - here are some you may have missed:A Scottish Catholic bishop has condemned the Government's policy on abortions for under-16s following the failure of the Sue Axon legal challenge. Bishop Joseph Devine said of the policy, which allows under-1...

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The chairman of the ethics committee of the Association for Palliative Medicine has criticised a pro-euthanasia article in The Times of London in a letter to the editor. Dr David Jeffrey wrote that 90% of doctors questioned in a recent survey did not want the law on euthanasia to be changed and that...

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News, The chairman of the ethics committee of the Association for Palliative Medicine has criticised a pro-euthanasia article in The Times of London in a letter to the editor. Dr David Jeffrey wrote that 90% of doctors questioned in a recent survey did not want the law on euthanasia to be changed ...

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News, Three organisations involved with palliative care have condemned the Voluntary Euthanasia Society's decision to change its name to Dignity in Dying. In a letter to The Guardian, David Praill of Help the Hospices, Thomas Hughes-Hallett of Marie Curie Cancer Care and Eve Richardson of The Nati...

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Three organisations involved with palliative care have condemned the Voluntary Euthanasia Society's decision to change its name to Dignity in Dying. In a letter to The Guardian, David Praill of Help the Hospices, Thomas Hughes-Hallett of Marie Curie Cancer Care and Eve Richardson of The National Cou...

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UK police are seeking advice from the Crown Prosecution Service about whether to question a family who accompanied their mother to Switzerland so that she could die by assisted suicide. Dr Anne Turner, who had progressive supranuclear palsy, took a lethal dose of barbiturates in a flat in Zurich wit...

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