Ethics news:
23 February 2005
Ethics News is regularly updated with links and introductions to ethics-related news stories gathered from all over the web. Discuss the ethical issues raised by these stories in our Ethics Forum by clicking on the 'discuss' links.
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Must we advertise how generous we've been?
Australians only did what was right. Nothing more, nothing less. One hot afternoon in late January a young man and woman were doorknocking my neighbourhood on behalf of a well-known religious and charitable organisation. Their mission was a tough one. They were asking residents in this predominantly middle-class area to sign up to a sponsorship program for underprivileged youths. The plan was straight social justice stuff. Similar to the Third World sponsorship programs promoted by international aid agencies, householders would sign on to contribute a fixed amount each month to the costs of educating or training an individual child. Problem was, it was hard to find takers ...
The Age - 18 February 2005
Five steps to a more compassionate policy
For humanitarian and practical reasons, we should exhibit more tolerance. Australia is a big, generous nation. Among our best traditions are compassion, tolerance and justice. These are exemplified in our policies towards refugees whom we select overseas and bring for permanent settlement. To asylum seekers and refugees who come uninvited, however, our response has been harsh. I have been deeply concerned that vulnerable men, women and children have been harmed by tough policies that were introduced because of the fear that vast numbers of people without valid claims to our protection would land on our shores ...
The Age - 18 February 2005
It's time to admit we've created a gulag
How much more evidence do we need that long-term immigration detention causes lasting damage? The Baxter detention centre, once touted as a model holding centre for illegal arrivals, has degenerated into an immigration Gulag. Unlike convicted criminals, immigration detainees serve no set term and can be held indefinitely. John Harley, South Australia's Public Advocate, is incensed at the lack of rights accorded Baxter's 225 detainees, many of whom are entering their fourth year there. Peter Qasim, a Kashmiri, is in his sixth year with no hope of release because no country will accept him ...
The Age - 20 February 2005
The insidious censorship of pro-life women
The pro-abortion lobby wants to make pro-life women invisible. When it comes to abortion, women are on the move. They are writing, talking, agitating for change. Women who have had abortions, women who are mothers and women who are not, working women, academics, students - many different kinds of women think society can and should offer more than abortion. They are pro-life women, challenging the status quo. And they're not having aloof discussions about other women. It's about us women. Yet pro-abortion commentators continue to push the lie that only men want an abortion debate, and that women uniformly support abortion. Why? Why do they want pro-life women to be invisible? ...
The Age - 16 February 2005
The right to choose adoption
'Thanks for having me." These words, spoken to Health Minister Tony Abbott by son Daniel O'Connor, who had just surfaced after being adopted 27 years ago, pinpoint the poignant heart of the abortion issue. The "me" who was born and able to contact his parents contrasts with the "me" who was aborted and the many who now wish they could hear their child's voice. Every adoption is one less abortion statistic; a silent living rebuke to abortion; the one that got away. O'Connor was born just before midnight on July 26, 1977. His mother, Kathy Donnelly, had five days with him - what she thought would be "my lifetime with my baby". But then, on Christmas Eve, her son made contact ...
The Australian - 22 February 2005
The mystery of the Guantanamo hookers
Did American guards really hire prostitutes to menstruate on detainees' faces? Of all the news headlines that have attacked President George W Bush, this is surely the most shocking: 'Bush uses menstruating prostitutes to torture innocents.' It appeared on a political website on 26 January 2005, following an Australian lawyer's claims that one of his clients, a man from Sydney named Mamdouh Habib, was sexually humiliated at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Lawyer Stephen Hopper said 'the Americans used prostitutes as tools in their interrogations'; apparently one such prostitute stripped naked and stood over Habib, who was strapped to the floor, and 'menstruated on him' ...
Spiked-Online - 21 February 2005
Diminished responsibility
The Howard Government hasn't pushed hard enough to test Mamdouh Habib's torture claims. The war on terrorism works in strange and insidious ways. Take the case of Mamdouh Habib. Released from Guantanamo Bay, this man, who ASIO is absolutely convinced trained with al-Qaeda, is causing the Howard Government a great deal of trouble. His allegations that he was tortured have put it on the spot about questions it asked - or didn't ask - and answers it didn't get. If Habib is telling the truth about being tortured in Pakistan, Egypt and at Guantanamo Bay ... the Government's failure to stand up for his rights is all the worse ...
