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Suicide for sale in Oregon: a “valuable service”?

Oregon is currently the scene of a controversy about the sale of so-called “suicide kits” or “helium hoods” (see here and here). These kits are sold by mail by a two-person company called The Gladd Group; one of its owners is reported to be a 91-year-old San Diego County woman who has been selling the kits for four years. The device is now receiving increased media attention following the suicide, with the help of the helium hood kit, of 29-year old Nick Klonoski, who had health-related issues that had brought him into depression, but was not terminally ill. His tragic death has now sparked a movement to outlaw the sale of those kits in Oregon. However, the woman selling the kits protests that she is providing a valuable service, and is quoted as saying that “[i]t is not my intention to hurt anybody, but to offer people comfort when they die”. Is the sale of those suicide kits a legitimate form of business, or should it be banned?

Read More »Suicide for sale in Oregon: a “valuable service”?

Catholic bishops condemn France’s first ‘bebe medicament’

Last month, doctors in France announced the arrival of the country’s first so-called ‘saviour sibling’. Born to parents of Turkish origin, Umut Talha (Turkish for ‘our hope’) was conceived through in vitro fertilisation (IVF) using preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD). This technique, in conjunction with Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) typing, commonly known as ‘tissue-typing’, has enabled families to have a child – a ‘saviour sibling’ – that is capable of donating life-saving tissue (usually umbilical cord material) to an existing sick sibling. Umut’s parents approached the hospital in Clamart a year ago requesting tissue-typing PGD. Their two existing children had beta thalassaemia, an inherited blood disorder that requires monthly blood transfusions.

An embryo was screened and genetically selected from an original group of twelve embryos to ensure that it was both free of the disorder and a tissue match for one of the existing siblings. The resulting saviour sibling, Umut, did not have thalassaemia, and cells from his discarded umbilical cord will be used to cure his older sister, now aged two, and her monthly blood transfusions will be discontinued. Umut’s parents plan to return to Clamart to undergo the same procedure to cure their other child, Umut’s four-year-old brother.  

Saviour sibling selection is nothing new. Read More »Catholic bishops condemn France’s first ‘bebe medicament’

Libya and Moral Responsibility

Much of the ongoing debate about Libya has rested on what I believe to the mistaken philosophical premise that the United States, or any other potential intervening party, becomes more morally responsible for the fate of Libya if it chooses to intervene than if it doesn’t.  Ross Douthat presents the most sophisticated defense in this post.  Most relevant line:

But America’s leaders are not directly responsible for governing any country besides their own, which means that almost by definition, they/we bear less responsibility for tragedies that result from our staying out of foreign conflicts than for tragedies that flow from our attempts at intervention.

Douthat here is equivocating two senses of “responsibility;” the first empirical, and the second philosophical.  It is true that the United States is only “directly responsible” for governing its own citizens in a contingent sense: the only people subject to U.S. law are, well, Americans.  But that brute fact says nothing “by definition” about who to whom the American government is morally responsible.  Douthat’s arguments rest on the foundation that empirical responsibility entails moral responsibility: that if we cause something, we are more morally responsible for it than we would have been otherwise.  But is this position defensible?

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Galliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech

Despite the protestations of Albert Sydner, the father of a young soldier killed in Iraq, the American Supreme Court has ruled in favour of the Westboro Baptist’s right to picket military funerals. The religious group has demonstrated at 200 funerals, sporting events, and concerts, claiming that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are god’s way of punishing America for tolerating homosexuality. Their protests are quiet. There is no personal abuse, no threats of force either, and they operate 1,000 feet from the church in which the funeral takes place, under police supervision. They merely hold signs with offensive messages such as “God Hates You” and “God Hates Fags”. No matter how morally outrageous these messages are, the Court has been clear that the picketing is protected by the First Amendment and, therefore, should be allowed. Samuel Alito was the only judge who dissented in the Supreme Court decision. He argued that a commitment to free speech does not license verbal assault. I found myself sharing Alito’s intuitions and that, considering his conservative and libertarian views, put me in an uncomfortable position. So, I asked myself, why do I oppose the Court’s decision? Another piece of news helped me to think through this issue. While the Westboro Baptists were celebrating the verdict, John Galliano was fired for declaring his admiration for Hitler and he will now be prosecuted. These two cases can be compared in several respects, but I will point to two.Read More »Galliano, Westboro Baptists, and the question of free speech

Should Conservative Christians be Allowed to Care for Our Children?

