Two of our regular authors, Rebecca Roache and Barbro Bjorkman, have written an opinion piece on the ethics of keeping a child from its parents for BBC Magazine Online, discussing the issues surrounding the case of the Webster family, who recently lost their bid to overturn the adoption of their children. Although the court accepted that there may… Read More »The Ethics of Keeping a Child from its Parents
As evidenced by recent declarations by the Children’s Secretary (see here and here),
the British government is determined to fight childhood obesity and to initiate
nothing less than a “lifestyle revolution”, resulting in more children leading
a healthy and active life. With this aim in view, a free cookbook was recently distributed to 11
year-olds by the Department for Children, Schools and Families. In
addition to that, from 2011
cookery lessons will be compulsory in England's secondary schools for children
aged 11 to 14, and £3.3 million will be invested in order to
recruit and train people capable of teaching cooking skills to children.
Parents are also urged to teach their children how to prepare meals from
scratch.
These are certainly sensible steps to take. With nine out of 10 British adults
and two-thirds of children expected to be overweight or obese by the year 2050
unless action is taken (http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jul/30/obesity),
we are clearly dealing with an important public health issue. And given the
significance of the link between excess weight and an unhealthy diet (lack of
exercise being another major contributing factor), it seems clear that we should
teach children what a healthy diet consists in and equip them not to be dependent on
the local fast-food chain when the time of the next meal comes. We can hope
that the government’s scheme will help to achieve this, and that parents will
follow the lead – though it is also necessary that the meals provided in school
canteens be in keeping with those aims. However, I would like to suggest that
these steps should form part of a wider project meant to educate children on
matters of food. We want our children to be healthy, but we should also want
them to become autonomous and ethically responsible eaters (and, more
generally, consumers).
A report commissioned by the Children’s Society claims that the aggressive pursuit of individual achievement is damaging the interests of children in the UK: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7861762.stm The principal author is Lord Richard Layard, whose book *Happiness: Lessons from a New Science* (Allen Lane, 2005) is the best account of the last few decades of research on… Read More »Achievement and the welfare of children
As the Guardian reports, what started out as the more usual happy, wonder-of-modern medicine story of octuplets born in California has turned a little bit sour. It turns out that the 33 year old single mother of the eight newborns who lives with her parents, has six children already, the eldest of whom is seven. That’s 14 children below the age of eight. The story gets more difficult. Apparently, the mother is a self described ‘professional student’ who lives on “education grants and her parents’ money” and plans on becoming a “television childcare expert.” Further, the woman’s parents have recently filed for bankruptcy and her mother has previously consulted a psychologist about her daughter’s obsession with children.
In an opinion piece on the BBC website this week Professor Simon Baron-Cohen has questioned the wisdom of adopting pre-natal screening for autism, raising the possibility that it would prevent the existence of future great mathematicians. This is a variant of a common objection to pre-natal testing or to genetic enhancement.
Read More »The Lost Genius objection to pre-natal testing for autism
We are surrounded by many ethical issues, and their complexity makes it tempting to treat each in isolation. But we need to remember that to justify any position requires reference to universal principles, and these principles may well have implications in other areas we find uncomfortable. It’s also the case that thinking about one topic… Read More »Climate Change, Abortion, and Impersonality
A teenager who is a Jehovah’s witness declines a potentially
life-saving blood transfusion. Another teenager, self-conscious and
strongly believing that it will make her happier, requests a boob job.
When minors make decisions that may be against their own best interests, should we respect their decisions?
According to a report in the Guardian today, premature babies in the UK
are being put at risk because of a shortage of suitably qualified
staff. It is usual in newborn intensive care units in the UK for nurses
to have to look after more than one baby at a time. There is usually
one nurse per two sick babies, whereas in adult or paediatric intensive
care there is almost always one nurse per patient. This is contrary to
the recommendations of British specialists in newborn intensive care.
A story in today’s Daily Mail reveals some of the harms experienced by children born to sperm donors. Since 2005, children born to sperm donors have had access to the identity of the man who donated sperm that created them. But prior to that point, donors were not required to disclose their identity. These children are often susceptible to diseases which have a genetic component, like diabetes or bowel cancer, and are unaware that they have such susceptibility. They also sometimes describe a sense of not fitting in with their family, having a different personality and character. Many desperately and vainly seek out their biological fathers.
One problem is that historically, donors gave sperm on the condition of anonymity. Thus they consented believing they would remain anonymous. This was the case in Victoria, Australia, where similar problems have been reported. The option to remain anonymous was thought to be necessary to ensure a supply of willing donors, and to protect donors from financial and other claims made by their offspring. But now we place greater value on the genetics of the donor and many children wish to know their biological father and his genes.
So donors have a legitimate interest, based on the conditions of their consent and self interest, in protecting their anonymity. How is this interest to be weighed against the interests in their offspring accessing knowledge about them?
Ben Goldacre (who seems to be one of this blog’s favorite
sources) tears into the Durham fish oil trial.
to test whether giving omega-3 supplements would improve the GCSE scores of
children. Unfortunately there were clear problems with the trial design. In the
face of criticism the organisations involved refused to give out information on
the experimental setup and even claimed not to be running it as a trial (despite numerous statements to the
press). GCSE scores did not generally increase. Despite this, now positive results are claimed – largely because what is measured has been changed to suit
the data. The most vexing thing about the whole affair is that the
trial could have been done in a proper manner for the same amount of money.
Read More »The price of ignorance: the Durham study and research ethics
