So, it went through the Commons, after some wheeler-dealing, and now has to get through the Lords.
At the risk of sounding like someone writing to The Times, I am appalled and disgusted that it’s got this far. There is no justification for holding members of the public for so long. A week sounds about right to me, any more than that is simply wrong. Whatever happened to “innocent until proven guilty”?
Right now, I’m ashamed that I ever voted Labour, and I never will do again.
I just couldn’t believe it when I read it; two men have been caught chipping fragments from the Heel Stone at Stonehenge. The BBC refers to them as both vandals and “souvenir hunters,” and, while I suspect it’s technically true, I can’t help feeling that the second term lends an undeserved air of legitimacy to what they did. Let’s be clear about this; there is no excuse for their actions. They thought it was acceptable behaviour to damage a beloved and fascinating national treasure, which belongs to us all, in order to claim exclusive ownership of a tiny fragment of it. They’re scum, pure and simple.
Excellent news! The Commons has voted in support of research on hybrid embryos. Needless to say, the uninformed are up in arms about the “army of Frankesteins” about to be unleashed, but I think everyone who understands the issues knows this is the right outcome.
So, the votes on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill are taking place over the next couple of days, with the big one — hybrid embryos — happening today.
The BBC has summarised the key points on both sides of the debate:
What are the arguments in favour of this process?
Scientists who advocate the work say the cells would allow them to study how genetic defects, which cause diseases such as Parkinson’s, develop.
They also say that stem cells’ ability to develop into different tissues mean it could be possible to use cells formed in this process to cure diseases.
Using animal eggs would enable scientists to overcome the problem that human eggs are in short supply.
What are the arguments against?
Opponents say it is tampering with nature, and is unethical.
On the one hand we have a set of reasoned arguments detailing specific predicted health benefits for thousands of people, and on the other we have “eewwww!”.
I really wish people would stop conflating their own squeamishness with their ethical position; it clouds important issues, like this, where the ethical position is surely the one that saves lives.
Oh look, Church leaders are up in arms about some new piece of legislation. Are we really surprised? After so many thousands of years of them proclaiming that anything which makes them, personally, feel uncomfortable is evil, how can we be anything but bored when they keep at it in the present time? Last year it was equal rights for homosexuals, this year it’s advanced research into human genetics. Before long it’ll be artificial intelligence, neuroscience, or some other thing which challenges, and advances, our view of ourselves.
Oh, and of course the cries are going to be led by the Catholic Church this time; they’re the ones with a huge theological investment in the subject. We’re talking about a cult whose insane superstitions about human genetic material lead them to declare male masturbation a “sin against God”, and to deduce that tens of millions of people in the third world dying of AIDS and hundreds of millions more living in miserable, starving poverty due to overpopulation is probably OK compared to the much greater sin of letting them use condoms. These are people whose core values are utterly incompatible with the human rights and human dignity they claim to be the guardians of, and our response to their claims of being some sort of authority on ethics (especially bioethics) should be to laugh disdainfully and get on with trying to make the world a better place.
I gather this isn’t exactly news, but it’s the first I’ve heard of it.
The Lords have just approved the change, by a significant majority. I couldn’t be happier; blasphemy is a ridiculous, archaic offence that has no place being enshrined in the law of a civilised nation. In fact I’ll call it the first good news about the British legal system I’ve heard in a long time.
Well, I suppose it’s good that someone in authority has finally realised that whole thing is a colossal waste of time and money, in which the only possible winners are the publicity-seeking opportunists who’re still, after ten years, trying to make some money or grab some fame through their association with the princess.
Really, we don’t _need_ an inquest into her death; I would have thought that the fact her car hit a concrete wall at speed, while she wasn’t wearing a seat-belt, would be clue enough into how she died. Of course, there are always conspiracy theorists when a much loved public figure dies suddenly, but that doesn’t mean we should give them a publicly funded platform from which to shout.
A council in Durham has spent taxpayers’ money on a ‘psychic’ to perform an exorcism on a home in the town:
Easington Council employed medium Suzanne Hadwin after Peterlee tenant Sabrina Fallon reported paranormal activity including moving objects.
Miss Fallon had even called police after hearing bangs which terrified her children Shannon, nine, and Amie, one.
A council spokesman said it paid half the psychic’s fee as it was the most cost-effective solution.
The council hasn’t suggested that it put’s any stock in the claims, and has attempted to distance itself from that suspicion:
Mr Burnip said: “This family was absolutely distraught and believed what was happening – that is not to say that the council believed.
“What we saw was a relatively small amount to pay for an outcome which in effect saved the taxpayer many hundreds, if not thousands of pounds.”
It should go without saying that this is utter nonsense. Some woman has got herself worked up over something (probably a few spooky noises,) and passed her fear onto her kids, and the council has paid someone to do nothing more than say “there, there, it’ll be OK” in a way she was prepared to believe.
