The Nathaniel Centre

Living with Freedom [SYNOPSIS ONLY]

In this article, Gerard Aynsley offers an incisive analysis of our understandings of freedom within the context of euthanasia.  In tracing two streams of thought from the Enlightenment and the Christian faith tradition, he argues that these two approaches need not be polemical; both are intertwined with thinking about what it means to be a person.

The full article is available by subscription to The Nathaniel Report

We Need Better Arguments to Debate Big Ethical Issues [SYNOPSIS ONLY]

In this article, Dan Fleming convincingly posits that we can contribute to euthanasia debates with better arguments.  He explores different ethical and philosophical frameworks that are employed in the physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia debate: deontology, consequentialism, and virtue ethics.  He also contests the assumption that only those with a religious worldview oppose euthanasia legislation.

The full article is available by subscription to The Nathaniel Report

Fairness

By Grey Coyle

Fairness is something we quite easily recognise when we see it, but often have great difficulty describing and even more difficulty defining. Children seem to have an intrinsic sense of what is fair and what is not fair but often lack the skill to decide how they would make something fair. Similarly, adults can spot something they believe to be unfair, but analysing why something is fair or unfair from differing perspectives can be difficult.

Fairness and unfairness often concern the allocation of resources within a country, a community or to an individual person. The fair allocation of healthcare resources is a particularly contentious issue. The many questions we might pose about fairness are underpinned by genuinely held and interrelated pragmatic, moral, social and political beliefs. If these beliefs and values were to be developed into conversations about what allocations are fair they would generate many differing opinions.

Within the Christian faith tradition, the evangelist Matthew highlights insights Jesus had about fairness in the parable of the workers in the vineyard (20:1-7). This parable provides a fascinating theological challenge to our understandings of fairness.

Perfect fairness may well be unattainable, but there is increasingly disagreement about what constitutes acceptable levels of fairness in today's political and social landscape. For example, while many social commentators imply there is a high level of unfairness about homeless families living in cars, whatever the aetiological factors of their distress, the spectre of children suffering without a home is not regarded as particularly unjust or unfair by others.

In the story the vineyard owner hires labourers for the day, promising to pay them a denarius. At the third hour, the owner approaches another group who are waiting in the market place because no one has hired them, and also offers them work, saying that they would receive whatever was right; more workers are hired at the sixth and ninth hours and again at the eleventh hour. When evening comes, the vineyard owner gives each worker a denarius. Those who had worked all day protest that they are paid the same as those who had worked only one hour. But the owner responds: "Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first, and the first last."

At first glance, it seems easy to spot the gross unfairness in the relative rates of pay for hours worked. It is understandable that the workers who have worked the whole day under trying conditions might feel aggrieved that those who have worked only an hour will be remunerated the same. However, in paying them all the same, the owner introduces a quotient of mercy and grace in the wages rather than a quotient of injustice. In this way Jesus' account of divine fairness demonstrates keeping his word and being true to His covenants as well as having a heart for the poor and downtrodden. Perhaps God is also showing his love by creating an opportunity for those who worked the longest hours for their one denarius to experience the grace of accepting the condition of others less well off than themselves.

Various secular justice theories also attempt to explore fairness and how it impacts on our lives. New Zealand has a particular and somewhat unique history in this regard. Analysis of our social and political past shows New Zealanders have traditionally had a strong sense of a fair society.

Specifically, the social reform of the 30's was based on a 'fair go for all'. Robin Gauld1 describes The Social Security Act (1938) as the political and legislative foundation for social welfare in New Zealand. This legislation placed New Zealand's concern for the least well off firmly on a fairness platform which shaped for some time our perception of how subsequent governments acted. However, since the neoliberal economic reforms of the 1980's, and in particular the Global Financial Crisis, the fall-back position on fairness more commonly expressed now is "well I accept something may be unfair, but we have limited resources and who says the world is fair anyway?" It seems, in other words, that fairness has become an unreachable and unnecessary goal; the altruistic goals of 1930's have given way to the individualistic view "what is in my best interests?"

Perfect fairness may well be unattainable, but there is increasingly disagreement about what constitutes acceptable levels of fairness in today's political and social landscape. For example, while many social commentators imply there is a high level of unfairness about homeless families living in cars, whatever the aetiological factors of their distress, the spectre of children suffering without a home is not regarded as particularly unjust or unfair by others.

Justice inevitably involves the moral authority of laws. Homer described justice as personal vengeance. Plato saw justice as both the right of the stronger and the effective harmony of the whole of society. St. Thomas Aquinas believed justice to be divine, directing humankind to do what we feel we ought to do under divine direction. Aristotle, meanwhile, described the formal criterion of justice in terms of treating equals equally and treating unequals unequally and in proportion to that inequality, a definition which still wins wide acceptance today. Aristotle's approach means that where inequality exists such inequality should be addressed by taking from the advantaged and giving to the disadvantaged.

Common to all these positions is an understanding that justice is a positive thing which is applied to decisions, procedures, laws, actions and events2. Lamont3 identifies the main foundational theories of justice as being: strict egalitarianism; resourcedbased principles; welfare-based principles; libertarian principles; and feminist principles. Strict egalitarianism is based on the Aristotelian principle of substantive equality, that all people should have the same level of goods and services. This is justified because it is equality of goods and services that gives practical effect to the respect owed to all equally. However, the principle of strict equality raises the problem of an index of fairness. How do we know which level of goods and services should be fairly distributed?

This question is the basis of the categorical imperative of Immanuel Kant which asserts that people are always to be treated not as a means to an end, but as ends in themselves4. Meanwhile Jeremy Bentham, recognised as the founder of utilitarianism, proposed maximising pleasure and minimising pain as a key guiding moral principle for all in society. In determining whether an action is right, however, Bentham argued that it is not just individual happiness or self-interest that counts but delivering the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people. John Stuart Mill, also a utilitarian, warned, however, that the greatest happiness must not involve coercion because this would breach the harm principle, whether the coercion was in the best interests of the person, or not.

Under the Catholic principle of ‘participation’ all people have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking the wellbeing of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. The notion of the ‘common good’ asserts unfettered rights for all but not at the expense of others, but nor are individual rights to be subordinated to the needs of the group.

Across the wide range of substantial ethical theories and principles of justice as fairness, no one theory commands universal acceptance5. However, in New Zealand a “Fair go” and “Do to others as you would have them do to you” (Luke 6:31) are maxims which would arguably find general acceptance in our part of the world.

While perfect equality may be unattainable, Wilkinson and Pickett6 have demonstrated that very high levels of unfair allocation of resources (particularly income) are directly linked to social pathology for both the most disadvantaged and the most advantaged. In other words, inequality is correlated with negative morbidity and mortality rates, obesity, teenage birth rates, mental illness, homicide, low trust, low social capital, hostility, and racism. Wilkinson and Pickett’s theory links individual’s relative positions in society to deep-seated social problems associated with poverty, poor formal education, relative deprivation and low social status. They also make the claim that communities with high income inequality lack cohesion, exhibit poor social relationships and are bedevilled by mistrust. From this it follows that, in circumstances where the aetiologies ultimately lie in the underlying inequality, ever higher levels of access to social services will make no difference to poor social outcomes. It should be noted that there have been criticisms of Wilkinson and Picketts’ analysis, based on a competing claim that income inequality has no impact on levels of life satisfaction. This illustrates how perceptions of fairness of income inequality is underpinned by particular values and morals.

The moral question I pose is how much fairness or equality is too much to aim for? How much is not enough? Hamilton7 suggests that there must be minimal granting of special privileges to favoured individuals while ensuring those who require assistance are not abandoned. Balancing the scales of fairness appeals to the principles of justice in this dilemma.

John Rawls in A Theory of Justice8 and Amartya Sen in The Idea of Justice9 together present a contemporary far reaching example of what is essential for an understanding of justice as fairness. While theirs is not the only description of justice as fairness, and despite their many critics, Rawls and Sen have provided a substantial framework for determining fairness.

Rawls’ definition of fairness contends that, in liberal democratic societies, fairness should ensure each person has an equal right to the most extensive liberty compatible with a similar liberty of others. Where social and economic distributions are to be unequal, they should be arranged so that distributions are of the greatest benefit for the least advantaged. Rawls and Sen also believe that if fairness is to be achieved, decisions about distributions of goods and services should be made in a manner that is open and accountable and without secrecy.

The Rawls principle leads us to consider whether allocations of resources would be considered fair by the most advantaged people in society if, at an instant, they became the most disadvantaged and required the distribution for themselves. In so doing we are urged to avoid bias, remove vested interests and set aside our personal priorities and prejudices. This approach is not dissimilar to Luke’s maxim “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, which Blackburn10 contends is the basis of almost every ethical tradition.

Sen, meanwhile, appeals to an arrangement-focused view of fairness where justice systems are universally applied without favour and where decision makers behave without corruption. Sen, an economist, also requires fairness to have regard for the economic efficiency of decisions and believes people should be involved in discussions on how economic efficiency is measured. He further proposes that justice as fairness must take account of peoples’ capability to access enjoyment of the things they have reason to value. This means that, institutional rules, while important, must be assessed in the broader context of the lives of the people involved.

Rawls and Sen thus propose a picture of fairness which has regard for the less fortunate, appeals to consistency, calculates economic efficiency and promotes people’s capacity to enjoy the things they have good reason to value. Sen also contends that people who are making distributive decisions should do so in ways which are open and accountable.

The ideals of Catholic Social Teaching11 strongly align with the fairness principles described by Rawls and Sen. Their understanding of fairness is much like the Catholic notion of the ‘intrinsic dignity of the person’, the idea that every human person is worthy of respect as a member of the human family. This notion grants each person inalienable rights; political, legal, social, and economic. Under the Catholic principle of ‘participation’ all people have a right and a duty to participate in society, seeking the wellbeing of all, especially the poor and vulnerable. The notion of the ‘common good’ asserts unfettered rights for all but not at the expense of others, but nor are individual rights to be subordinated to the needs of the group. The Catholic tradition also highlights the physical needs of the poor and vulnerable as a primary priority – the ‘preferential option for the poor’.

There is no one moral description of justice as fairness to which we universally agree, although the maxim ‘do unto others…” does underpin many moral and ethical traditions.

Still, the question arises: ‘how do we know if we are being fair?’ Is it possible to condense Rawls and Sen’s theory of justice as fairness into a framework of thinking to guide us? I propose here four questions distilled from the theories of Rawls and Sen. Imagine a situation (such as the plight of homeless people living in cars) where a decision needs to be made about fairness towards an individual person.

1. Would the most advantaged person in society accept the decision about fairness, if at an instant, they found themselves to be the most disadvantaged person and required the decision to be made in favour of themselves?
2. Has the decision about fairness been made in a manner which is open and accountable to all?
3. Is this decision about fairness based on economic efficiency and on procedural fairness in defining what is meant by efficiency?
4. Is this decision about fairness based on information available to decision makers about the capability of the person to do the things he/she has good reason to value in their lives?

Using these questions to analyse fairness in the widest context, we are guided to:

• consider the needs of the least advantaged before the needs of the most advantaged
• avoid making biased decisions by removing the influence of vested interests, personal priorities and the prejudices of the chosen decision makers
• be open about the decision-making process and accountable for decisions
• ensure decision makers engage in some form of rational analysis to determine the best use of resources and ensure there is a general agreement about the process for doing this
• be aware of the consequences for people affected by decisions and the capacity of those affected to do the things they have good reason to value.

Conclusion

Fairness is a moveable target which reflects different sets of religious, philosophical and political beliefs. There is no one moral description of justice as fairness to which we universally agree, although the maxim ‘do unto others…” does underpin many moral and ethical traditions.

I have proposed in this article a set of questions which can be used to decide if we are acting fairly based on the justice as fairness principles espoused by Rawls and Sen. I have noted that these principles align with Catholic moral teaching. I have discussed various secular approaches to justice and fairness while arguing that these don’t fully encompass the Christian perspective.

Fairness is a complex business and many authors have tried to provide moral, ethical and legal lessons to guide us. Jesus has provided a lesson on fairness in the parable of the workers in the vineyard. His demonstration of love, mercy and grace for all the actors in the story is a most powerful demonstration of justice as fairness.

Dr Greg Coyle completed a doctoral thesis in 2011 examining how government funded public health agencies distribute health resources to citizens. He is employed by The New Zealand Salvation Army as Principal Advisor to the Social Programme.

Endnotes
1 Gauld, R. (2004). Health Care Rationing Policy in New Zealand: Development and Lessons. Social Policy and Society, 3(03), 235-242. Accessed on 18 July 2013.
2 Romano, C. (2009). Amartya Sen shakes Up Justice Theory The Chronicle Review, September 14, http://chronicle.com/article/Amartya-Sen-Up-Justice/48332/ Accessed on 21.09.2011.
3 Lamont, J (2007). Distributive Justice. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved from https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-distributive/ Accessed on 12.09.2009.
4 Russell, B. (1946) History of Western Philosophy, London: Routledge.
5 Gillon, R (2006) PHARMAC and the Funding of High Cost Medicines. Information from PHARMAC’s 2006 High Cost Medicines Review. http://www.pharmac.govt.nz/2009/06/08/Information Accessed on 13/5/2007.
6 Wilkinson, R., & Pickett, K. (2007). The problems of relative deprivation: Why some societies do better than others. Social Science and Medicine, 651965-1978. Doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2007.05.041
7 Hamilton, C. (2003). Growth Fetish. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen & Unwin. p124.
8 Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
9 Sen, A. (2009). The Idea of Justice. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
10 Blackburn, S. (2001). Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p.101. ISBN 978-0-19-280442-6.
11 Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. (2004). London: Burns & Oates. Chapter Four.

HDC Consultation on research involving adult participants who are unable to give informed consent.

By The Nathaniel Centre 

General Discussion:

We note and endorse the idea that “The right to make an informed choice and give informed consent before receiving health or disability services, including participating in research, is the cornerstone of New Zealand’s Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights (the Code)”, (HDC Consultation Document, p. 1). In a similar vein, we have previously written about the critical importance of informed consent, advocating that all people have a right not to be experimented on without their knowledge or consent, whatever the nature of the research.ⁱ

It is broadly accepted that the history of ‘informed consent’ in human research goes back to the Nuremberg Code of 1947. This Code was developed after the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War which exposed the unethical nature of research carried out by many Nazi researchers. The lesson learnt from this and other well-known instances of unethical research, such as Tuskegee and Willowbrook, is that justifying research on the basis of its potential benefits or outcomes alone, and without reference to the inalienable rights and dignity of human participants, all too easily leads to human exploitation and harm. Upholding informed consent is one of the key ways in which the rights and dignity of research participants can be protected.

