Manufactured ignorance

This is a subject that has always interested me – agnotology, the study of the cultural production of ignorance.

It’s a rich field, especially today when whole industries devote themselves to sowing public misinformation and doubt about their products and activities.

The tobacco industry was a pioneer at this. Its goal was to erode public acceptance of the scientifically proven links between smoking and disease: In the words of an internal 1969 memo legal opponents extracted from Brown & Williamson’s files, “Doubt is our product.” Big Tobacco’s method should not be to debunk the evidence, the memo’s author wrote, but to establish a “controversy.” [Read more…]

The social in social justice

We hear a lot – a LOT – about how “social justice” aka atheismplus aka feminism & anti-racism & LGBT rights & trans rights & animal rights and fill out the list as you like, is a distraction, is divisive, is “drama,” is attention-whoring, is whatever label you want to use by way of saying it has nothing to do with atheism or skepticism or secularism or free inquiry.

There are ways that’s true, if you look at both parts of the equation very narrowly and literally. It is of course perfectly possible to be both an atheist and an aggressively misogynist shithead. If we didn’t know that a priori we would certainly still know it empirically, because we’ve encountered so many glowing examples. (I mean “glowing” in a radioactive sense.) [Read more…]

The laws limiting the age of marriage are unIslamic

Dawn reports that a meeting of The Council of Islamic Ideology in Islamabad on Tuesday ruled that the laws related to minimum age of marriage were un-Islamic and that children of any age could get married if they attain puberty.

At the conclusion of two day meeting, Chairman CII Maulana Muhammad Khan Sheerani noted that the laws related to marriage too were unfair and there cannot be any age of marriage. [Read more…]

A chance to air their nostalgia

Emily Bazelon at Slate takes a look at some of the more…eccentric far-right arguments in the Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood briefs against the Obamacare rule that employers must provide contraception coverage as part of their health care plans.

Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood, the companies whose suits the Supreme Court will hear later this month, have been careful to frame their objections narrowly. They’re not refusing to pay for all birth control. They just don’t want to fund “items” like the morning-after pill and the IUD, which they say effectively cause abortion by preventing a fertilized embryo from implanting in the uterus. Many scientists say that’s not true. But the companies are trying to take a limited, reasonable-minds-may-differ position. [Read more…]

A woman’s request for abortion cannot be treated as a lottery

In better news, however – on March 7 the Council of Europe’s Committee of Social Rights ruled that conscientious objection cannot stand in the way of women receiving the reproductive healthcare services guaranteed by Italian law.

The milestone decision on conscientious objection and abortion delivered by the Council of Europe’s Committee of Social Rights is welcomed by the International Planned Parenthood Federation European Network (IPPF EN). IPPF EN lodged a collective complaint[1] against Italy which stated that the weak regulation of health personnel’s conscientious objection violates the right to health protection. IPPF EN is pleased to announce that the claim has been successful – and in time for Saturday 8th March, which is International Women’s Day.

The Committee’s decision supports the position held by IPPF EN, LAIGA and the Italian lawyers Marilisa D’ Amico and Benedetta Liberali. They clearly state that conscientious objection cannot stand in the way of women receiving the reproductive healthcare services guaranteed by Italian law. The Italian State is obliged to make sure women get access to abortion services – as and when required. “A woman’s request to abortion cannot be treated as a lottery, dependant on the luck of the patient, her wealth or where she lives,” saysVicky Claeys, the Regional Director of IPPF EN. [Read more…]

Abandoned by all medical staff

Why is it a problem when medical personnel are allowed to refuse to perform abortions because of their “sincere religious beliefs”? Well one reason – though only one – is cases like one that happened in Rome in October 2010.

Valentina Magnanti was forced to abort her dead foetus in a toilet in Rome’s Sandro Pertini hospital, abandoned by all medical staff and with only her husband to assist her. This is what can happen when medical staff are allowed to follow their “consciences” and refuse to participate in abortions. [Read more…]

Trying to provoke

Sometimes I can hardly believe what I’m reading. Student Rights reports:

Last week both Yusuf Chambers of the Islamic Education and Research Academy (IERA) and Uthman Lateef appeared at the University of Nottingham as part of ‘Discover Islam Week’.

Given that both these speakers have a record of expressing homophobic sentiment, student journalists both approached LGBT Network members and questioned the two men on their beliefs.

Calls for intolerant speakers to be allowed to speak in order for their bigotry to be exposed are common from students, so you would think that this would have been acceptable behaviour.

Instead a statement has been released by the LGBT Network and the Islamic Society at the university which targets those journalists for trying “to provoke an antagonistic atmosphere” on campus. [Read more…]

Fourteen percent

It’s not just new laws and restrictions, it’s not just protesters outside clinics, it’s not just Catholic hospitals gobbling up secular hospitals – it’s also training, and how difficult it is to get it. The Daily Beast reports on the scarcity of medical training in abortion.

…abortion training is still largely isolated in freestanding clinics and the relatively few OB-GYN residency programs that provide comprehensive training. Although the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education—the governing body which sets nationwide rules for medical residencies—put abortion training on the curriculum for all OB-GYN programs in 1996, Congress took the unprecedented step of nullifying that decision soon afterward. To this day, any program that does not abide by the ACGME guidelines won’t lose its federal funding, and only 40 percent of OB-GYN programs in the country offer comprehensive abortion training. [Read more…]

Still a problem

Chris Stedman did a piece on this question of homophobia in atheism at Religion News Service after that Twitter exchange I quoted.

Discussions around sexism among atheists have been gaining momentum for years, but it’s clear that sexism is still a problem in certain segments of movement atheism. I’ve seen manifestations of it, and I am far from alone. And regarding anti-LGBTQ attitudes: I’ve heard from atheists who say that I’m too “effeminate,” that my being gay makes atheists seem “like freaks,” or that my “obvious homosexuality” makes me an ineffectual voice for atheists. [Read more…]