Eunice and Owen Johns are Christian Pentecostalists who believe that sexual relations other than those within marriage between one man and one woman are morally wrong. They also want to be foster parents.

Should they be allowed to care for other people’s children? Derby city council have been reluctant to allow this, and the High Court has recently agreed with the council that the attitudes of potential foster carers to sexuality are a relevant legal consideration. Considering the moral question whether they should be allowed to foster – that is, the question of what the law ought to say about cases like this – my colleague Michelle Hutchinson cautiously says it all depends on the risks of harm to the child, and the risks of harm to society as a whole, but implies that her sympathies lie with the council. With one proviso, I believe we should allow Eunice and Owen Johns to foster – because to do anything else would be illiberal.

Read More »Should Conservative Christians be Allowed to Care for Our Children?

Nothing is like mother’s ice cream

The Icecreamists, an ice cream parlour in Covent Garden began selling a human breast-milk based ice cream last month, only to have it confiscated recently by Westminster Council in order to check that it was “fit for human consumption”. New York chef Daniel Angerer was reported as served human cheese (he didn’t, but see his blog for the recipe). He was advised by the New York Health Department to stop, since although there were no departmental codes forbidding it they claimed “cheese made from breast milk is not for public consumption, whether sold or given away”. What is it exactly that is disturbing with a human milk ice cream or cheese? And are there any good reasons to hinder selling it?

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Can forced sterilization ever be ethical?

A British court still needs to decide whether to authorize the sterilization, at her mother’s own request, of a mentally disabled woman (see e.g. here and here). Reading only the headlines and initial paragraphs of the news entries devoted to the case, one might become worried that we are seeing here a resurgence of an abhorrent practice that gained much favour in the first half of the 20th-Century, in countries like Germany or the United States: i.e. the compulsory sterilization of the mentally retarded for eugenic purposes. However, it is important to look at the particulars of this case in order not to be misled. The 21-year old woman, referred to as P, is pregnant with her second child, and her mother (“Mrs. P”) says that they “can’t carry on supporting more and more children”. She also said that after the birth of her second child her daughter would have “a complete family” (a girl and a boy). But her mother is worried that she will soon fall pregnant again, in which case the child will have to be given away for adoption – something that her daughter, she says, is unable to understand, yet an outcome that would cause her much distress were it to happen.

Reacting to the case, bioethicist George Annas, from Boston University, commented that “this is eugenics if they are doing this because she’s mentally disabled. This decision needs to be made based on the person’s best interests, not the best interests of society or her caregivers.”

Read More »Can forced sterilization ever be ethical?

Herbal Placebos

The seven-year period within which member states must implement the EU directive on herbal medicine ends next month. In the UK, the government last week announced that herbalists will now be regulated by the Health Professionals Council (HPC). The HPC is the body that currently supervises a number of health professions including paramedics and physiotherapists. The effect of the decision has been to trigger concerns, particularly from medical professionals, that the move will confer legitimacy on treatments with no proven benefit. But if the government is going to permit herbal medicine, then there are in fact grounds to make it as plausibly medical as possible.

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Civil Partnership, Religion and the BNP

The government is making plans to lift the ban on gay partnership ceremonies in religious buildings. Among the first to apply to perform such ceremonies are expected to be Quakers, and Liberal Jews. However, it is apparently “not clear whether the proposals will suggest that civil ceremonies in religious surroundings could incorporate elements such as hymns or Bible readings”. What justification could there be for preventing the incorporation of such elements?

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