In New Zealand, current thinking and practices around ethical review and the centrality of informed consent have been informed by our own instances of unethical research, including the removal and retention of organs from deceased babies without parental consent and the ‘unfortunate experiment’ on patients with cervical cancer carried out at National Women’s Hospital.

The current Code of Health and Disability Services Consumers’ Rights allows research on a person who is unable to give consent totake place only if participation in the research is in the person’s best interests. It thus reflects a strong commitment to the principle of informed consent. It also reflects a commitment to ensuring that the interests of the person must not be subsumed to those of society. In other words, it embodies a rejection of the main premise underpinning utilitarianism, the idea that ‘the greatest good for the greatest number’ is a sufficient measure of what is ethically acceptable.

If there are to be changes to the parameters which currently proscribe non-consensual research on adults, it is critical that our society’s commitment to the notion that the best interests of the person must ultimately always outweigh those of society (Consultation Document, p. 44, n.3) be upheld and not eroded in any way.

We have previously argued that there can be legitimate exceptions to the requirement that informed consent be obtained from research participants in certain exceptional circumstances. Thus, in 2015 we wrote that the “only exceptions to this are in circumstances where (i) the research is strictly observational or (ii) participants are, for various reasons, unable to give consent, in which case consent must be sought from someone legally entitled to provide consent for them.” In the same article we alsostated: “In exceptional circumstances, limited disclosure may be justified or consent might be obtained retrospectively, for example because of the need to avoid a biased response. It is also possible to seek a waiver of consent where the risk is low and where there are strong reasons why it would not be practical or possible to obtain consent.” We then added: “… in these situations, the ethical rider is that such research must always be held up to close scrutiny by an appropriately accredited and independent review body.”ⁱⁱ

We note that current practice in New Zealand, by allowing consent to be waived in circumstances when it is deemed to be in the person’s best interests, already constitutes an exception to the principle of informed consent, albeit a very narrow one. This debate, therefore, is about the scope of such exceptions in New Zealand and, more specifically, whether they might now be broadened to include some situations where research on a person unable to give consent is justified on grounds other than being in their personal best interests.

Our overall position is that we are not in principle opposed to broadening the parameters which regulate non-consensual research on adult participants.

Ethical Discussion:

Our response to the two fundamental questions posed in the Consultation document (“Are New Zealand’s current laws regarding non-consensual research [involving adult participants] appropriate and, if not, how should they be amended?”(Consultation document, p.2)) reflects our belief that it is, in theory, both possible and ethical, in certain proscribed circumstances with adequate scrutiny and safeguards, to broaden the circumstances in which consent for adult participants in research might be waived.

We add the qualifier “in theory” because we believe that any moves to broaden the parameters around non-consensual research would only be acceptable within a system of robust, accredited and independent ethical overview. Given the experience of two of the writers of this submission who have previously served as members of a HDEC Ethics Committee for a combined period of 11 years, our concern is that some of the more recent restructures of New Zealand’s HDEC ethical review system have contributed to a less comprehensive and less robust system than was previously the case – fewer committees and fewer members as well as a significantly narrower set of criteria for determining when research requires HDEC review.

Any moves, therefore, to change the current law must, in our mind, first be considered against the current effectiveness of ethical review committees in New Zealand. In which case, a decision in principle to broaden the criteria for non-consensual research might be considered unworkable or unsafe in the current context of ethical review. The decision might, therefore, be made not to proceed with any changes for pragmatic reasons even while it was otherwise considered ethically acceptable in theory.

In the event it was deemed practically acceptable to broaden the parameters, it is our firm belief that, because of the inherent risks in non-consensual research, such applications should require an additional layer of scrutiny to what is already currently available by a group under the auspices of the Health and Disability Commissioner’s Office that includes representatives of, or people able to speak on behalf of or advocate for, the group of persons on whom the research will be carried out.

When reflecting on why it might be ethically acceptable to allow non-consensual research on a person when it is not in their best interests and when it will introduce an element of risk, the obvious answer is that there will be benefits for others, whether persons in similar circumstances or, perhaps, society in general. Herein lies the greatest danger in broadening the parameters of non-consensual research because any such move inevitably opens the door to the sorts of utilitarian arguments and premises that have characterised unethical trials such as Tuskegee and Willowbrook.

This danger reinforces for us the need to de-lineate three other parameters when evaluating non-consensual protocols: (i) ‘the interests of the person must always be assumed to outweigh those of society’; (ii), in situations where this is not clear for a specific person, the ‘precautionary principle’ must be automatically invoked which dictates that the person not be included and (iii), any expression of dissent (“whether by showing signs of resistance or otherwise” – Mental Capacity Act 2005 (England and Wales) as quoted in Consultation Document, p. 43) from a potential participant incapable of giving consent should be regarded as sufficient reason for them not to be included (see also Declaration of Helsinki, as quoted in Consultation Document, p. 58).

In addition, as we highlighted in our submission to the National Ethics Advisory Committee (NEAC) on “Cross-sectoral Ethics Arrangements for Health and Disability Research” (February 2015), we see that it is a significant weakness of the current system of ethical review in New Zealand that there is no mechanism for checking that a particular study is carried out according to the agreed protocol. We believe that such follow up should be mandatory for all non-consensual research projects, something that will require a specific mechanism to be created and funded. This requirement, we note, is stipulated in Paragraph 24 of the Declaration of Helsinki under the heading of Research Ethics Committees: “The committee must have the right to monitor ongoing studies.”

Whereas some might see such requirements as creating unnecessary barriers for researchers, we see that they will ensure that non-consensual research proceeds only when it is absolutely required, and that non-consensual research is undertaken with a strong focus on ethical practice.

An Adjusted Framework for Non-consensual Research on Adult Participants:

Our suggestion is that an adjusted New Zealand Code follow and reflect the relevant sections of the Declaration of Helsinki which address the question of non-consensual research:ⁱⁱⁱ

28. For a potential research subject who is incapable of giving informed consent, the physician must seek informed consent from the legally authorised representative. These individuals must not be included in a research study that has no likelihood of benefit for them unless it is intended to promote the health of the group represented by the potential subject, the research cannot instead be performed with persons capable of providing informed consent, and the research entails only minimal risk and minimal burden.

29. When a potential research subject who is deemed incapable of giving informed consent is able to give assent to decisions about participation in research, the physician must seek that assent in addition to the consent of the legally authorised representative. The potential subject’s dissent should be respected.

30. Research involving subjects who are physically or mentally incapable of giving consent, for example, unconscious patients, may be done only if the physical or mental condition that prevents giving informed consent is a necessary characteristic of the research group. In such circumstances the physician must seek informed consent from the legally authorised representative. If no such representative is available and if the research cannot be delayed, the study may proceed without informed consent provided that the specific reasons for involving subjects with a condition that renders them unable to give informed consent have been stated in the research protocol and the study has been approved by a research ethics committee. Consent to remain in the research must be obtained as soon as possible from the subject or a legally authorised representative. (Our emphasis added).

In summary, we argue that the key points of an adjusted Code which would broaden the parameters within which non-consensual research could be carried out in New Zealand are:

• The research cannot otherwise be carried out using participants capable of providing informed consent and …

• The research will directly promote the health of the group represented by the potential subject and …

• The research entails only minimal risk and minimal burden and …

• The potential subjects’ dissent, however it is expressed is respected absolutely and …

• The research may be done only if the physical or mental condition that prevents giving informed consent is a necessary characteristic of the research group and …

• Informed consent is sought from a legally authorised representative and …

• The research is given a full review by the appropriate accredited HDEC Committee and …

• The research is subject to an additional layer of scrutiny by a group that is overseen by the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner, a group which includes representatives of, or people able to speak on behalf of or advocate for, the group of persons on whom the research will be carried out and …

• There is ongoing, independent, effective and active monitoring of the research project while it is being carried out and …

• The participants’ confidentiality is absolutely respected and …

• In cases where a participant regains consciousness after having been included in a trial, they are given the option of having their data withdrawn where that is possible and …

• Any data that is retained after a study is only able to be used for further research in an aggregated or totally anonymous form unless separate independent ethical consent is sought.

Conclusion:

We are in principle open to the parameters of non-consensual research being broadened within New Zealand in line with the World Medical Association Declaration of Helsinki that we have outlined above. What we are proposing would involve moving from the “best interests framework” that characterises current practice in New Zealand to one that takes account of and permits a degree of minimal risk and minimal burden to participants.

The key questions in moving to an approach that tolerates a degree of risk are ‘Who decides?’ and ‘How will assessments about “minimal risk” and “minimal burden” be made?’ For this reason, we have argued that there must first be a degree of confidence in the current system of ethical review in New Zealand. That is, a determination must be made that the HDEC review committees are adequately resourced and adequately trained to foresee and prevent the sort of excesses that have characterised research on vulnerable persons throughout the 20^th Century in numerous places around the world including New Zealand.

While broadening the parameters of non-consensual research carries inherent attitudinal risks because it can dispose society to the dangerous excesses of utilitarian thinking and make certain actions which undermine the inherent dignity of persons seem morally acceptable, we think this risk can be safely managed by the introduction of an additional layer of ethical scrutiny that is carried out under the auspices of the Office of the Health and Disability Commissioner.

Sue Buckley (PhD) has been involved in social and health research over the last 16 years in both government and university contexts.

Associate Professor John France (PhD, DSc, FAACB) is a reproductive scientist (now retired). He is a former member of the Auckland Health and Disability Ethics Committee and former member and Deputy Chair of the Northern Regional Health and Disability Ethics Committee.

John Kleinsman (PhD) is director of The Nathaniel Centre and a former member and Deputy Chair of the Central Region Health and Disability Ethics Committee. He is a current member of two Institutional Research Ethics Committees.

Endnotes

Fairness [SYNOPSIS ONLY]

By Greg Coyle

In this article, Greg Coyle reflects on the question of ‘fairness’. New Zealand, a society that once prided itself on offering ‘a fair go for all’, is more divided than ever in its approach to fairness. After discussing several approaches to justice as fairness, the article offers a framework for a better understanding of what is ‘fair’ for New Zealand families today.

The full article is available by subscription to The Nathaniel Report

The History of Eugenics

By Petrus Simons

Introduction

In the history of ideas, Darwin’s theory of evolution, followed by the development of genetic science, raised interest not only in breeding better performing plants and animals, but also in improving human populations – (eugenics). Proposals to apply eugenics were advocated and implemented in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia, Germany and many other countries. This article provides a thumbnail sketch of the history of eugenics and poses the question whether the idea is dead yet?

What is eugenics?

In 1883 Francis Galton (1822-1911), one of Darwin’s cousins, defined eugenics as: ‘the science of improving the inherited stock of a population, not only by judicious and selective matings, but by all other influences’¹.    

Eugenics aims at improving whole populations, either positively by breeding those deemed desirable or, negatively, by eliminating those considered undesirable. Proponents may differ as to the criteria that define these categories and the methods to be employed.

The origins of eugenics

Philosophically, positivism (a philosophical system recognizing only that which can be scientifically verified or which is capable of logical or mathematical proof) became an important part of the cultural milieu during the second half of the 19^th century. Its focus shifted to facts and science as a means of mastering nature to the detriment of metaphysics. It helped Charles Darwin (1809-1882) to publish his theory of evolution in 1859. He believed that in the competition for food etc. the strongest would survive through natural selection. The traits so favoured would be inherited by subsequent generations. In 1871 Darwin applied his theory to human beings in ‘The Descent of Man’, a work in which he states clearly a key tenet of eugenics: in D. Galton’s words: “successful, clever people will tend to produce good, clever children and, by and large, stupid parents will tend to produce bad stupid children. And if the latter outnumber the former it will be a poor outlook for society”.²

Darwin’s theory stimulated agriculturalists to improve the breeding of plants and animals by the artificial selection of traits they deemed favourable. In due course, they would also draw on the new science of genetics, initiated by Gregor Johann Mendel (1822-1884) through his systematic breeding and cross-breeding of round and wrinkled peas. Mendel’s seminal paper of 1866, however, was ignored and forgotten until it was rediscovered around 1900.

Meanwhile in England, Francis Galton researched the genealogies of important or gifted people, concluding that the human stock could be improved by letting gifted people breed profusely. Statistician Karl Pearson (1857-1936), and at a later stage agriculturalist and statistician R.A. Fisher (1890-1962), both eugenicists, believed that biometric statistics should provide data to test eugenic theories.

Social Darwinism

Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) believed that societies could be improved by a better adaptation of people to their environment, something he termed survival of the fittest. Evolution would, mechanically, get rid of paupers, as long as they were not supported by public charity, because that would only encourage the poor to continue propagating, thereby impeding social progress.

In line with this, eugenicists in England and (especially) in the United States advocated applying negative eugenics by eliminating all those considered to be defective, degenerate, feeble-minded (including intellectually disabled as well as epileptics) or unfit. Put otherwise, they thought that efforts should be made to breed a superior, pure and white ‘Nordic race’.

Charles Davenport (1866-1944), a zoologist, was one of the key figures in the US eugenic movement. Black sums up his views: “Enforcing Mendelian laws along racial lines, allowing the superior to thrive and the unfit to disappear, would create a new superior race”.³

Davenport managed to obtain significant financial support from the Carnegie Institute for the establishment of a “Station for Experimental Evolution” at Cold Spring Harbor in 1904. Attempting to show that eugenics was indeed a proper science, Davenport teamed up with the American Breeders Association (ABA), established in 1903 by the Association of Agricultural Colleges and Experimental Stations, to foster co-operation between animal breeders and seed experts. At Davenport’s insistence the ABA added a Eugenics Committee, which should “devise methods of recording the values of the blood of individuals, families, people, and races”.⁴

This research involved the accumulation of detailed genealogical records of families from all over the world (to be called pedigrees) and the task for doing this was entrusted to the Eugenics Record Office (ERO). The ERO was financed by Mary Harriman, the widow of a railway magnate. The ERO also sought to identify the most defective and undesirable Americans.⁵ It led to frantic efforts across the US to identify the latter.

