5 posts tagged “ethics”

The BBC's Breakfast show was buzzing with discussion about the results of a survey of fertility specialists which shows that, while 72% think IVF should be offered on the NHS more widely than it is, 47% of those questioned think lifestyle should restrict access. In other words, smokers and fatsos don't get to have help having children. At the moment, many doctors offer lifestyle change advice (as, I think, they should to any prospective parents) but access is not denied on the basis of bad habits.

There's a practical point behind the discrimination - the treatment is hideously expensive and possibly less likely to take if you are physically unfit. But all this does is create a discussion on the cusp of the dilemma because we're all too emotionally involved with the idea of having children to face the truth.

If you are to make judgments on lifestyle to decide who's allowed help to have a baby, it stands to reason you should make them about those who don't need help to conceive - after all, disabled children of mothers who drank, smoked and took drugs throughout pregnancy cost too, right? And studies have shown that fat parents raise fat children - tut tut. But we simply can't go down that route of discussion because that way madness, erosion of civil liberties and possibly compulsory sterilisation lies.

So instead we have to turn to the root of why we offer IVF at all: because we think having children is a right. It's not. For some people it's a privilege, for others their worst nightmare. What it isn't is something we have some innate ethical right to do - our bodies (this includes men) work or they don't. We fix other health problems because we argue that it'll keep us alive or make a substantial difference to our quality of life. But the fact is that there are enough children needing good homes that we don't need to fix our reproductive bits to indulge in our desire to have a child.

Furthermore, IVF is mainly the preserve of the spoiled, developed countries - you know, the ones who are spawning consumers who are destroying the planet.

Bear with me. I know I sound a tad fascist, but I'm coming to a point here.

My point is this: if we are to start regulating who's allowed to have the right to try and give birth (whether for ethical or financial reasons), we have to discuss why we think it's appropriate to help them at all.

Personally, I really want children, and should I discover I can't conceive naturally I will do everything within my power to have my own, because my genetic / societal imperative and personal choices have led me to this point. I totally and utterly understand how overwhelmingly devasting it must be to a woman to think she might never carry a child of her own. I'm all for IVF treatment being opened up to those who feel they need it.

But all of my views are personal, selfish and emotional. Yes, I'm very glad the UK government is not a body of relentlessly rational beings who will take that choice away from otherwise apparently infertile women. If we argue that IVF ought to be regulated according to lifestyle, however, we might as well argue that it ought to be taken away altogether. It's not vital, it's not necessary, it's a drain on resources and it helps damage the environment even further. I think our sense of humanity demands that it stays in spite of all these things, and sweating the small stuff is deeply unnecessary and only serves to scaremonger.

As usual, I have a tendency to take a major news story and pick on a particular comment or splinter issue because I find it more interesting than the main topic (also because it's better to write on something slightly different than turn up unfashionably late to the party. My mum has a Greek saying that translates as "last and covered in sweat" - no one wants to be that guy).

The other day it was the legislative powers of Church of England bishops relative to the women-as-bishops debate. I think hell might freeze over before the Greek Orthodox church even has a debate on women priests, but Greece suffers even more from the church interfering in secular legal policy. I've bitched about this before.

Today it is a side-issue to the Jezebel / Slut Machine / Mo Whatserface interview. I really don't have the heart to recap on the whole topic, so just head to CupCate for the righteous indignation. It's pretty good indignation really, and I can confirm that what she says about having held the anti-Jezebel line is undoubtedly true. I find it disappointing that DollyMix, under new management, has failed to comment on it, but I guess that's part of the new, more lighthearted outlook. To each their own, but I do feel something has been lost there.

Anyway, back to the point. On one of the myriad condemnatory articles about the incident, someone commented that they thought Slut Tracie and Mo were really the most 'liberated' people involved in the whole shebang. The commenter stressed that it didn't mean they weren't fucking idiots (a given) but simply that they lived according to their own lights and didn't give a shit about societal mores or other people's opinions.