The Age - 16 February 2005
'Nobody is talking'
The evidence of two new books demonstrates that 9/11 created the will for new, harsher interrogation techniques of foreign suspects by the US and led to the abuses in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan and beyond. In a special report, James Meek reveals that it is the British who refined these methods, and who have provided the precedent for legalised torture. One day in the autumn of 1942 Kim Philby, an officer in Britain's secret intelligence service, received a message from a colleague in MI5. The MI5 man, Helenus Milmo, was in a state of near despair about a Spanish prisoner and suspected spy, Juan Gomez de Lecube, who had been under interrogation since his arrest in the Caribbean that summer ...
The Guardian - 18 February 2005
The new Chief Inquisitor on campus
From ethics committees to ‘learning outcomes’, the threat to academic freedom comes from within the university as much as from without. Academic freedom - which endows members of the university with the right to hold, express and teach any views they deem fit, and to research and publish their findings without restraint - is widely recognised as essential to the pursuit of knowledge. As a 1998 report by UNESCO observed, academic freedom is 'not simply a fundamental value', but also 'a means by which higher education fulfilled its mission'. Even those politicians, bureaucrats and administrators who are, by temperament, hostile to academic freedom feel compelled to defend it ...
Spiked-Online - 16 February 2005
School for scandal
Is the MBA responsible for moral turpitude at the top? Several of the corporate scandals that took place in the early years of this decade are currently being replayed in courtrooms from New York to Alabama. The trials of top executives at HealthSouth, Tyco International and WorldCom are reminding the public how unethical was the behaviour of some of the nation's top managers only a few short years ago. The finger of blame for this behaviour is sometimes pointed at the MBA, the degree offered by business schools from Harvard to Hawaii. Perhaps this is not as odd as it sounds. After all, MBAs lay as thick on the ground at Enron as managerial hubris, and disinterested outsiders are not alone in asking whether there might have been some connection ...
The Economist - 17 February 2005
With this conflict-free diamond I thee wed
Lucy Siegle reports on the growth of ethical weddings and explains how she ended up having an organic marriage herself. Clarence House remains tight-lipped over whether Charles and Camilla will be serving organic food at their bash in April, but elsewhere it is very much on the wedding menu. So too are gift lists featuring camels, conflict-free wedding bands and biodegradable confetti as couples take an ethical approach to their big day. And, as the latest figures from the You and Your Wedding magazine survey price the average wedding at £17,249, there is plenty of scope for matrimonial do-gooding ...
The Observer - 20 February 2005
They boil lobsters don't they?
A recent European study has suggested that lobsters don't feel pain when being boiled. For a lobster, the study suggests, going into a boiling pot is like taking a dip in a hot tub. The study has caused an uproar as people recall that other studies have indicated that even plants can feel pain, and in the animal world - from seashells to humans - pain has traditionally been accepted as a part of being alive. hat is also interesting about this lobster study is that its focus on "luxury goods" reeks of commercialism. Have you ever seen an ad warning that smoking cigars can cause cancer and heart disease? If you have, please let me know because I haven't ...
Japan Times - 21 February 2005
Who will stand up for animal experiments?
We need fewer laws against animal rights activists, and more arguments in defence of vivisection. Britain's Serious Organised Crime and Police Bill, which went through the Remaining Stages in the House of Commons last week, will give the police greater powers to clamp down on animal rights extremists. It will soon become a criminal offence to cause 'economic damage', and those found to have the 'intention of threatening or interfering with contracts involving animal research organisations' will face up to five years in jail. This is the government's response to animal rights activists' campaigns to disrupt the work of large-scale research institutions ...
Spiked Online - 14 February 2005
Careless science costs live
The public is wrong to regard all profit-driven research as suspect. In science, as in much of life, it is believed that you get what you pay for. According to opinion polls, people do not trust scientists who work for industry because they only care about profits, or government scientists because they suspect them of trying to cover up the truth. Scientists who work for environmental NGOs are more highly regarded. Because they are trying to save the planet, people are ready to believe that what they say must be true. A House of Lords report, Science and Society, published in 2000, agreed that motives matter. It argued that science and scientists are not value-free, and therefore that scientists would command more trust "if they openly declare the values that underpin their work" ...