As a result, eugenic ideas came to be accepted and propagated by many. This likely encouraged Davenport and his co-worker Harry H. Laughlin to set up, in 1913, the Eugenic Research Association, which was charged with preparing “legislative and administrative action, and public propagation for the causes of eugenics, raceology and Nordic race supremacy”.⁶

The same movement, not surprisingly, also permeated the birth control movement through one of its ardent advocates, Margaret Sanger (1879-1966), who also came to be a proponent of negative eugenics, including mass sterilisation of “defectives” and “draconian immigration restrictions”.⁷

Laws enabling forced compulsory sterilisation came into effect from 1907 on, eventually being passed in 33 states. Many remained in force until the 1980s.

Germany

Davenport’s ideas spread around the world. Indeed, “the Carnegie Institution and the Rockefeller Foundation generously funded German race biology”.⁸ Adolf Hitler keenly followed what was being written and practised in the United States.    

It should be noted that internationally recognised German geneticists favoured eugenics many years before the period of Nazi rule, advancing economic arguments in favour of euthanising all those seen as costly to maintain including invalids, those suffering hereditary diseases, criminals and alcoholics.

The Nazi regime introduced eugenics as “a way of loving neighbour and caring for future generations”.⁹ The first German law, following legislation in the United States, Switzerland and Scandinavia was promulgated on 14 July 1933:

Whoever is affected by a hereditary disease may be sterilised by means of a surgical intervention, if, on the basis of a medical diagnosis, there is a strong probability that their descendants might suffer grave hereditary bodily or mental diseases.¹⁰

A few months later, a second law was passed prohibiting a marriage if one of the couple suffered from a contagious or hereditary disease, was mentally ill, or incompetent to marry, or was under state supervision.

Meanwhile, in December 1935, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, initiated a ‘positive’ form of eugenics, to improve the human race. Parents with the right ‘Aryan’ physical and mental characteristics were selected and sent to special institutions. Their offspring received a special education. It is estimated that 92,000 children were so educated.

In October 1939 Hitler authorised the T4 programme, the name deriving from 4 Tiergartenstrasze, the address in Berlin of the organisation charged with euthanising all mentally incurably ill people. This programme ran until August 1942 when Hitler halted it because of growing opposition. At the Nuremberg trials it was estimated that about 60,000 people, aged from 6 to 93, were killed under this programme. Sometimes, old senile people, those impotent and even individuals regarded as a-social were killed. After 1942 the programme continued in the form of starving to death 120,000 people considered to be mentally ill.¹¹

Guillebaud¹² notes that the most troubling aspects of the Nazi policies of eugenics and horrendous medical experiments on concentration camp inmates were the underlying beliefs used to justify them. Thus, Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf” that “to preserve the race, it is necessary to sacrifice the individual”. In 1934 Rudolf Hess affirmed that “national-socialism is nothing but applied biology”. Various German eugenicists of the time employed the phrase “lives not worth living”. The term “racial hygiene” sums up all the ambiguities of these ideas at that time.¹³

In 1942 the German Institute in Paris published “State and Health” which alludes to an economic need to manage living capital and “the biological body of the German nation” by means of a:

synthesis of biology and economics. As economists and merchants are responsible for material values, it is a must for doctors to co-operate with them to achieve a humane rational economy, since the health of the populace is a prerequisite of economic profit.¹⁴ (My translation).

Eugenics in the light of technicism

Eugenics came about because of developments in scientific knowledge, especially biology and genetics. It is thus an example of technicism, broadly understood as the use of technology to resolve issues deemed to interfere with progress, including the existence of persons/groups of people regarded as ‘defective and seen as hindering ‘progress’. Hence, Edwin Black’s choice of the title “War Against the Weak” for his book on the history of eugenics. Because there will always be groups believed to be ‘weak’ and ‘non-productive’, and because technicism has become such a key ideology of our times, eugenics remains a real threat.

In the current age, commentators such as Connelly have identified the advent of modern genetics as ushering in a new era of eugenics they describe as “the privatisation of population control”:

Parents increasingly experience ‘genetic counselling’… as social pressure to have perfect children…In everyday conversation, people ascribe a whole range of behaviors to good or bad genes, faithfully reciting a eugenic catechism without the faintest idea of where it comes from or where it can lead.¹⁵

If anything, the advent of powerful means resulting from modern genetics enhances the dangers for all who are considered ‘sub-optimal’. Thus, neo-reactionaries, such as Nick Land, who seek to optimise humankind and its genetic material in order to accelerate the tempo of economic change, express the view that “under digital capitalism the selection of the fittest will be enhanced”.¹⁶

In contrast, from a Christian point of view, the strong should use science and technology to better serve the weak rather than eliminate them.

Dr Petrus Simons is a retired economist with a PhD in Philosophy.

Endnotes

1. Galton, D. (2001). In our own image; eugenics and the genetic modification of people. Little, Brown and Company, London, 259.
2. Ibid., 87.
3. Black, E. (2003). War against the weak; eugenics and America’s campaign to create a master race. Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 36.
4. Ibid., 38-39.
5. Ibid., 52.
6. Ibid., 90.
7. Ibid., 127.
8. Ibid., 258.
9. Guillebaud, J-C. (2001). Le principe d’humanité. Seuil, Paris, 252.
10. Ibid., 258
11. Ibid., 259.
12. Ibid., 261.
13. Ibid., 261-262.
14. Ibid., 262.
15. Connelly, M. (2008). Fatal misconception; the struggle to control world population. The Belknap Press Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, 382.
16. Balzer, J. (2017). Unterwegs zum <neuen Menschen>. Die Zeit, Hamburg, No. 25, 47.

Editorial - The Many Faces of Human Dignity

‘Dignity’ is one of those rich terms we encounter often but its precise meaning can be difficult to pin down. Consequently, we find people using the term to justify very different and even opposing behaviours. 

As an example, people with differing views about assisted suicide claim equally to be promoting human dignity. The only way of making sense of this is to conclude that many employ the term in a very shallow and broad way. If, for instance, it means nothing more than treating people ‘well’, or treating people with ‘respect’ according to the particular way each of us happens to define that notion, then the concept of dignity provides very little in the way of consistent ethical guidance.

For those wanting to grapple with a deeper and more precise meaning of human dignity, the distinctions between ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ dignity provide a useful way of unpacking the significance of the term as well as the differing moral duties that ensue depending on which understanding one is committed to.

An extrinsic approach ties dignity to the circumstances one finds oneself in, or to the way persons see themselves or are seen by others. According to this understanding dignity can be conferred or taken away, something akin to the clothes people wear; able to be removed, changeable according to fashion and existing in differing states of ‘finery’ conveying a socially constructed ‘judgement’ about the worthiness or non-worthiness of the lives of certain persons or groups of persons. Extrinsic dignity is essentially variable, shaped by the particular stories about human meaning and flourishing that exist at any point in time and thus susceptible to the vagaries of the social matrix of family, culture, society and religious and institutional traditions. 

Critically, the understanding of human dignity in a cultural milieu such as ours, with its (over) emphasis on individuality, independence and productivity, takes on a strongly ‘functionalist’ flavour – to be dignified is to be strong, fit, self-reliant, healthy and productive. Conversely, where this approach dominates, it follows that one of the greatest ‘sins’ against human dignity is for a person to become a ‘burden’ to others or society. The increasing hold of the functionalist mind-set within New Zealand society is evidenced by the growing social isolation being experienced by large numbers of elderly in New Zealand – a continuation of the practice, throughout history, of societies marginalising those it perceives as socially unacceptable or unworthy. 

By contrast, the United Nations Universal Declaration on Human Rights¹ notes that “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This gives rise to two insights: (i) the claim that dignity is “inherent” or intrinsic and (ii) the critical role this concept plays in upholding human freedom, justice and peace. 

What exactly do we mean by saying that dignity is intrinsic? The philosopher Immanuel Kant speaks of the formula of the end in itself: “Act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means.”  We ought, in other words, to treat each and every person as having a value that is all their own; we must treat everybody as being valuable in and of themselves no matter what. 

According to this approach, human dignity is a quality that inheres in each and every person by virtue of the simple fact that they have a human nature. It demands a scrupulous respect for all human life, whatever the situation or context, and it rails against the instrumental or functional view which reduces the person to being an instrument for various socially determined interests – invariably the interests of the powerful, healthy and well-resourced. 

Considering the second insight that arises from the Declaration on Human Rights, John Dickson gets to the very heart of things when he argues that society needs a solid intellectual ground for caring for those who are no longer productive or functional. “Ancient Greece and Rome … had little by way of philosophical reasoning that could guarantee the inherent worth of those lacking rational capacity or social utility. So infanticide was common and social welfare for the aged and dying was virtually non-existent. Christianity changed all of that. It inherited from Judaism a theology of human dignity and a program of social welfare [grounded in the belief] that Christ had died for all, even for the lowly and neglected.”

It is my contention that only the concept of intrinsic human dignity inherited from Judaism and Christianity and enshrined in the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights is ultimately capable of bearing the weight of an inclusive, free, just and caring society. This should make us all extremely alert to the dangers posed by the growing acceptance of an extrinsic understanding of human dignity. 

In the light of this threat it is urgent that we seek to defend an intrinsic approach to dignity in the broad court of societal opinion. To that end, this issue offers a number of key ‘witnesses’ who present some of the many faces of such a dignity.

Dr John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre

[1] See http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/, accessed 31 October 2016.

[2] https://publicchristianity.org/library/its-out-with-the-old-as-christian-values-fall-away

Losing and Finding Dad in Dementia

By Julie Guirgis

Dementia can be spiteful and cruel – when I reflect on who my Dad was before, it helps me separate him from the illness. 

Article available online at: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=49521#.WDSZmeZ961t

The Dignity and Power of Education [Synopsis Only]

By Anne Tuohy

When the role of education is degraded, the intrinsic value of society and its members can likewise be diminished. 

The full article is available by subscription to The Nathaniel Report

Dignity in a Digital World

By Colin MacLeod

I love digital technology! I love being able to read e-mails from a smart-watch, connected to my phone via bluetooth while watching a movie because the same phone is pushing video and sound from the internet to my TV through a dongle in its USB port. As a teacher I love the accessibility of information, the ability to collaborate and create, and the simple, practical ease of retrieving files and storing work electronically. What’s not to love about technology? 

But it’s not really about the technology. The best and worst of human behaviour is played out in the electronic realm. People can be friended or un-friended with a click of an icon on a screen. We can post words of comfort and support or vitriolic rhetoric to persons whose faces we will never see. We can donate money immediately to those in need on the other side of the world and not know our neighbours’ names. We can share photos which celebrate humanity with millions and find images no family would ever want in their albums. We can maintain relationships with ease across the whole world, and be utterly alone while doing so. And all the while a new ‘normal’ and relentless ‘change’ unfold to tell us who we are and who we are not, impacting on human dignity in positive and negative ways. 

There is a dignity in parenting that seems lost at the sight of a parent pushing a pram with a child inside chattering and pointing, while continuously gazing at a phone. There is dignity in the profound beauty of the human form, and the desire within us to connect with one another, that is utterly broken by addiction to pornography and associated fear of real human contact. Dignity is found in defining our identity, as we grow up through challenges, failures and successes, but it can easily be actively crushed by children who bully someone into becoming suicidal through social media. The dignity of family itself is undermined when a home no longer has a family table because all meals are eaten by individuals in their own spaces with their heads in their own devices. And, at a global level, even the dignity of our planet is at risk through the mountains of scrap dumped by yesterday’s devices and tomorrow’s BYOD. 

I read an article some 30 years ago which reflected on the possibility of machines becoming sentient. While I’ve forgotten most of the content, one idea from the reading has always remained and challenged me. “What happens when a machine can choose its favourite colour? Not because of programming, but because of personal choice. Will it then have a soul?” 

It challenges me because, in the 80s, the question felt more of a mental exercise in theology, or science fiction, than an actual possibility but, as the years have progressed, the concept looms likely. From Apple to Zuckerberg we are surrounded (and perhaps swamped) by machines and electronic information. Always more, better, smarter. Literally exponential growth as reflected in Moore’s Law. 

So far, none of this technology comes close to sentience, despite predictions. Technology does not care about us. It does not reflect on its purpose. It does not love us back and it neither respects nor understands human dignity. Technology cannot choose to serve humanity - it is created by human beings and marketed in ways and forms designed to impact on our lives and generate profits. Unfortunately, it seems that the latter is the driving force of the digital age, and economic forces rarely place human dignity ahead of profit – the rise in job-loss through technology replacing people is an obvious example of this. 

Rather, we are the ones made in the image of God. It is our decisions that are changing the world, not technology. We create, choose and use intentionally. My mother-in-law was incensed to get a letter from an aid agency saying they’d prefer her to set up an automatic payment for her $12 per year donation because it would save money on postage and processing. Reasonable enough, I thought. “Do they mean to say that even our giving now has to be thoughtless!” was her reply, in a long, hand-written letter to the organisation. (The extra $2 was always intended to pay for the processing of her $10 donation.) Making thoughtful choices goes to the core of what it means to be human. 

A student once asked me what Jesus would do with technology. Would he have time to blog or catch up with Facebook friends? Would he be instagramming? Maybe, but I doubt it would be an obsession for him - he’d still be busy reaching out to real hands, eating physical food, speaking actual words.

You see, we don’t actually live in a digital world, it doesn’t exist. We live in this world, making choices within a myriad of blessings, distractions and challenges. We have dignity because we are made in the image of God, called into relationship with God and each other. And technology is just one of those blessings, distractions and challenges. It’s up to us. 

At least until the first machine chooses its favourite colour.

Colin MacLeod is a husband, father and member of Mercy Parish, Dunedin. He recently took on the role of Director of the National Centre for Religious Studies after two decades as DRS at Kavanagh College.

Art, Dignity and the Human Spirit

By Rachel Kleinsman

In the words of John Ruskin, art is an “expression of the vitality, inventiveness, heart, thought and spirit of humanity”.  Art has the potential to offer insight into the human condition and exists as a cultural repository for the expression of our spirit and spirituality. It provides a means of connecting us with the oneness of the human experience.