Now, on the surface, this sounds like a good thing. It is good when people can act without guilt (I say this mostly because I can't) and it is good that certain societal mores have fallen by the way side. I wouldn't like the world without gay pride, the struggle for women's equality, civil rights for all regardless of colour and, yes, sexual freedom. I like living with my fiance before marriage and I like it when there is honesty in the world.

Humans, though, biologically, historically and practically speaking, need other humans. We are social animals. Our children are born weak and vulnerable because the assumption is that, yes, it takes a village. It is, also, pretty much impossible for our psyche not to respond to other people and other ideas, so if Slut and Mo manage to give the appearance of total independence it's probably because they're too coked out of their heads to make the leap from one synapse to the next.

Where do you draw the line? Usually we think in terms of hurting other people. It's a more difficult line to draw these days because people get 'offended' far too easily and stupidly - sometimes even because they think they should. (Ref the recent furore over Muslim shopkeepers being offended by a picture of a police dog). And this is a situation where Slut and Mo have upset people emotionally rather than physically or financially  in the immediate sense. Of course, looking at the bigger picture it's because they're talking about issues such as rape which affect women in every sense from physical pain to the ability to work that they're offended emotionally. It's complicated, no?

My point is, that the definition of liberty which that commenter thought applied to the two women is actually pretty much also a definition of a sociopath. Rapists and serial killers also behave without a thought for other people, often because that particular part of their brain chemistry is defective. Children behave with that kind of heedlessness, often, and we see it as part of our role in their upbringing to introduce them to the idea that the world is bigger than them. So is it fair to say that in their version of liberation, Slut and Mo fall between being criminal and being completely childish?

Yes, I think it is. Besides which you simply cannot say that you are only speaking for yourself when you speak for yourself through a multi-million pound blogging empire and not just on a personal online scribblefest. You can't say to women that you live the way you do just for you and it's not cool but then make it sound cool and funny. You're completely and utterly allowed to make mistakes but you have the very public option to make amends.

Liberty, historically, has had to be fought for. The right to basic human rights is still very much a pipe dream for some people (not all of them in distant parts of the world, either). To see a couple of girls take that liberty and stretch it to mindless, drunken drivel is an insult to the idea of liberty. It is not a positive thing to value liberation above humanity - it means nothing beyond the context of ensuring that everyone can live the life they want provided it doesn't genuinely and seriously offend and hurt anyone else.

I'm not suggesting the lines are easily drawn and that there isn't a controversial grey area; there always is. I'm just suggesting that freedom for the sake of it can mean nothing at all.

Today, I am mostly suffering from the Bichon Frise.

No, not the small, fluffy dog of the type that dominates Amber McNaught's life and has his own blog. It's my ignoramus's term for lachon hara, since to begin with I could only remember the "chon" part of the term, and the fact that it went -u -u (in keyboard-approximate pentameter markings). B'dum, b'dum if you prefer. Yes, I'm publicising my own inanity, but that's the world of blogging for you.

Anyway back to lachon / lashon / loshon hara, tangles and all. The Jewish "evil tongue" isn't really about saying bad things about someone irrespective of whether they're true or not. There's a seperate prohibition against slander. This is about saying something true about someone when they're not there to defend themselves.

I do this all the time.

But here's the clincher - according to Ashley this includes saying pleasant and complimentary things about them is the purpose of saying them is to make the person you're talking to feel bad.

Ouch... done that too (though less commonly. Usually if I think something nice about you I'll tell you to your face and tell everyone I know just cos I think you're fab).

I'm working on improving my outward behaviour in a bid to make it second nature not to think bad thoughts about people, but it's easier said than done. Is it true that someone I know is childish, rude and arrogant as well as being funny and talented (the reason I still know them)? Yep. I can't help dwelling on it when they piss me off. And then, in order not to explode at THEM, I talk to Ashley about it. When what I should do is have the balls to sit down with them and say "this is why you're annoying me".

