In early 2011, Dr. Kermit Gosnell was arrested on charges of murder related to his abortion services: one charge for the death of a woman who had sought an abortion at his Philadelphia clinic, and seven additional charges for the killings of infants that had been born alive. The grand jury report on Gosnell’s clinic …
Tag Archive: ethics
Dec 12 2012
The view from nowhere on female genital mutilation
Following the Lisa Wade/Hastings Center/FGM controversy, Heina of Skepchick made note of a certain prevalent attitude toward female genital mutilation: Most conversations about FGM among Westerners not had by sociologists and other such academics indeed center around some version of “Ugh, that’s so horrible and disgusting! Who would do that to children?!” at best, and, …
Dec 11 2012
Female genital mutilation: “Balance” at the expense of justice
At Sociological Images, Lisa Wade has decided to promote a report by the Hastings Center on the practice of female genital mutilation. In response to what they consider “hyperbolic and one-sided” coverage by “Western media” without regard to the “cultural complexities” of mutilation, the report claims to offer “a better account of the facts”. By uncritically …
Nov 14 2012
This is what a Catholic country looks like
A nightmarish ethical dystopia that succeeded in slowly and painfully killing an innocent woman for the sake of nothing. Savita Halappanavar, 17 weeks pregnant, was miscarrying. There was no chance that the fetus would survive. In excruciating pain, Savita asked for an abortion. The hospital, University Hospital Galway in Ireland, refused. Why? There was still a …
Oct 03 2012
Selfish relative to what?
Among the many issues people have with transgender identities and the process of transitioning, one especially mystifying notion is that this is somehow selfish or vain. This is a difficult accusation to counter, because the concepts of “selfishness” and “vanity” are slippery things. In common usage, whether something is seen as selfish or vain is …
Sep 16 2012
Are they really religious? Yes!
Following widespread attacks and protests at US embassies in the Middle East in reaction to a film insulting Islam, several people have linked to a story from February by Egyptian author Alaa Al Aswany. In the article, titled “Are They Really Religious?”, Aswany criticizes Egyptian Muslims who follow the letter of their interpretation of Islamic …
Jul 17 2012
Ethicists don’t necessarily know what they’re talking about
Purdue Pharma is currently running trials of the opioid painkiller OxyContin on 150 patients aged 6 to 16, after previously discontinuing expensive youth trials in order to redirect their resources to developing an abuse-resistant form of the drug. All of these children were already on other opioid painkillers to manage pain from cancer, severe burns and …
Jun 29 2012
Actually, the recognition of circumcision as child abuse is a long-overdue ethical insight
Following a German court’s ruling that the circumcision of male infants constitutes a violation of child’s right to bodily integrity, The Telegraph’s Brendan O’Neill has mounted a particularly vacuous defense of the practice. As he sees it, “The rebranding of circumcision as ‘child abuse’ echoes the ugly anti-Semitism of medieval Europe” – yet he somehow …
Jun 25 2012
Lazy pseudo-criticism of abortion
In an op-ed for the New York Times, former news anchor Campbell Brown has some advice for Planned Parenthood: Once again, Planned Parenthood is potentially making an enemy of someone who has failed to pass its purity test. It’s gotten to the point where, in this election cycle, the group’s political arm (while proudly claiming …
Jun 20 2012
Those with No Allegiance to Reality
Some time ago, religious activist Be Scofield published an article criticizing atheists who say that religion is harmful, because they haven’t shown that concrete harms have resulted from the beliefs and practices of each of over 4,000 distinct religious groups. According to Scofield, organized religions often provide social services that aren’t available elsewhere, and religious …
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