The rich and varied tapestry of art history reveals a number of approaches to the expression and validation of human dignity. The Cambridge dictionary’s definition of dignity as: “the importance and value that a person has” offers a basic, albeit interesting starting point from which to consider that which characterises the relationship between dignity and art.

The great Abstract Expressionist Mark Rothko proposes a useful framework for navigating this relationship. In 1958, Rothko gave a lecture to New York’s Pratt Institute during which he identified a number of ingredients as collectively comprising the “recipe of a work of art”. One of these proposed criteria was that in art “there must be a clear preoccupation with death – intimations of mortality”.

Depictions of the dead have long been considered a fitting way of honouring the lives of individuals and affirming the enduring dignity of humanity after death. Renaissance art, in particular, facilitates an intriguing dialogue. Piero della Francesco, for example, painted the diptych portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and Battista Sforza after Battista’s death, her corpse serving as a life-model for the portrait (a point which seems evident in her pallor). In this vein, the Victorian tradition of post-mortem photography is also of note, combining photographs of deceased loved-ones with such memento as locks of hair and flowers. Similarly, John Everett Millais’ magnificent Ophelia painting of the body of this Shakespearean tragic heroine being carried down the river compels the viewer to confront the wrenching tragedy of her suicide and lost love, and the deepest questions of our human experience.

In exploring the relationship between art and human dignity, there is a certain tension which goes to the heart of the philosophical debate: What is art and what, if any, purpose should it serve?  Is expression in and of itself the end goal, or is the artist obligated to contribute to a more complex framework of social responsibility?

On the one hand, the idea that art is valuable in its very own essence – l’art pour l’art – is compelling. The Kantian invocation that we should “act so as to treat people always as ends in themselves, never as mere means”, might lead one to think that art should serve no purpose other than to honour the individual through representation. However, historically, art has been an incredibly vital socio-political tool, one of protest and revolution, which has sought to affirm the dignity of underprivileged individuals. Eugene Delacroix’s Liberty Leading the People was a vital revolutionary voice in France and Gustave Courbet’s Stone Breakers, a protest against poverty and cry for the rights of the peasant class. Centuries later, Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party gave a voice to the previously-silenced cultural accomplishments of women. In terms of our own national identity, Ralph Hotere’s oeuvre comprises a politically-complex colonial protest defending the dignity and rights of Māori. There is no doubt that art’s role in ‘dignifying’ those of lesser privilege is significant.

In light of the above, it’s clear that artists have a role to play in crafting a broader social narrative which both affords and shapes human dignity – their role is not merely a documentary one. But there is a potentially problematic aspect to this representation also. The photographs taken by psychiatrist Hugh Welch Diamond of patients at the Surrey County Lunatic Asylum in the 19^th century are one such example. These extant records of mentally-ill patients are valuable in that they capture something essential of their lives and spirits while affording a real sense of dignity and individuality. However, because they were taken with the intention of contributing to the physiognomy argument, they were ultimately damaging to both perceptions of these individuals and mental illness on the whole. A further example is the problematic nature of colonial depictions of kaumātua by Gottfried Lindauer and Charles Goldie; resplendent in their beauty and historic significance, the portrayal of Māori as a dying race through an overtly colonial lens is well-documented.

The essence of the relationship between human dignity and art is one of dualistic tension. It is incorrect to reduce art’s role in the expression of humanity to a purely utilitarian function. On the other hand, in order to be effective and afford respect to individuals it must “treat people always as ends in themselves”. The greatness of art through the centuries has the power to move us, to facilitate a spiritual connection and emotional response. Most importantly, it resonates with another criterion of note which Rothko laid forth in his consideration of art and life: that religious and divinely-eternal notion of hope, the ability of art to uphold human dignity through its power, properly used, to “make the tragic concept more endurable”.

Rachel Kleinsman is a freelance art researcher and writer based in Wellington. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Art History and Modern Languages, Victoria University of Wellington) and a Master of Arts (Art Business, Sotheby’s Institute of Art).

Culture, Human Dignity and Economic Rationalisation

By Gerard Burns

Cultural understandings of human dignity are culturally generated expressions of the perceived worth of human life at different ages and stages – they witness to the way persons are valued, honoured, esteemed and respected. While every culture has its own ideas and practices surrounding human dignity, the way that this dignity/worth is recognized varies from culture to culture and also undergoes change. The practices by which worth is recognized (or denied) reveal the culture’s values and beliefs about human life. This anthropological approach, starting as it does from observation differs from the philosophical approach of official Catholic teaching which brings a trans-cultural and meta-physical dimension to the discussion.

A simple definition of culture is to see it as the sum of the ideas, customs and social behaviour of a particular people or society. It includes morals, codes, traditions, dress, language and religion. Two simple examples from my own early years (Pakeha Irish-Catholic and middle-class, growing up in NZ in the 1960s) around the teaching of 'good manners' are illustrative.

The first example is the instruction: 'Don't eat with your mouth open because it’s impolite'. Here 'impolite' seems to mean it is insulting and ungraceful to show how you chew food. Perhaps implied is that eating is a semi-private or personal activity? Practically speaking, this instruction helps avoid food falling out of your mouth when eating. That would be wasteful of the food, inelegant in terms of tidiness and potentially mess-making on clothes, tables or floors. The values of respect for others and for oneself are to the fore.

A second example: We were told by our Catholic school teachers that when the priest or any adult came into the class, we were to stand up. This was a way of recognizing the presence of an important person. Standing up recognized the adult’s superior status and 'dignity'. Wrapped in this are certain cultural and hierarchical values, namely the value of the adult over the child. In the Catholic world the priest had a theologically superior status of a 'holy' man. If the priest was not ‘holy’ by behaviour then he was holy because he dealt with 'holy' things. Respect and dignity were ascribed not simply because of the priest’s personal qualities, but because of his role.

Hierarchies appear in all cultures and societies. In some Pacific cultures, one way of recognizing you are in the presence of 'more important' people (for example, chiefs) is to keep one's head below the level of the chiefly person. So you will see people bending over as they pass the chief to symbolically recognize their relative status. In Anglo-Saxon tradition the curtsy or bow before a royal personage served a similar role.

Value or worth can be intrinsic (such as simply by being born into a royal line), or gained through achievement (such as in battle or through academic qualification). In many traditional societies one's worth grows as one ages. The older person is seen as a source of wisdom and an asset even if requiring more assistance from family and neighbours. The honouring of kaumatua in the Māori world exemplifies this.

Are there universal values/practices which go beyond cultural variations? Anthropologists have looked for common practices in human behaviour but have not seen a common ethic. Such an ethic needs reflection on the commonalities and on the philosophical question of what is good for human beings. Hans Kung's work on a global ethic is part of that search.

One significant factor flowing from particular cultures but influencing world culture is what Pope Francis (among others) has outlined in ‘Laudato Si’: the 'technocratic paradigm' (LS.106) that has brought damage to the earth and its people. This worldview combines the influences of modern technology and industrial capitalism to shape social and economic practice.

Max Weber analysed this paradigm to some extent in his book the “Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ (1930). In ascribing the foundations of modern society to Puritanism he underestimated other factors. Nevertheless, it is true that the mind-set behind the economic and technological development in Europe and North America was significantly influenced by the religiously-inspired exploration of the mind of God by Copernicus, Mendel, Newton and others.

Gradually this exploration sought to distance itself more from religious belief (secularisation) and the idea of ethical constraints on new technology lessened. The classical economics of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, along with utilitarian philosophies, has gradually brought theories of marginal utility and the model of 'homo economicus' to the fore.

This model saw ‘rational behaviour’ as that of a ‘man’ carefully calculating what will bring increased profitability to himself. It is a model based on individualism and self-interest. Smith proposed that if every actor worked on this self-interested basis then all of society would benefit as if moved by an 'invisible hand'.

In practice, this approach, especially its more recent form of neoliberalism (Reagonomics, Rogernomics, the ‘Washington Consensus’) has been largely discredited by the Global Financial Crisis. However it is still the basis for much contemporary macroeconomic practice (for example, stock markets, etc). The pragmatism of this paradigm increasingly influences views about who and what is useful to society.

One consequence of this is a cultural shift in the perception of ‘worth’. Where in many traditional societies to be old was to be valuable, in fast-moving, mobile and pressured technological societies, what is valued is the capacity to handle the latest technology. This favours the young and quick-adapters.

However, with the favouring of the young and the quick, comes a devaluing of the old and the sick. Hence a push for euthanasia for 'humane' reasons, and individuals not wanting to be a burden on society or their families. The economic aspect of culture can shape more general values. The defence of human dignity in a Catholic sense relies on a philosophy (shaped by the doctrines of incarnation and redemption) that explains the broad basis for what is good for individuals and our societies.

Gerard Burns is a priest of the Archdiocese of Wellington, currently Vicar-General and working in Māori pastoral care. He has lived and worked in South America and has a Master in International Relations from Victoria University.

Dignity and the Environment

By Jonathan Boston

The concept of dignity is often thought to be restricted to humanity. Only human beings, some believe, possess true or genuine dignity. Theologically, this is because human beings are distinctive, indeed unique, within the created order. Only human beings bear the special mark of their Maker; only they are bearers of God's image or likeness (Gen 1:27). Hence, amongst all God's creatures, only human beings enjoy a deep, transcendent and intrinsic worth: they alone are sacred; they alone possess inherent and inalienable rights; they alone are ends in themselves rather than means; and they alone share an abiding dignity in equal measure. All other species, it is argued, are different. They lack any God-given dignity. So, too, does the non-living or physical environment – whether here on Earth or elsewhere in the universe.

But is this argument theologically and morally justified? Is not the whole creation, in all its extraordinary diversity, richness, vastness and beauty, endowed with dignity by God?

There are, of course, robust theological reasons for claiming that human beings enjoy a unique, particular or special dignity – indeed, an 'infinite dignity'.1 As bearers of God's image, humanity can claim a distinctive and elevated moral status in relation to the rest of creation. A person is more precious than other creatures. Accordingly, we need stronger justifications for harming a human being than we do for harming non-human species.

But an equally strong theological case can be made that every part of creation – every aspect of the entire universe, no matter how little or large – possesses a certain God-given dignity; it thus has some inherent or intrinsic value. That is to say, all non-human species and physical objects are of value in themselves and for their own sake; they are not merely of instrumental or extrinsic value. To quote Saint John Paul II:

Respect for life and for the dignity of the human person also extends to the rest of creation which is called to join man in praising God (Ps 148:96).2

Likewise, Pope Francis in Laudato Si, speaks of the 'intrinsic dignity of the world',3 and appeals to every person to respect and care for all God's creatures and humanity's 'common home'.

The theological basis for the proposition that the non-human world enjoys an inherent dignity lies, fundamentally, in the claim that God is ultimately the creator of everything that exists and that God values, and rejoices in, every aspect of the creation. Every part of it has worth; every part deserves respect. For everything that God has made, according to Genesis, is 'good'.

That does not mean, of course, that everything is of equal value, let alone infinitely precious. Nor does it imply that any form of human interference with the natural or physical environment is unjustified. But it strongly suggests the need for wise, responsible and sustainable management of the environment.

When people degrade and defile what God has made or cause irreversible damage, they violate their distinctive calling to exercise stewardship and guardianship. Moreover, in bringing destruction, rather than healing, they threaten their own dignity. In part, this simply reflects the fact that everything is interconnected and interdependent. Despoiling the environment destroys the ecosystem services and resources on which humanity depends. It thus reduces the capacity of human beings to meet their needs and ultimately robs them of their dignity. Human flourishing in a devastated wasteland is a contradiction in terms, as is living well in an ecological desert.

Taking the intrinsic dignity of the environment seriously requires urgent and systematic reform. Currently, human greed, poor planning, inadequate regulation and irresponsible economic policies are contributing to enormous ecological damage. Globally, we are exceeding critical planetary boundaries and time is running out to rectify the problem.4 We are already in the early stages of a mass extinction event, one in which a substantial proportion of all this planet's species will be destroyed. We are also rapidly warming the Earth through the unregulated burning of fossil fuels and massive deforestation. Not only will this bring dramatic changes to the planet's climate, but it will also contribute to severe, widespread and, in many cases, irreversible damage to critical biophysical systems.

Nationally, our water quality is deteriorating, our carbon footprint is growing, our land-use management and marine governance are weak, and many native species face extinction. Since human settlement about 800 years ago, we have lost 85% of our indigenous forests, over 90% of our wetlands, and more than 50 bird species. We have significantly polluted more than half of our rivers and many of our lakes, and we are losing soil at about 10 times the average global rate. Hence, claims that New Zealand is 'clean and green' lack substance.

In summary, humanity is currently suffering a chronic 'nature deficit disorder'. Our ecological footprints are far too large. We are borrowing from the future and leaving our children and grandchildren a dreadful legacy – a huge, unsustainable ecological debt and colossal, irreparable damage. As Pope Francis puts it:

We have come to see ourselves as ... [nature's] lords and masters, entitled to plunder her at will. The violence present in our hearts, wounded by sin, is also reflected in the symptoms of sickness evident in the soil, in the water, in the air and in all forms of life. This is why the earth herself, burdened and laid waste, is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor; she "groans in travail" (Rom 8:22).5

God calls us to show kindness to His good creation, to treasure its diversity, to care tenderly for its creatures, to tread gently upon the land, and to be good stewards of its resources. Indeed, we are summoned to love what God has made, just as God loves and cares for it. In so doing we both protect its intrinsic dignity and honour our calling as creatures who bear God's image.

Jonathan Boston is Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University of Wellington.

Endnotes

1. Pope John Paul II, Angelus in Osnabrück (Germany) with the disabled, 16 November 1980: Insegnamenti 3/2 (1980), 1232.
2. Pope John Paul II, 'Peace with God the Creator, Peace with All of Creation', For the celebration of the World Day of Peace, 1 January 1990.
3. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter: Laudato Si' – On Care For Our Common Home, Rome, 2015, p.86.
4. See, for instance, Johan Rockström, et al., "A Safe Operating Space for Humanity', Nature, 461, 24 September 2009, 472-475; John Rockström, et al., "Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity", Ecology and Society, 14, 2.
5. Pope Francis, Encyclical Letter: Laudato Si' – On Care For Our Common Home, Rome, 2015, p.3.