The Guardian - 18 February 2005
Suicide, depression and antidepressants
Patients and clinicians need to balance benefits and harms. Unipolar depression, one of the most important causes of disability worldwide, is characterised by depressed mood, hopelessness, helplessness, intense feelings of guilt, sadness, low self esteem, thoughts of self harm, and suicide. Up to 15% of patients with unipolar depression eventually commit suicide. Although clinical guidelines recommend treating moderate to severe depression with antidepressant drugs, debate persists on whether some antidepressant drugs, in particular the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), cause the emergence or worsening of suicidal ideas in vulnerable patients ...
The British Medical Journal - 19 February 2005
Drugs in schools: a testing subject
Mandatory drug tests in schools overlook a primary duty of care owed to students. There is a drug problem, to a greater or lesser degree, in almost every secondary school in Victoria. This is not new. Students at secondary and tertiary levels have been experimenting with legal and illicit drugs for decades. Few schools could realistically claim to be free of drugs, nor is the problem noticeably worsening. But as Father Peter Norden points out in his recent report on illicit drug use in Australia's Catholic schools, it is how schools respond to these circumstances that is the critical issue ...
The Age - 16 February 2005
Drinks need a serious rethink
Our youth culture is saturated with alcohol. Enough's enough. Imagine a hot day out at a one-day cricket international at the "G", everyone's drinking, there are no controls on how many drinks you can buy, no plastic cups, just glasses, and the alcopops are making their way down the throats of a small but cheery group of under-age girls. The police turn a blind eye and there are no booze buses on the way home. What happens? Eighty per cent of the crowd drink responsibly but an overenthusiastic 20 per cent get "full as a boot" and start fights, a couple of which get quite violent. This, and the fact that several under-age drinkers throw up all over their neighbours, end up spoiling the day of an adjoining 20 per cent of the crowd ...
The Age - 21 February 2005
Mocking our dreams
The reality of climate change is that the engines of progress have merely accelerated our rush to the brink. It is now mid-February, and already I have sown 11 species of vegetable. I know, though the seed packets tell me otherwise, that they will flourish. Everything in this country - daffodils, primroses, almond trees, bumblebees, nesting birds - is a month ahead of schedule. And it feels wonderful. Winter is no longer the great grey longing of my childhood. The freezes this country suffered in 1982 and 1963 are, unless the Gulf Stream stops, unlikely to recur. Our summers will be long and warm. Across most of the upper northern hemisphere, climate change, so far, has been kind to us ...
The Guardian - 15 February 2005
Why I won't fight in Iraq
I am resigning from the Territorial Army because I believe the war in Iraq is wrong. This has not been an easy decision. I have been in the TA for five years - years in which I have learned a lot; won a humanitarian award for helping save the life of a fellow soldier; made many friends; and, I hope, contributed something to this country. I have no doubt that some of my fellow soldiers will feel I am letting them down. Since I have spoken out against the war in the last few weeks I have had a lot of support from soldiers, but I have also been called a coward. I am a trained medic and there is no doubt my skills could be used in the field to save lives ...
The Guardian - 15 February 2005
It pays to be prudent about morality in the world of politics
Scientists met in Britain recently to discuss what level of greenhouse gas concentrations constitutes "dangerous interference" with the global climate. Instead we should be focusing on what are safe levels. Without such guidance, global climate efforts are tantamount to walking blindfolded toward the edge of a cliff. The global instrument for dealing with climate change, the International Convention on Climate Change, is designed to avoid dangerous interference in agriculture, economies and ecosystems. Since the convention came into existence in 1992, it has become increasingly apparent that ecosystems are the most sensitive of the three ...
The Sydney Morning Herlad - 21 February 2005
What stopped the sexual revolution?
Alfred Kinsey's groundbreaking research was going to tear down barriers, lift taboos, liberate men and women alike. So what stopped the sexual revolution? Three years after an atomic explosion hastened the end of the second world war, a metaphorical A-bomb heralded the start of a global revolution. It was 1948, and Alfred C Kinsey's revolutionary report, Sexual Behaviour In The Human Male, had just been published. Nearly 60 years later, the sexual revolution Kinsey is credited with starting is still not complete, and if we want to understand why, the new biopic of that pioneering researcher provides plenty of clues. Kinsey and his team interviewed 18,000 men for his first, groundbreaking report ...
Sunday Herald - 20 February 2005