I’d have much rather seen the council spend a little more money to educate this woman’s superstitions away, than to pander to them and, ultimately, reinforce them. This would have had the fringe benefit of the money going to someone who battles against ignorance and mysticism, rather than someone who preys on it. Remember; the data suggests that the probability of Ms Hadwin possessing actual supernatural powers is vanishingly small.
I’ll bet Dr Williams is taken aback at the response his comments has generated, and I have to say, I think a lot of people are overreacting. Obviously, I make no secret of the fact that I disagree with him and I’ll argue my point, but heckling the poor man outside his Church? Calling for his resignation? Not even remotely called for, and nothing more than an attempt to limit his right to hold an opinion and express his views.
At this stage it’s probably worth pointing out that there are — at least — two separate groups who’re being critical of his position, and it’s not the secularists and the liberals who’re calling for his resignation. Those voices are raised from within his own Church, and they’re not objecting on general grounds to religious accommodation in the law, they’re objecting very specifically to accommodation of religions that aren’t theirs. Needless to say, I disagree with those people at least strongly as I do Dr Williams.
In fact, on a re-reading his lecture, I realise just how badly misrepresented by the media Dr Williams was. I’m not saying I agree with him; far from it, but I don’t think he was calling for wholesale modification of British law, either. He makes some subtle points, and his words are, at times, ambiguous (one might say disingenuous,) but there is certainly a way to interpret what he said as nothing more controversial than “just because the law gives someone a right, doesn’t mean we should necessarily force them to exercise that right at all times.” That much is obviously true.
So, surely true enough is fair enough? Well, yes, but the assumption that someone might not want to exercise their rights is a dangerous one to establish legally, and an even more dangerous one to nationally consolidate through the establishment of local courts around the country, which (will inevitably) presume the complicity of the entire local population. Williams talks about these supplementary-jurisdictions as being purely voluntary, but offers no suggestions as to how to ensure duress of any kind does not play a role. Matthew Parris puts it excellently, in his piece in The Times:
Faiths capture people. I do not mean this disparagingly. So of course do patriotisms, ideologies, families. But a religion, properly understood, makes profound claims on an individual and community, quite unlike the demands of a golf club. It involves the use of public places and public services, the subordination of the individual’s will; and may demand that he subordinate his spouse’s and children’s wills too. Hence our unease about duress, and the completeness of “consent”.
Dr Williams, in a welter of words, makes no serious attempt to resolve this. Those who read his speech properly will see that his entire argument turns upon the freedom of the group member to “opt out” of the “supplementary jurisdiction” and choose British law instead. But repressive faith groups make it culturally difficult – sometimes well-nigh impossible – for a member to opt out. This gives them the very togetherness and focus that Dr Williams wants to foster.
A religion is more than a collection of rules and habits: it is a complete moral and philosophical system with deep claims upon the inner and outer life of the adherent, from cradle, through schooling, and beyond. The rules it lays down – the private laws – are of a more commanding kind than the rules of Scrabble or the High Peak Hunt because they are morally joined-up: joined with a loyalty beyond the State; joined within an overarching faith and its explanations of the Universe.
How can we expect someone who’d been raised, educated and governed according to certain cultural and religious prescriptions to realise, when it matters, that they are able to “opt-out” of all that? Everyone they know believes and acts a certain way; they have been raised to do the same. They might not even know there is a wider law guaranteeing them greater liberty. Paris, charitably, talks about religions as providing “togetherness” and “focus,” and I dare-say he’s right, but the other side of that coin is obedience, conformity and acquiescence; not traits that I believe will lead to people looking outside the system for redress.
Put simply, religion and governance are a bad mix at any level. Religions are, by their very nature, strongly ideological, and strongly ideological governments, religious or otherwise, fall all too easily — some might say, inevitably — into oppression of dissenting views.
Additionally, and as I’ve said before, there are real risks with introducing even small-scale supplemental jurisdictions in the context of the current British population. By granting legal status to aspects of cultural codes, we run the risk of granting a veneer of legitimacy to the entirety of those codes, including elements that the majority find abhorrent, and by granting already insular communities even greater autonomy, we don’t increase social cohesion on a wide scale, so much as splinter into a series of small, independent communities with little in the way of commonality to bind them into a cohesive whole.
Well this is somewhat heartening; it seems like pretty much everyone agrees with me on the recent statement from Dr Rowan Williams, that the UK should adopt aspects of Sharia Law.
This also neatly demonstrates something I’ve been saying for a while; The UK really is a much more secular nation that the US, state religion notwithstanding. British people tend to know this, but some (by no means all) Americans seem to labour under the impression that the Church here is actually wields some real power. This is the Archbishop of Canterbury, the head of the Church of England, and yet pretty much everyone in government has come out and publicly criticised him for speaking rubbish. Can you imagine the US president speaking out against a religious leader like this?