Immanuel Kant on Dignity

By William Michael

“Dignity” in talk of “the dignity of human beings” ascribes to humans a kind of worth that is supposed to be of the highest significance for how humans are treated and which all humans share in equally. We are maybe so used to this idea that we don’t find it puzzling. But how can it be true? And if it were, how would we know? Kant’s philosophy provides answers to these questions.

For Kant, our moral lives are an aspect of our ordinary lives that should astonish. In this mood he wrote (Critique of Practical Reason):

Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and reverence, the more frequently and persistently one's meditation deals with them: the starry sky above me and the moral law within me.

We’ll soon get to “the moral law within,” in the form of the Categorical Imperative, but for now let it stand for the whole of the moral, which it almost does for Kant.

Kant was deeply moved by humans acting purely for the sake of (moral) duty. His idea of the moral is very pure and for him acting for the sake of duty has nothing to do with psychology, even “nice” psychology like empathy, let alone anything neurotic, or the motive of gain or advantage. Doing one’s duty is a pure matter of willing (here meaning choosing) the good because it is good.

To find the meaning and reality of moral acts, Kant did philosophy. His philosophy teaches that moral acts disclose something real about the beings that can act morally: namely, that they are free, reasonable and rational beings. The thought is that only free, reasonable and rational beings would be able to act purely for the sake of duty.

The concepts “free” and “reasonable and rational” are difficult, and understanding Kant’s conception of “free, reasonable and rational beings” is difficult too. However, we have already come across a clue as to what he meant. The purity he finds in the motivation behind moral actions can be thought of as freedom from psychological determination. To be free in this sense is to be, as it were, master in one’s own house. At the same time, to be free in a related sense is to be determined only by that which is in agreement with, not foreign or alien to, one’s true nature. That nature is reasonable and rational, and so to be free is to act for reasons and from reason.

This is why for Kant morality is practical reason. (Practical reason – what I have reason to do – not theoretical reason: what I have reason to believe. Practical reason not sentiment or tradition, to name two key contrasts. It is notable that Kant did not oppose reason to religion. He was a committed Lutheran throughout his adult life.)

Kant’s idea that morality is practical reason is a general idea in need of specific content. “Be reasonable and rational” is not awfully useful guidance.  We need some meaningful rule or law – “the moral law within” perhaps. The specific content Kant gives morality is found in the Categorical Imperative (CI). Here I’ll consider the CI to better understand “dignity”. The CI reads (in its second version in Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals):

Act in such a way that you always treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never simply as a means, but always at the same time as an end.

If we think about the meaning of “dignity” using the CI, it suggests that we understand that always treating persons as ends and never simply as means is a fitting way to treat beings that have the kind of “inner worth” (Kant’s words) called “dignity”. Seeing this connection we gain a richer, deeper and more useful notion of dignity. We could keep thinking: The CI suggests that my own dignity is important, and not for selfish motives but as a result of the “humanity” in me. And so on…       

We can now see how Kant’s philosophy answers the questions opening this essay. If there are free, reasonable and rational beings, then they possess a special kind of worth unlike anything else in the world. The word “dignity” – why not? – is used to express this worth.

How can all humans share in dignity equally? There is no guarantee that any human will act from their nature as a free, reasonable and rational being, but since they are such a being, they could, and in that, each of us is the same. Indeed, given the many ways humans are different – in upbringing, IQ and EQ, talents, tastes, looks, status etc – then perhaps there is no other cogent interpretation of the thought, so important to the modern world, that we are all equal.

Finally, I know all this how? It is disclosed to me in my experience of acts done purely for the sake of duty. Knowing Kant’s philosophy, I understand this.   

William Michael studied philosophy and law at Otago and Auckland universities in the 90s … and, for better or worse, has never really stopped thinking about such stuff.

Editorial: The Zika virus and contraception: Has Pope Francis changed the rules?

John Kleinsman

Growth in the numbers of people affected by the Zika virus, spread predominantly by mosquitos, has been described as an “explosive pandemic”. While relatively harmless for most people, the virus is now strongly suspected (though not yet definitively proven) of being linked to a serious fetal malformation known as microcephaly. In light of that, various government health ministries in the most severely affected areas are warning women to avoid getting pregnant.  

While returning from his recent visit to Mexico, Pope Francis was asked by a journalist about the dilemma this situation poses for couples and, more specifically, whether “abortion” and “avoiding pregnancy” (in the context clearly a reference to contraception) might be a legitimate moral response.

Pope Francis’ immediate reply was to reiterate in the strongest possible terms that abortion could never be a morally legitimate means: “It is a crime, an absolute evil.” In saying this he would have been aware of the intense debate in many South American countries about using abortion as a way of dealing with fetal microcephaly.

Unpacking the Pope’s endorsement of the moral legitimacy of “avoiding pregnancy” is less straightforward. It is clear from the language and examples offered by the pope that he was thinking specifically about the use of artificial contraception rather than the “regulation of births” – the right of couples to space births – which is an accepted part of Catholic teaching on marriage and sexuality (see Catholic Catechism n. 2368). His analogous reference to the situation in the Congo, a 1960’s debate about giving oral contraceptives to religious sisters in grave danger of being raped, points to this. However, any doubts about the precise meaning of his words were dispelled just days later by official Vatican spokesperson, Fr Federico Lombardi, who clarified that “the Holy Father was indeed speaking of ‘condoms and contraceptives’ when on the flight back from Mexico.”

Further explaining the pope’s response, Lombardi added: “The contraceptive or condom, in particular cases of emergency or gravity, could be the object of discernment in a serious case of conscience. This is what the Pope said.”

Pope’s Francis’ brief comments have raised questions about Catholic teaching on the use of artificial contraception. Some have gone so far as to suggest that it potentially heralds a reversal of the long-standing Catholic position. I am not in a position to read or know Pope Francis’ mind but, as a moral theologian, I wish to offer three points as part of my own reflection on this debate.

1) The Pope’s response reminds us that whatever one’s beliefs about the use of artificial contraception (and we should recall that the backdrop to the question was a debate about the Zika virus and abortion involving a broad audience rather than a specifically Catholic one), the use of contraceptives is morally different from abortion in terms of its gravity – different because abortion involves the destruction of an already formed human life. At the same time, and in line with Lombardi’s reference to a “serious case of conscience”, this insight does not undermine the seriousness associated with the use of contraception.

2) Many have pointed out that Pope Francis’ reference to the use of oral contraception by religious sisters in the Congo reflects a very different moral situation to that of married couples. The situations differ because permission in the Congo case is neither a dispensation from the Church’s teaching nor an exception to it. Why? Because Catholic teaching on contraception speaks only to intercourse freely entered into by married couples.

Why then would the Pope appeal to this case? It illustrates that he has in mind a truly extreme situation. In doing so he is simply appealing to a fundamental tenet of Catholic moral teaching – the exceptional case does not nullify the ongoing validity of a particular law or teaching outside of the extreme situation. Evidence of this tenet appears in multiple places in Catholic moral teaching which address the different types of conundrums generated by extreme situations, including Aquinas’ discussion of ‘epikeia’, the ‘principle of the lesser evil’, and the role of conscience in helping perplexed persons find moral certainty in the face of a conflict of duties.

In other words, the possibility of couples making contraception an “object of discernment” in an emergency situation does not “reverse” Catholic teaching on the methods of regulating births. The Pope’s comments about the Zika virus need to be understood alongside his previous comments about the ongoing validity and prophetic nature of Humanae Vitae’s teaching on contraception rather than in opposition to them. As he noted in 2014: “Church teaching on contraception does not need to change but it must be applied with mercy.”

3) The reference to ‘mercy’, a defining theme in the pontificate of Francis, leads to the third point. Laws and teachings must always be applied with mercy if we are to avoid an extreme form of rigid moral legalism that stifles human flourishing. By his ‘spontaneous’ teaching on the Zika virus the Pope, with the instincts of a good pastor has, once again, reminded us that at the heart of Christian teaching lies the all-important idea of mercy.

Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre

The Right to Freedom of Conscience

Neil Vaney

Introduction

A recent post from Terry Bellamak, new president of the Abortion Law Rights Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ), questions why health professionals such as doctors and nurses should be legally able to use the claim of freedom of conscience in refusing to provide contraceptive or abortion advice or services. (http://wp.me/x1XY6w-z1, 14 Sep 2015). Bellamak likens this to the case of Kim Davis, county clerk of Rowan County in Kentucky, who was recently gaoled for refusing to issue licences for same-sex marriages. She fails to see why these two apparently similar cases should have such different outcomes; imprisonment in one case and privileged protection in the other.

There seem to be a number of flaws in Bellamak’s argument. I will examine three of these. The first is that a legal challenge on these grounds has already been laid and dismissed. The second is that the role of health professionals differs significantly from that of a county clerk. Finally, many historical examples show us the great evils that can arise when the grounds of freedom of conscience are overridden.

Three Arguments

In 2009 the Medical Council of New Zealand sent out a draft statement entitled ‘Beliefs and Medical Practice’, touching especially on the area of reproductive health service provision. A group of health professionals known as the New Zealand Health Professionals Alliance Incorporated (NZHPA) applied to the High Court for a juridical review of this statement on the grounds that it contravened S174 of the Health Professionals Competence Act 2003.

Justice MacKenzie found in favour of the NZHPA, ruling that where a practitioner held a conscience objection in these areas he or she was not required to formally refer their patient onto another practitioner who would either provide or facilitate the service – it was required only that they inform their client that such a service could be obtained from another health provider or a family planning clinic. The Medical Council of New Zealand decided not to appeal this ruling and withdrew its statement. When commenting on this decision, the NZPHA stated that its members should not be compelled to do things that they believed to be ethically wrong, clinically inappropriate or against a patient’s best interests.

This last statement leads to consideration of the status and role of health professionals. In her argument Bellamak refers to health professionals as ‘providers of a service’. This is redolent of a mind-set common in the United States where the doctor/patient relationship is viewed as being more like that of a salesperson/customer or petrol pump attendant/car-driver. The nexus is a financial and individual contract. Underlying this vision is a significant philosophical shift, marked by a move from a sense of the common good (the well-being of the entire society) to individual rights and involving the deconstruction of social bonds to the lowest common denominator of financial contract and obligation.

Bellamak glides over this critical distinction by reducing all conscience objections to ‘moral’ grounds, thereby insinuating a basis of religious belief, whereas the more neutral term ‘ethical’ can cover religious, personal or social considerations. An excellent example of this is seen in the debates over euthanasia in the British House of Lords and in Canada in the course of which a number of health professionals, avowedly agnostic or even atheistic, objected to euthanasia solely on the grounds of deleterious social and medical consequences. Closer to home, a further example is the 1977 longitudinal study of 1265 children born in Christchurch conducted by Professor David Fergusson who pointed to later psychological difficulties faced by women who had undergone abortions in their youth. It is data such as this which can and should inform health professionals who wish to embrace a wider vison of the role and responsibility of their profession rather than adopt the individualised and contractual stance referred to above.

The stance I am advocating for is not novel. We see it in the famous speech by Edmund Burke to the electors of Bristol in November 1774. Burke, after acknowledging that an MP must have the highest regard for the views of his constituents, looking out for their interest with the greatest of diligence, then notes: “But his unbiased opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive… from the law or constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable.” He then goes on to speak of the role of Parliament in terms which could be aptly applied to the medical profession; “… Parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole, where not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole.” (The Founders’ Constitution, volume 1, chapter 13, document 7.)

The importance of this stance is well borne out in history. Sometimes laws are passed which seem to meet the needs of the time and the approval of the populace. Such were the racial purity laws enacted by the Nazi government in Germany in the 1930’s, one result of which was the Shoah, the slaughter of six million Jews in slave and concentration camps. What is most frightening about these laws is that they were endorsed as scientific and sound by the leading professors of biology in German universities; theories of eugenics were embraced at every level of society. In passing, it is interesting to note that Margaret Sanger, one of the heroes of the women’s reproductive rights movement, was a leading member of the American Eugenics Society, frequently berating the Catholic Church for opposing eugenic legislation and ideology. One presumes that ALRANZ has completely stepped away from such advocacy on the basis of an ethical judgment, reinforced by scientific findings.

Conclusion

In summarising this reflection I would argue that the model of professional care embraced by the president of ALRANZ is strongly influenced by individualistic and commercial elements that reduce health professionals to mere service providers and too easily overlook the common good of the wider society. Such an understanding also ignores the lesson of history that suppression of the rights of individual conscience can so easily walk hand in hand with oppressive policies born of the social and political bias of a particular age … Stand up Archibald Baxter, Franz Jagerstatter, Mahatma Ghandi, Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela and innumerable others.

In the words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “Conscience comes from a depth which lies beyond a person’s own will and reason and it makes itself heard as the call of human existence to unity with itself.”

Rev Dr Neil Vaney is a Marist priest who taught in the field of moral theology at Good Shepherd College in Auckland and is presently vicar-provincial for the Order, living and working in Wellington.

When scepticism goes viral

This article by Michael Rozier uses the example of the anti-vaccination movement in the United States to raise questions about the role that scientists themselves might have played in the rejection by some sections of society of well-established scientific facts. He suggests that a debate that includes values and morals alongside science might do better at changing minds than simply ‘throwing more science at the problem’.

Available online at: http://americamagazine.org/issue/vaccine-wars

The abolition of Capital Punishment in New Zealand

Staff of The Nathaniel Centre

Capital Punishment and euthanasia have the manifest similarity that both concern the deliberate and state-sanctioned ending of life, which is why both also, quite rightly, are controversial issues. While the euthanasia debate is still current and appears in the media on a regular basis, Capital Punishment was finally abolished in New Zealand in 1961. The question this article raises is what we might learn from the way in which Capital Punishment was abolished that might enlighten the current euthanasia debate.

Much of the following history is drawn from a comprehensive study by Pauline Engel published in 1977, which tells the story of the abolition of Capital Punishment in New Zealand. 

Abolition of Capital Punishment
There had been little questioning of Capital Punishment in New Zealand before the 1920s, and it was not until the election of the first Labour government in 1935 that the issue became political. The Labour Party was officially opposed to the death penalty and while the Labour Government did not immediately introduce legislation to abolish the death penalty it commuted all death sentences while in office.[a]

However, criticisms soon arose concerning judges sentencing people to hang while knowing it would not be carried out, leading to the government being accused of 'circumventing' the law. Then in 1940, a particularly brutal crime led to four men being sentenced to flogging. While the humanitarian elements in the Party found it unthinkable that such a sentence should be carried out, the Attorney-General was reluctant to remit the sentences without bringing forward legislation which he felt would have to cover both corporal and Capital Punishment.  That an appeal against the severity of the sentence failed at the time is described by Engel as an indication of the adversity of the climate for abolition at this stage. However, with the caucus overwhelmingly in favour of a law change, a Bill was eventually introduced for the erasure of both flogging and hanging from the penal code.

