Free Will?
The Challenge of Genetic Determinism
by Stuart Horner

This article is the fifth in a series of six articles that Dr. Horner was writing for Light and Life. However, Dr. Horner died on June 1 after suffering for months with a life-threatening heart condition.

Little did our readers know of his faithful efforts to write these articles in the midst of severe weakness and hospitalizations. But he loved the kingdom of God. And though relatively new to the Free Methodist Church, he valued the history and mission of the FMC.

Dr. Horner was a member of the Fulwood FM Church. He was visiting professor in medical ethics at the Centre for Professional Ethics at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston, northwest England.

Our love and prayers go out to his wife, Jacque, their children and families.

To read previous stories in this series, click on the links below:
A Twin Dilemma July/August 2001
A Matter of Life and Death: How Do You Draw the Line? September/October 2001
Whose Body Is It Anyway? The Question of Autonomy November/December 2001
Tough Choices: Facing Real Life Dilemmas With Pro-Life Beliefs May/June 2002

Stuart Horner was born in Leicester, England and gained a scholarship to the local Grammar School. He entered Birmingham Medical School and graduated MB. Ch.B in 1956.

He completed his postgraduate training at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine with a distinction in 1960. He married Jacque Ball in 1958 and together they lived in four different parts of the country in four years before settling in Croydon in south east London where their two children (Fiona and Jonathan) were born and where, apart from four brief years in north west London during which Stuart ran the health services at Heathrow, the biggest international airport in the world, they lived for 24 years. In 1987 they moved to Preston, 30 miles north of Manchester in north west England, where Stuart helped run the National Health Service for nearly half million people until his retirement at the end of 1995. They converted an agricultural barn built in 1840 where they have lived for the last 13 years.

In 1972 Stuart was elected to the public health committee of the British Medical Association and just two years later became the youngest chair of one of its five major committees, a position he held for ten years. During this period he worked with senior civil servants at the Department of Health, Members of Parliament and Government ministers.

In 1984 he was elected to the BMA's prestigious Medical Ethics Committee and five years later became its chair for a period of eight years. He finally retired from the Committee in 1998 after a record 15 years of service. During this period he created a very high profile for the Committee whose views on every important issue in the field were awaited eagerly. He appeared regularly on radio and television both regionally and nationally. He is the only doctor in recent memory to have held two major chairmanships in the Association and he also served for over twenty years on the ruling Council retiring only last year (2000). In recognition of his outstanding services he was elected a vice president in 1998.

He has taken an active interest in other health care professions serving on several committees of the Nurses' Regulating Council and also committees of the Royal College of Speech and Language Therapists of which he is also vice president. He was a member of the ruling council of his own chosen specialty, Public Health and has also served on the Standards Committee of the General Medical Council.

In the midst of this busy life he found time to work on a thesis The history of the development of Medical Ethics in the British Medical Association 1832-1992. The thesis was awarded an MD degree (Ph.D equivalent) by the University of Manchester in 1995. He became a research fellow, then senior research fellow at the Centre for Professional Ethics at the University of Central Lancashire and in 1996 was appointed visiting professor. He lectures widely on medical ethics mainly to health care workers. He has contributed to 13 books and published over 40 papers and editorials in the medical press. He continues to write on key issues in medical ethics.

This prolific work rate has not been achieved without cost: In 1990 he suffered a cardiac arrest (his heart stopped beating) but through an extraordinary series of God inspired events which he later wrote up in the British Medical Journal he made a dramatic recovery from major surgery.
His two children both have happy Christian marriages which have now produced six grandchildren. He no longer keeps sheep at the back of their Lancashire home, finally conceding that his body is beginning to show the strain of the demands he has made upon it!

In 1998 Stuart and Jacque finally joined Fulwood Free Methodist Church although he identified with Baptist beliefs and Jacque was a confirmed member of the Church of England. Late last year Stuart became church secretary at Fulwood and set himself the task of making Free Methodists in the United Kingdom more aware of their rich historical heritage and their providential calling and witness to today's Society.