See, my lashon hara doesn't come from being a natural bitch (though I am one). It comes from this enormous desire to make everyone happy all the time.  Last night a friend accused me of not seeing them enough (even though they slept through the last plans we made!) and even though I knew I was 100% right that they were being unfair - and told them so, since they were a close enough friend to do so with confidence - I still second-guessed myself. I have a puppy-like desire to please everyone and instead all that happens is that I pick away at myself and then end up both indulging in the lashon hara and feeling guilty about it.

Oh and yes, I know I'm not Jewish. But it's the same heritage an' all and I dare say Christ upheld this particular law.

This post was inspired by an incident that happened to a close friend (one of my bridesmaids) and made me think of some of the childishness and immaturity I've seen over the last few years. This is what I'd say if I were her.

Dear Girls,

You know, it's funny. I never suffered in junior school or senior (high) school from bullying or being treated disdainfully or badly. I was fat, I was clever, I wasn't particularly pretty and I didn't have a vast crew of friends. But the friends I did have were plentiful and wonderful - I still know a lot of them now - and the other girls did not exclude me; we simply had little in common.

So, with that kind of background, it shocks me that girls like you still exist. Girls where you put out the hand of friendship and it's accepted only on selfish terms, when it suits you. Most people, at this point, would probably make grand pronouncements of cutting people out of their lives. I'm Christian, though, and that comes with a sense of duty to try and not take things personally and turn the other cheek.

That's not to say you're not pissing me off; I'm not that good a person, you're pissing me off. It just means that I will keep trying to be a good person, and will remain open to your friendship should you ever attempt to bestow it.

It strikes me that a lot of the girls who behave like this were once excluded and quietly tortured in that way that only children can inflict on other children. Why they'd want to spread that behaviour around is beyond me, but that's often the case with any form of abuse.

Open up, relax, and stop worrying if you're cool or not. In the grand scheme of things, no-one will remember what you were like in your 20s, and thank God, because I've got news for you: we're ALL arseholes in our 20s.

Take care,

Alex

The Rabbi's Daughter, Reva Mann's autobiography, is about to be released on paperback. My pre-order is in!

Truth be told, I'm already suspecting I won't like the author. Judging by this promotional interview in The Telegraph, her impulsive, addictive behaviour has little to do with anything Jewish and more to do with being confused or possibly selfish as a result of a bizarre upbringing. The fact that she had a religious upbringing is always a peg for people with some misguided anti-religious agenda to hang their prejudices on. See, they say, religious upbringings turn you into a nut!

This is insulting for two reasons. One, don't blame religions for the failures of people, if you believe they have failed. Two, you're assuming that her sexual promiscuousness - apparently a reaction to self-imposed ultra-religious strictures - is, in and of itself, a bad thing.

This leads me on to one of my personal bugbears. Personally I don't think impulsive sexual behaviour is necessarily very sensible in a time of great awareness of sexually transmitted diseases, but what I find people doing is firing a double-whammy of saying it's immoral whilst at the same time rejecting any code of religious ethics (which is far more likely to damn sexual permissiveness than secular ethics).

I'm not saying you can't pick and choose religiously - we all do. I'm just frustrated with the idea that the modern ideal is to condemn all religion whilst secretly thinking that the most restrictive rules might be okay when it comes to women. The heady combination of a blame-free society with dark ages misogyny is quite something, isn't it?

There are some religious ideas I reject, and I have to work through my own attitudes to that; for example, cultures that perform female circumcision disgust me, but for hygeine reasons I accept that male circumcision is fine. If there's a hypocrisy there, I should investigate it (and sometimes I think there is).

Women behaving with sexual freedom long enjoyed by men is no problem for me, although I believe that a lot of emotional, physical and sexual problems would be avoided if both genders showed some more respect to the act and its consequences, intended and unintended. It just drives me mad when women are condemned as sluts by the same people who deride religious beliefs. Which is not, by any means, all the people who are crass and misogynist, just a particularly loathsome subsection.

I shall try and withhold judgement on Reva Mann and look forward to reading her book.