Engel notes 'the reaction of the newspapers was almost universally unfavourable'[1] and that 'almost every provincial daily pontificated in its editorial columns on the government's action in removing Capital Punishment and corporal punishment from the Statute Book, and scarcely any were complimentary'[2]. Nevertheless, the Bill was passed entirely along Party lines, with no Government members speaking in favour of Capital Punishment and no Opposition members speaking in favour of abolition.  Engel describes the debate as 'neither lengthy nor distinguished for anything save the incredible bathos of speakers on both sides of the House'[3].  While most arguments against abolition focused on the deterrent value of Capital Punishment, one of the arguments against was that it could mean 'the menfolk might have to take the law into their own hands'[4].

Reintroduction of Capital Punishment
When the National Government came to power in 1949, there was immediately pressure to repeal. Engel suggests that the restoration of the death penalty by this Government in 1950 was not simply a matter of a more conservative, authoritarian government favouring Capital Punishment, but a more complex interweaving of social and political factors. There had been relatively few murders during Labour's first six years in office, but the murder rate had increased in the post-war years, culminating in the 'notorious Mt Victoria murder which appalled the Wellington community in 1948'[5]. Grand juries throughout the country had been calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty and popular sentiment was in favour of it; it was widely held that the increase in murders was a direct consequence of abolition.

Although the Minister of Justice had called for a 'comprehensive report which would include statistics, philosophical and religious arguments for both sides of the case'[6], Clifton Webb, the Attorney-General, made it clear that Capital Punishment would be reinstated without waiting for the contents of the report.  In the debate on the Bill to reinstate Capital Punishment, Webb focused on the deterrence argument while H.G.R. Mason, the former Minister of Justice, concentrated on the moral aspects, rejecting the argument that hanging was necessary for the protection of women and suggesting that the move back to a retributive justice was a 'spiritual and moral relapse'. The Bill passed with members voting on Party lines, except for J. R. Hanan, the lone National Government member to speak against the Bill.

Nevertheless, when within a few months the Executive was faced with its first death sentence, it appeared anxious to find a reason for a reprieve. Fortunately for the government, the reports on the case suggested the prisoner's mental development was at a level to suggest he was not fully responsible. However, public reaction and the media suggested that 'if ever there was a case for hanging this is it'[7], and the government was roundly accused of having 'cold feet'. When the next death sentence was imposed, 'the Executive could not risk a second retreat'[8], even though it was clear that this case actually presented a weaker argument for execution. Commenting on this second case, one newspaper argued that while the prisoner was 'obviously a man of subnormal mentality', this was no reason that 'such an individual should survive as a burden on society'[9].

Over the next five years there were another seven executions as well as a number of reprieves, and Engel suggests it was often difficult to understand why, when murder cases were compared, some were not reprieved. In one case of a young man described as a 'bodgie'[b], tried and later executed for murder, the decision of the Executive to execute was considered to be influenced by reports that the 'bodgie lifestyle was an idle, violent and promiscuous one'[10] and that it was necessary to make an example of this young man.  Organised opposition to the death penalty over this time led to the development of a National Committee in 1956, partly as a consequence of one particular case where the prisoner's 'childish qualities and his socially deprived background'[11] highlighted the inconsistencies around the reprieval decision-making process .  Around the same time, a "Truth" article appeared, describing an execution in detail, ostensibly for the purpose of promoting the deterrent aspects of hanging, but having an ulterior motive of conveying to the public 'the sordid reality of hanging and to indicate the effect it had on many of those responsible for carrying it out'[12]. The final paragraph of the article stated:

'Criticism of the method is not an argument against Capital Punishment. Murderers may deserve to die. It may be that the prospect of death does deter would-be murderers. What happens to them does not matter; what can happen to the people who have to hang them does.'[13]

Effects of hanging on those involved
It was commonly claimed that the older prison officers who had been involved in and experienced hangings saw their participation as part of their duty; a duty which, while unpleasant, did not affect them deeply. One of these described himself and his generation of officers as having 'lived through the depression, seen active service overseas for some years during the last war, and been in German prison of war camps', experiences that 'toughened the spirit as well as the flesh'[14]. In particular, Engel notes that 'they did not become emotionally involved in the execution process because they did not feel responsible for the decision which had been made to hang that particular person, although their professional position obliged them to carry out that decision. They did not feel that they were "inhumane" or "hardened", any more than a nurse or doctor who had become inured to much unpleasantness which would make the average lay person squeamish.'[15]

However, while these officers were reportedly able to carry out their duty without too many after-effects, even if it took the experiences of a depression, war service and prison of war camps to achieve this, Engels notes that for the 'lay' officials the story was quite different; for at least some people, including sheriffs, prison psychologists, chaplains, and the prison Superintendent, the hangings had serious psychosomatic effects.

The first two sheriffs had breakdowns, due at least partly to their participating in executions; the prison doctor threatened to resign rather than participate in further executions; the prison psychologist wrote that his own feeling was one of 'complete revulsion' and that as he left the execution yard, felt that the hanged man was 'the only actor in the drama who came out of it clean'[16]. The prison chaplain was infected 'with a peculiar horror so that he felt an almost irresistible urge to get as far away from the prison as possible at the time of a hanging – something he was rarely able to achieve'[17]. The Superintendent of Mount Eden Prison had officiated in eight executions and although he was described 'as rough as guts, as tough as they come', resorted to drinking to get through the hangings and eventually suffered a major psychological breakdown[18].

Public referendum
From the mid-fifties, there was an increase in activity from the abolitionist movement and a referendum was proposed. This was opposed by some abolitionists on the grounds that the issue was too 'volatile' and too complex for a straight yes or no answer.  J.R. Hanan and E.P. Aderman, the known abolitionists in government, and J.R. Marshall, a strong supporter of Capital Punishment, all supported a referendum, both sides thinking the public supported them. The two Wellington daily newspapers opposed a referendum, the Evening Post stating the question was 'not a subject for a decision by mass vote' and it would be 'wrong, clumsy and unsuitable' because many would wish to qualify their answers. The Dominion suggested that to conduct a referendum on any issue subject to emotion was bad policy: 'Impassioned appeals by abolitionists could stir up a fever far beyond the merits of their arguments. Similarly, a particularly fiendish or callous crime just before the poll could cause a public revulsion much stronger than the merits of the case for retention'[19]. These sentiments, along with letters to local papers and submissions to Government led to the Prime Minister calling off a referendum. It would, if re-elected, legislate to provide the death penalty for 'the worst cases of murder' only[20].

Engel argues that a referendum would have without doubt supported Capital Punishment. 'Public opinion polls, except in Scandinavian countries, were consistently in favour of the death penalty' and in 1969 a United Kingdom survey reported that 'a substantial majority of men and women favoured the return of the death penalty for certain types of murder'[21]. She suggests that New Zealand voters in 1957 would not have 'proved themselves more enlightened than their European and North American counterparts'[22].

Abolition succeeds
After Labour won the 1957 election, the Attorney-General announced that it would follow its former policy of commuting the death sentence to life imprisonment. The Crimes Bill, introduced by the National government at the end of its term in 1957 and that dealt with Capital Punishment was shelved. When Labour then lost the 1960 election, the National Government that came in had abolitionist J.R. Hanan as Minister of Justice and Dr J L Robson, who also opposed to the death penalty, as Secretary for Justice. Hanan requested that Robson proceed with a ministerial report setting out the case for the complete abolition of the death penalty.

The report attacked the deterrence theory; suggested the death penalty ignored the principle of all punishment which was the reform of the offender; discussed the risk of an error in justice which could cause the execution of an innocent man; and stressed the 'great strain the process of execution imposed on officials, and detailed breakdowns in health which had occurred as a result'[23]. The moral arguments against the death penalty were rounded off by John Bright's dictum that 'the best means of cultivating respect for human life were to refrain from taking it in the name of the law'[24].

When it was initially introduced, the Crimes Bill included a compromise clause which stipulated different degrees of murder. The intention behind this was that the death penalty would apply only for deliberate and premeditated murder, for homicide in the course of another crime or in flight from the law, where there was a previous conviction for murder, or a second murder. Hanan, however, argued that there was no 'compromise clause' that could be drafted that did not have serious flaws and indicated that another Member (Aderman) would be moving an amendment for total abolition of the death penalty which he would support. This amendment was subsequently passed with the support of the Opposition and ten Government members crossing the floor.

Engel notes that the reason for the Government Members crossing the floor was often attributed to the fact that they wanted to see the end of 'hanging by politics'. However, she suggests that this was not the real reason; Hanan and Aderman were long-term abolitionists whose motives needed no explanation. She suggests the others voted for a variety of reasons, including that the death penalty was not a deterrent to murder; that it was seen as 'the natural instinct of outrage, anger and the desire for revenge' (Muldoon);  that it did not make sense when murder in 'the heat of the moment' received the death penalty or life imprisonment but when 'through inattention, carelessness or drink' someone kills in a motorcar, the event is not treated very seriously (Macintyre); the possibility of execution of an innocent person (Pickering); and that murder was usually the result of a 'twisted mind' that did not qualify for the death penalty (Talboys)[25].

Steiner claims that in its 1961 report, the Justice Department recommended abolition primarily on the basis that the state could not legitimately take life as it could not be shown that its actions had a deterrent effect on the murder statistics. The report emphasised the comments of the (1958) Massachusetts Commission on Capital Punishment:

"The only moral ground on which the State could conceivably possess the right to destroy human life would be if this were indispensable for the protection or preservation of other lives. This places the burden of proof on those who believe that Capital Punishment exercises a deterrent effect on the potential criminal. Unless they can establish that the death penalty does in fact protect other lives at the expense of one, there is no moral justification for the State to take life."[26]

In the years following the 1961 abolition of the death penalty there was little public enthusiasm for its reinstatement. Steiner mentions two National Party conference motions, one in 1961 to reinstate the death penalty, and another in 1976 to reintroduce flogging, which were both easily defeated. However, Steiner also notes that a number of opinion polls over the period 2004-2007, which may not be particularly reliable, appear to indicate that a significant number of New Zealanders would support reinstatement of the death penalty for some crimes. He notes that 'The continued sensationalisation of crime by the media has a lot to do with these findings. People are bombarded by images of the raw emotion from the victims and their families and informed of every sickening detail of the crime. The harsh reality of Capital Punishment is a million miles away from public consciousness, and it is easy to see why retributivist support for its practice lingers.'[27]

Staff of The Nathaniel Centre

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[a] There were a number of reasons for legislation not being introduced: the Labour Government had a full legislative programme, there were relatively few murders between 1936 –40 and, as it transpired later, the Prime Minister, Peter Fraser, was actually opposed to abolition.

[b] 'Bodgie' - a youth, especially of the 1950s, analogous to the British Teddy boy; often viewed as delinquent, 'bodgies' adopted particular clothing styles and frequented 'milk bars'.

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[1] Engel, Pauline F. "The Abolition of Capital Punishment in New Zealand 1935 – 1961". Department of Justice, Wellington, 1977, p. 19.

[2] Ibid., p.23

[3] Ibid., p.21

[4] Ibid., p.22

[5] Ibid., p.27

[6] Ibid., p.39

[7] Ibid., p.56

[8] Ibid., p.56

[9] Ibid., p.56

[10] Yska, Redmer "All Shook Up. The Flash Bodgie and the Rise of the New Zealand Teenager in the Fifties". Penguin Books, Auckland, 1993, p.192.

[11] Engel, op.cit., p.58

[12] Ibid., p.59

[13] Ibid., p.60

[14] Ibid., p.60

[15] Ibid., p.60

[16] Ibid., p.61

[17] Ibid., p.61

[18] Steiner, op.cit., p.33

[19] Engel, op.cit., p. 72

[20] Ibid., p.73

[21] Ibid., p.74

[22] Ibid., p.74

[23] Ibid., p.80

[24] Ibid., p.81

[25] Ibid., p.99

[26] Steiner, op.cit., p.25

[27] Ibid., p.49

Editorial: Euthanasia, democracy and public policy – lessons from the abolition of capital punishment

When capital punishment was finally abolished in 1961 (see article in this issue), the abolitionist cause represented a minority view in New Zealand; fewer than one-third of people supported it. As Leon Gotz proclaimed: “In demanding the punishment for these vile crimes should be the forfeiture of the offender’s lives, I am expressing the opinion of the majority of New Zealand.”¹

Robert Muldoon was one of ten National MPs to cross the floor and support abolition. At the time he acknowledged: “Abolishing capital punishment was contrary to popular opinion and the majority of people in New Zealand are not ready to accept it. However, Parliament should give a lead to public opinion.”²

Controversial issues such as capital punishment, and in our time euthanasia and assisted suicide (EAS), give us pause to reflect on the nature of democracy and, specifically, the role of MPs in shaping public policy. Gotz and Muldoon represent two very different approaches to understanding the nature of parliamentary leadership: (i) following closely the opinion of the public and voting according to popular opinion (taking the lead from one’s constituents) and (ii) voting according to one’s carefully formed and well researched views, taking account of but not being swayed by the opinion of the majority while being willing to vote against public opinion if one’s conscience dictates.

Put simply, the latter approach is premised on a belief that the formation of public policy should not be reduced to measuring public opinion. To paraphrase Muldoon: there are times when MPs should give a lead to public opinion. In a democracy such as ours, where 64 out of the 120 seats are electorate seats, this second approach to leadership is potentially costly at election time and will, therefore, demand of our MPs a high level of personal integrity and courage.

Reflection on the issues and challenges that MPs faced when dealing with the issue of capital punishment generates valuable insights for the current debate about EAS.

• Proponents of EAS repeatedly appeal to public opinion as a reason for changing the law. Their assumption is that majority public opinion is enough to determine public policy. In 1956, the Prime Minister Rt Hon Sydney Holland proposed that the issue of capital punishment be submitted to a referendum as a solution to the continued politicisation of the issue: “let us trust the people … Let us take it out of the hurly-burly of politics”. In response, Labour argued strenuously that capital punishment should be left to parliamentary responsibility; the issue was too complex and required dispassionate consideration. Many argued a referendum was inappropriate because emotions could be stirred up by a particularly brutal or nasty crime just before a referendum creating a serious bias. In a similar way, presentation of the high-profile, difficult cases can generate emotions that obscure people’s ability to take full account of the broader questions relating to the legalising of EAS.
• As was the case with capital punishment, media presentation of the issues surrounding EAS shows a distinct bias towards legalisation. Just as particular crimes became a focus for those arguing against abolition, so the media stories surrounding EAS have mostly focused on the single, emotive cases. For a more balanced and robust discussion to happen, there needs to be a deeper and more balanced exploration of the likely effects on society as a whole. The Justice Department report on capital punishment finally argued a ‘moral’ case against the death penalty; that on balance respect for human life was best protected when the law forbade it. The same argument can be made about EAS.
• The reinstatement of the death penalty in 1950 meant that the effects on those involved in the hangings began to be noticed; for many the impact was significant, taking an emotional and physical toll. These side effects were not necessarily immediate. Likewise, when considering the case for EAS, we must take into account the impact on those who would have to facilitate it, including the negative effects it would have on the medical profession and the doctor-patient relationship.
• Many MPs were persuaded by the fact that if the justice system was subsequently discovered to have wrongly convicted someone, there could be no going back. In New Zealand we now know that at least one innocent person would have been hanged if capital punishment had not been abolished - Arthur Allan Thomas who was convicted of murder in 1971 but received a Royal Pardon in 1979.  With EAS there is a high possibility that a diagnosis and/or prognosis will be wrong. The argument that one innocent life lost is sufficient to justify the abolition of capital punishment is even more relevant to the euthanasia debate because of the risk of large numbers of lives being prematurely ended.

We hope that the Health Select Committee investigation into EAS enables the sort of robust debate and parliamentary leadership that was exemplified by the MPs who dealt with capital punishment.

Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre and Sue Buckley is a researcher at The Nathaniel Centre.

Euthanasia polls: What do they really tell us?

John Kleinsman

Introduction

In recent years, various polls seeking the views of the New Zealand public on euthanasia and assisted suicide have consistently reported that 60-70% of people support their legalisation,¹ leading Horizon researchers, for example, to conclude that “Supporters of end of life choice … form a strong majority”² in New Zealand and the Voluntary Euthanasia Society (VES) to state with confidence that “most New Zealanders support aid-in-dying legislation.” ³

The terminology and questions used in such polls are, however, rarely analysed and the results of these polls are rarely dissected or challenged. All of which means that the conclusions we draw from them need to be treated with caution. As Marcoux et al noted in 2007: “… the use of the argument that public opinion is in favour of euthanasia to support changing laws must be critically examined. There are methodological problems in the wording of survey questions that can bias responses, and the validity of responses may be compromised by pervasive misunderstandings of what euthanasia means.” ⁴

This article will seek to shed some light on the strengths and limitations of a number of polls carried out in New Zealand and around the world with a view to offering a more nuanced analysis.

Terminology

A number of overseas polls have shown that people’s willingness to support the legalisation of assisted suicide and/or euthanasia depends on the language employed in the questions – specifically whether ‘softer’ or euphemistic descriptions such as ‘medically-assisted dying’ are used rather than those containing alternative technically correct terms such as ‘suicide’. 

For example, a 2005 poll carried out by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press reported:  “The survey found that 44 percent of respondents favored making it legal for doctors to ‘assist terminally ill patients in committing suicide’ when the question was worded this way. But support for the practice rose slightly, to 51 percent, when people were asked if they favor making it legal for doctors to ‘give terminally ill patients the means to end their lives.’”⁵ A 2005 Australian study which investigated cancer patients’ views on euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide likewise concluded that “professed support can depend upon the individual’s own definition, the language used in questions and the specificity of questions.” ⁶

Similarly, a 2013 Gallup poll found “70% of Americans in favor of allowing doctors to hasten a terminally ill patient's death when the matter is described as allowing doctors to ‘end the patient's life by some painless means.’ At the same time, far fewer – 51% – support it when the process is described as doctors helping a patient ‘commit suicide’.”⁷

A lack of consistency in the terminology used, as well as a propensity by of many pollsters to use softer language, characterises many New Zealand polls.

Ethical Distinctions

The 2005 Australian study referred to above also demonstrates that many poll respondents who profess support for assisted suicide and/or euthanasia do not understand the distinctions between these and withholding or withdrawing treatment. “Researchers need to be circumspect about framing and interpreting questions about support of ‘euthanasia’, as the term can mean different things to different people, and response may depend upon the specifics of the question asked.”⁸ In this study, interestingly, “79% of patients said they supported the idea of euthanasia, and 70% agreed ‘a doctor should be able to assist a patient to die’, [yet] 80% did not agree that ‘doctors should be able to kill their patients’.” ⁹

When terms such as ‘medical aid in dying are used’ the confusion is even greater. A 2013 Canadian survey by Ipsos Marketing, for example, specifically set out to assess what was understood by the people who supported ‘medical aid in dying’. This survey showed one third of Quebecers interpreted the phrase as being a patient’s request for lethal injection by a medical professional, while nearly 30% understood that it meant relieving symptoms through palliative care. Finally, nearly 40% of those surveyed associated it with a discontinuation of intensive medical treatment, or with assisted suicide. The researchers then concluded: “It is therefore essential to clarify applicable terms and tangibly convey the true definition of euthanasia, and avoid using even vaguer expressions such as ‘medical aid in dying’.” ¹⁰

Real World Scenarios

A further challenge when interpreting public opinion polls arises from the fact that the nature of the question or questions asked means that the views of respondents are often based solely on hypothetical scenarios.   

Emanuel et al¹¹ illustrate this clearly in their 2000 investigation into the attitudes of terminally ill cancer patients.  While 60.2% of the participants supported euthanasia in a “hypothetical” situation, only 10.6% indicated that they would seriously consider euthanasia or physician assisted suicide for themselves.  This result accords with an earlier study in which it was noted that people’s responses change according to the amount of detail they are given about personal circumstances – the proportion of the general public who agreed with euthanasia for unremitting pain was 66% but this dropped to 49.2%, 36.2% and 29.3% respectively for the categories “functional debility”, “burden on family” and “view life as meaningless”.¹²

Similarly, in a 2014 Comres/CARE poll carried out in the UK, 73% of those polled indicated support in principle for a Bill designed to enable mentally ill competent adults in the UK who are terminally ill and with a clear and settled intention the right to be provided with assistance to commit suicide by self-administering drugs.¹³ However, when those who supported assisted suicide in principle were offered a series of practical considerations (such as people feeling pressured so as not to be a burden and the steady rise of numbers in jurisdictions where it is legal), a large proportion, 42% of them changed their minds on the basis of at least one of the arguments. When these figures were added back into the original sample, aggregating all who opposed as a result of the arguments presented while incorporating all who still supported assisted suicide in spite of the arguments, the final result was 43% in favour, 43% opposed and 14% don’t know.  

Meanwhile in New Zealand, close scrutiny of the 2012 Horizon Poll already referred to (which shows that 62.9% would support “mentally competent adults in New Zealand to receive medical assistance in ending their life if they are suffering from a terminal illness or an irreversible physical or mental condition that in their view renders their life unbearable”) reveals that people’s support is heavily premised on the need for, and belief in the effectiveness of, strict controls. As the researchers note: “The need for strict controls, like those measured in the survey, is demonstrated by support for them exceeding support for end of life choice overall.”¹⁴ As far as this poll goes, therefore, the more adequate and honest conclusion to draw is that 62.9% of New Zealanders believe in receiving medical assistance to end their life on the assumption that harms to others can be prevented by strong and effective safeguards. In the face of international evidence that safeguards are problematic and ineffective¹⁵, it is less than honest to use this poll to claim, as the Voluntary Euthanasia Society of New Zealand do, that most New Zealanders would in reality support euthanasia or assisted suicide legislation.  

Conclusion

The 2012 Horizon Poll demonstrates that the willingness of New Zealanders to support euthanasia or assisted suicide in New Zealand is premised on an assumption that strict and effective controls can be put in place. Overseas research challenges this assumption; moreover, when polls include additional information about the complexities and risks, the numbers of people prepared to support a law change drops significantly. Overseas research also shows that people often fail to understand the terminology being used as well as the ethical distinctions between euthanasia and/or assisted suicide and withdrawing or withholding treatment.

Because most of the New Zealand polls relied on and quoted by proponents of change have failed to provide the level of nuanced questioning and information that would be required to confidently say their results are reliable, it is incorrect to say that “most New Zealanders support aid-in-dying legislation”¹⁶ or to assume that this reflects people’s informed views on euthanasia. 

As our Prime Minister Hon John Key, who has previously declared his personal sympathy for a law change, noted recently: “Striking the right legislative balance with both clear definitions and adequately strong protections is an extremely difficult task, and that no bill has yet passed on this issue is testament to that.” ¹⁷  A true indication of New Zealanders’ support for euthanasia or assisted suicide will only be possible if and when polls take proper account of people’s understandings of the definitions and complexities associated with the practice of euthanasia and/or assisted suicide.  

Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre

[1] See “Legalisation of Euthanasia in New Zealand: Surveys in New Zealand” at http://policyprojects.ac.nz/jasonrenwick/surveys-in-new-zealand/

[2] See, for example, Horizon Research, "New Zealanders' views on End of Life Choices," (Auckland, New Zealand2012). at http://www.horizonpoll.co.nz/attachments/docs/horizon-research-end-of-life-choices-survey--1.pdf, accessed 1 May 2015.

[3] See http://www.ves.org.nz/, accessed 1 May 2015.

[4] Marcoux, Isabelle, Brian L Mishara and Claire Durand (2007) “Confusion between euthanasia and other-end-of-life decisions: Influences on public opinion poll results” Canadian Journal of Public Health 98: 238.

[5] See: “The Right-to-Die Debate and the Tenth Anniversary of Oregon’s Death with Dignity Act” at http://www.pewforum.org/2007/10/09/the-right-to-die-debate-and-the-tenth-anniversary-of-oregons-death-with-dignity-act/, accessed 17 August 2015.

[6] Parkinson L et al. Cancer patients’ attitudes towards euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: the influence of question wording and patients’ own definitions on responses. J. Bioethical Inquiry 2005, 2: p. 88. 

[7] Gallup, "U.S. Support for Euthanasia Hinges on How It's Described," (Washington2013). at http://www.gallup.com/poll/162815/support-euthanasia-hinges-described.aspx

[8] Ibid., p. 82.

[9] Ibid., p. 88.

[10] Ipsos Marketing, "Survey among the Canadian population about end of life issues," (Canada: Ipsos Marketing, 2013), p. 5.

[11] Emanuel EL, Fairclough DL & Emanuel L. “Attitudes and desires related to euthanasia and physician assisted suicide among terminally ill patients and their caregivers.” JAMA 2000 284:2460–2468.

[12] Emanuel EJ, Fairclough DL, Daniels ER, Clarridge BR. "Euthanasia and physician-assisted suicide: attitudes and experiences of oncology patients, oncologists, and the public." The Lancet 347(1996).

[13] ComRes, "Care - Assisted Suicide Poll," (United Kingdom2014). at http://www.comres.co.uk/wp-content/themes/comres/poll/Care_Assisted_Suicide_Poll_July_2014_(with_summary_table).pdf

[14] Ibid., p. 4, emphasis added.

[15] See, for example, Golden M,  and Zoanni T. "Killing us softly: the dangers of legalizing assisted suicide," Disability and Health Journal 3, no. 1 (2010); Dr David Jeffrey quoted in Health and Sport Committee, "Stage 1 Report on Assisted Suicide (Scotland) Bill," The Scottish Parliament, http://www.scottish.parliament.uk/S4_HealthandSportCommittee/Reports/her15-06w.pdf  at para. 175;Barron H. Lerner  and Arthur L. Caplan, “Euthanasia in Belgium and the Netherlands. On a Slippery Slope?” JAMA Intern Med. Published online August 10, 2015.

[16] See http://www.ves.org.nz/, accessed 1 May 2015.

[17] Email sent to writer on behalf of the Prime Minister,

Creating Welcoming Churches: a disability resource for faith communities

Rev. Vicki Terrell

Whether someone comes to church as a casual visitor or is part of the regular congregation, the environment needs to be welcoming.  “Creating Welcoming Churches a disability resource for faith communities” (CWC) is a practical guide on how to make church environments more accessible to all people including people living with disability.  It was launched in Auckland and Wellington late last year, 2014. The book was made possible through funding from the Joint Special Project Fund of the Association of Presbyterian Women and Methodist Women’s Fellowship in 2013.

CWC was produced by the Disability, Spirituality and Faith Network Aotearoa New Zealand which has strong links both in the church and the disability communities.  Most people within the network have (lived) experience of disability. We are passionately committed to making the church a place where all people are affirmed as having gifts to share because we are all made in the image of God.  

CWC came from the desire to have a practical book about access to help churches become more welcoming to disabled people. Originally it started with someone asking whether the“Holy, Wholly Accessible” document, produced for the Anglican Diocese of Wellington in 1998, could be reproduced for other churches.

While agreeing in principle that this was good idea, the project grew as we realised that there had been other books published since 1998and the thinking around disability had changed rapidly in the last 15 years. The challenge thenbecame what would make this book new as well as useful for faith communities.

The rise of the social model of disability (as opposed to the medical model) and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, have helped people to understand thatmany barriers faced by disabled people are in the environment and in theattitudes of others.  These barriers hinder the full and effective participation of people with disability in society on an equal basis with others. 

For many in the group, much of the traditional theology linking disability with healing was problematic. Some people in the group wanted the book to reflect current thinking in the disability sector that communities need to be inclusive environments where all people are welcomed and valued for who they are. In the introduction to CWC the writer interweaves current thinking on disability and inclusion with theological reflection.

The theology of accessibility underpins the entire book. The two basic tenets are  

• All people are made in the image of God
• People who follow Christ are called to serve and be served as members of Christ’s body.   

The challenge becomes how does the church welcome and enable each member to fulfil their ministry.   

The “Information, attitude, action” section has lots of practical suggestions for making buildings, liturgy and community events accessible. While assisting disabled people, many of the suggestions help other people, particularly children and immigrants, to participate more fullyin ministry.

There is advice on interacting with people with disabilities, their equipment and service animals.  Much of this information was gathered from people active in the church who have a lived experience of disability. Becoming totally accessible is hard and the book may have errors and shortcomings and we invite critical comments so we can incorporate new learnings in further editions.   

Real (life) experiences are highlighted in the book through quotes from disabled people about their experiences in a particular church.  There are also stories of churches being welcoming to disabled people. Some are about physical changes which have been made and others reflect on the presence of disabled people in their congregations.

The book has been well received by churches because it addresses theology and practical issues in a clear and concise way alongside personal stories.  Many people have commented on the clear layout and how easy it is to follow.    There are alreadysigns that some people are thinking differently because of the book.   It gently challenges some of the patronising attitudes and encourages a respectful engagement with disabled people as people made in the image of God.    

I have been pleasantly surprised by the enthusiasm of the disability sector for this book.  It has sparked interesting conversations and people working on disability/accessibility areas outside the church have asked for copies.  The time spent in careful consideration of the changes in disability thinking and the emphasis on inclusion has paid off because it has credibility in the disability community.  There is a real gap in practical resources for community groups who want to become more accessible to all including disabled people.  The usefulness of this book goes beyond the church and it maybe a gift to other community groups who are trying to become more accessible to all people particularly disabled people.

Rev Vicki Terrell is an Anglican priest in the Diocese of Auckland and the writer and researcher for Creating Welcoming Churches. Her commitment comes from the two main strands in her life: Christian faith and lifelong impairment.

For copies of the book or other queries please contact Rev Vicki Terrell: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Copies cost $15 including postage.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership and issues of social justice

Daniel Kleinsman

That a marvelous order predominates in the world of living beings and in the forces of nature, is the plain lesson which the progress of modern research and the discoveries of technology teach us. And it is part of the greatness of man that he can appreciate that order and devise the means for harnessing those forces for his own benefit... Yet there is a disunity among individuals and among nations which is in striking contrast to this perfect order in the universe.¹

– Pope John XXIII

In theory, patent law 'harnesses the forces' of knowledge and innovation by creating an incentive to invent and by providing for both the protection and dissemination of information, for the benefit of society. Indeed, translating an invention into a patentable product can be a long, complicated and expensive process. Imitating or replicating the product of invention, on the other hand, is relatively cheap and easy, and undermines this innovation process. Therefore, by imposing temporary restrictions on access to and use of information and ideas, patenting gives people an incentive to innovate and to publish their invention. The assumption is that because this stimulates research and development and enriches the public domain with knowledge and technology, it is to the benefit of all.

In reality, however, a property-based understanding of justice and an emphasis on patentability rather than practicality creates 'disunity among individuals and among nations'. Goods and services, including medicine and health care, become transactional resources, and socio-economic development becomes a disturbing reproduction of inequality, as resources are available only to those (individuals and/or nations) who can afford them. Our existing international agreements perpetuate these problems. The proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA), as leaked, will exacerbate them even further.²

So what exactly is the problem with a property-based conception of justice? According to John Locke, "The great and chief end...of men's uniting into commonwealths, and putting themselves under government, is the preservation of their property."³ Preceding Locke, Galileo foresaw the importance of this preservation of property specifically in the context of innovation: "It does not suit me that the invention, which is my property and as created by me with great effort and cost, should become the common property of just anyone..."⁴. Therefore, the concept of exclusive property is central to our sense of society and individual freedom, indeed even justice.

However individual rights are never absolute, and to claim that a patent confers upon the owner an absolute and unfettered right to use its intellectual property (IP) as it wishes, "is no more correct than the proposition that use of one's personal property, such as a baseball bat, cannot give rise to tort liability"⁵. Herein lies the central problem. A property-based conception of justice legitimises inequalities, on the basis of a welfare maximisation calculus that does not account for different circumstances, nor issues of accessibility and redistribution. Rather, this calculus assesses feasibility in terms of a net increase to welfare and to the quality of health care; indiscriminate as to whom this increase benefits or disadvantages and, as a result, it is the underprivileged that continually miss out.

The emphasis on patentability, and patent protection as the ends, also creates inefficient races between potential patent-holders, particularly in profitable areas, leading to unnecessary duplication of research, and wasted resources. More significantly, this reflects the fact that profitability is the stimulus for innovation, such that medicines for rare diseases, and for those among lower socio-economic groups are not developed. This creates classes in terms of the availability of medicine and health care, and increases inequalities. Patents become a tool for large corporations to advance their economic growth and establish market dominance, rather than an incentive for socially valuable research.

This represents an inequitable bargain between society and patent-holders, one that is inevitably in favour of powerful stakeholders and their private economic interests. The principles of social justice, on the other hand, dictate that we should treat property and IP not as the foundation of society and justice, but as a tool for achieving a sustainable society of justice and equality. In practical terms this means accounting for different needs and circumstances through flexibility, and restricting the power and control of patent-holders, whereby their rights are confined within fixed parameters and better balanced with their duties.

The existing Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), an international agreement on minimum IP standards, attempts to reach a compromise between developed and developing countries, providing for the flexibility and fixed parameters envisioned above, at least on paper. The problem is, it assumes free and informed consent on the part of all its members as if they all have equal negotiating power, and as if the interests of all members are communicated by effective and representative democracies. It also assumes that members will be able to use these measures for flexibility freely, and without fear of tariffs and trade sanctions. Moreover, it assumes that future trade agreements will not further undermine these measures.

In reality, however, these [measures] are given the absolute minimum consideration by the community of people who interprets them. Developed countries and multinational corporations are putting strong pressure on developing countries wanting to use TRIPS' flexibility and, above all, are negotiating bilateral and regional free-trade agreements to impose more severe and contingent IP standards than those outlined in TRIPS.⁶

The Doha Declaration, in response, offers a more equitable and truly flexible approach to TRIPS and international IP law, with a domestic needs perspective. But this is only another step in the right direction. And now, the proposed TPPA threatens to negate these steps towards a more fair and sustainable approach. It does not do so by imposing stricter standards on those developing countries considered above (they are not party to the TPPA), although it will have the effect of putting pressure on them, but rather by undercutting TRIPS and its value for these countries, and by increasing the power of those (countries and corporations) whose interests subordinate these countries.

The first (leaked) draft of the TPPA omitted any mention of the Doha Declaration, and the second (leaked) draft makes only brief and heavily qualified reference to it, which does not inspire confidence. This is particularly concerning in light of the proposed expansion of the scope of patenting. Such expansion, as proposed largely by the United States and Japan, could prevent parties from denying protection if "the product [does] not result in an enhanced efficacy of the known product when the applicant has set forth distinguishing features"⁷. This is cause for more concern in terms of the quality and value of patents. More fundamentally, however, a wider scope for patent protection does not by any means create any further opportunities for developing countries to enjoy the benefits of IP and innovation. Instead it again favours those who already have the wealth and resources to expand, reinforcing the existing inequalities.

The good news is that, according to the leaked documents, New Zealand opposes proposals (such as that above) for significant expansion of patent protection⁸. The bad news is that our representatives, and those of the other parties, continue to discuss the TPPA behind a shroud of secrecy that thwarts public discussion and participation. Further bad news is that these negotiations, like those concerning TRIPS, are characterised by a typical disparity in bargaining power that ultimately serves the interests of the more powerful (countries and corporations). To the extent that this subordinates the interests of developing countries and stifles their economic growth, our involvement only supports such injustice.

A number of commentators have highlighted the fact that the TPPA poses potentially serious consequences for New Zealand, in terms of pricing and availability of medicine and health care, and bargaining power for purchasing pharmaceuticals. While this is a real concern, we should indeed be equally (if not more) concerned about the significant threat to global health care and equality, or at least the steps already made towards equality. The clear emphasis on property, patentability and profit ignores those whose needs are not voiced by purchasing power and instead serves those whose interests are largely private and economic.

By individualizing creation, by disembedding it from the social milieu from which all knowledge is drawn, intellectual property rights deny the importance of the public realm, and by doing so reward only a small group of rights holders rather than the carriers of social knowledge, and, more importantly, ignoring the social welfare benefits of those excluded from use, not by ignorance or lack of interest, but by their poverty.⁹

While it might be argued that we need more empirical evidence to prove the positive correlation between patent protection and innovation, we need no further evidence, as Pope Francis reminds us, for the fact that "each meaningful economic decision made in one part of the world has repercussions everywhere else; consequently, no government can act without regard for shared responsibility"¹⁰. We must understand the ramifications of the TPPA not just for New Zealand but also and above all for developing countries that are not party to this agreement. We must encourage our government to act with transparency and integrity, and with regard for the significant global concerns for which we share responsibility.

Daniel Kleinsman LLB, completed his Law Degree at Victoria University of Wellington in 2014. He has experience in the area of intellectual property law.

Endnotes

[1]John XXIII, Pacem in Terris, http://w2.vatican.va/content/john-xxiii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_j-xxiii_enc_11041963_pacem.html. Accessed 20 March 2015.

[2]WikiLeaks, https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/, accessed 20 March 2015.

[3] John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government: The Ends of Political Society and Government (1690), Chapter IX.

[4] Cited by R Hewitt Pate, Competition and Intellectual Property in the US: Licensing Freedom and the Limits of Antitrust, p 60.

[5]United States v. Microsoft Corp., 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001).

[6]Louise Bernier, Justice in Genetics: Intellectual Property and Human Rights from a Cosmopolitan Liberal Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2010), p 139.

[7]Wikileaks, https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip2/, Article QQ.E.1: Patents / Patentable Subject Matter

[8]Ibid., (see also Paper submitted by NZ on IP Proposal: http://www.citizen.org/documents/NZleakedIPpaper-1.pdf).

[9]Louise Bernier, Justice in Genetics: Intellectual Property and Human Rights from a Cosmopolitan Liberal Perspective (Edward Elgar, 2010), p 111.

[10]Francis, Evangelii Gaudium: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/apost_exhortations/documents/papa-francesco_esortazione-ap_20131124_evangelii-gaudium.html. Accessed 20 March 2015

Facebook in ethics face-off

Sue Buckley and John Kleinsman 

The publication of a research paper that investigated the "emotional contagion" of 700,000 randomly selected Facebook users received extensive publicity recently because of the methods used by the researchers.

Two groups of Facebook users had their news feeds manipulated with a view to assessing its impact on their emotions. In one group, exposure to friends' positive emotional content in their News Feeds was reduced; in another group exposure to friends' negative emotional content was reduced. The effect on the participants was then measured by examining the emotionality of their status updates.

In explaining their project, the researchers stated that they used word-counting software, which meant that original posts were not viewed by them. As such, they considered that it was consistent with Facebook's Data Use Policy to which all users agree. They further claimed that the Data Use Policy precluded the need to seek additional consent from the study group. In addition, it was later claimed that as the experiment was conducted by Facebook for internal purposes, there was no obligation to "conform to the provisions of the Common Rule" which protect human research subjects.

However, there has been widespread questioning and criticism on the grounds that the researchers failed to obtain adequate informed consent from the unknowing participants. In response, one of the research authors appealed to the need for the research to take place: "We felt that it was important to investigate the common worry that seeing friends post positive content leads to people feeling negative or left out. At the same time, we were concerned that exposure to friends' negativity might lead people to avoid visiting Facebook." He also stated: "... our goal was never to upset anyone. I can understand why some people have concerns about it, and my coauthors and I are very sorry for the way the paper described the research and any anxiety it caused."¹ However, he conveniently fails to address the issue of informed consent.

So, if the intention of research is never to upset anyone, if there is little reason to expect that it might be harmful and if there is a good reason for undertaking it, why is it important to gain informed consent? In answering this question it must be remembered that the Facebook researchers were not just observing behaviour but were specifically aiming to manipulate the emotions of the participants by an intentional intervention. As one commentator noted: "The study harmed participants, because it changed their mood".²

It is a well-established principle within research ethics that any research involving an intervention requires fully informed consent and should be overseen by an ethics committee independent from both the researchers and the organisation or company instigating the research. This means that participants should (1) know they are being experimented on; (2) be given clear information about the research; and (3) be informed of both the risks and benefits. The only exception to this would be in circumstances where, for various reasons, participants are unable to give consent, in which case consent must be sought from someone legally entitled to provide consent for them.

The history of 'informed consent' in research goes back to the Nuremberg Code of 1947, developed after the Nuremberg trials at the end of the Second World War. These trials exposed research by Nazi doctors on Jews which included the murder and torture of the participants, all done without consent. Since that Code was developed there have been numerous and serious instances of unethical research where consent was not obtained, including the 'Unfortunate Experiment' at National Women's Hospital in Auckland where the conventional treatment for carcinoma in situ (CIS) was withheld from some women without their knowledge. It is worth noting that the researcher, Dr Herbert Green, had no intention of harming anyone and felt it was important to test his theory that women were being over-treated.

Even if Dr Herbert Green's theory had been right, the fact remains that his research would still have been unethical because informed consent was not obtained. Participants in research always have a right to know the risks they are exposed to and, even more fundamentally, a right to know that they are involved in interventional research. There was also a lack of independent oversight of Green's research.

Research can never be judged to be ethical on the basis of its intended outcome alone. Neither does a good outcome justify an unethical research process. Good research is always ethical from its inception. No interventional research should ever be undertaken without informed consent. The Facebook research clearly went beyond benign, anonymous, observational monitoring, which meant it required informed consent. Neither was it subject to any sort of independent scrutiny. Even if it is true that the risks for the Facebook experiment were low, there is an important principle at stake here, which must be upheld.

In the same way that stealing is stealing no matter what amounts are involved, so we all have a right not to be experimented on without our knowledge whatever the nature of the research.

Sue Buckley is a researcher for The Nathaniel Centre and John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre

1. Kramer, Adam D.I. Facebook post, June 30th 2014. https://www.facebook.com/akramer/posts/10152987150867796
2. James Grimmelmann, professor of law at the University of Maryland, quoted in the Guardian, 30 June, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/30/facebook-emotion-study-breached-ethical-guidelines-researchers-say

Election 2014: A statement by the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand

A statement by the Catholic Bishops of New Zealand

“The goal of economics and politics is to serve humanity, beginning with the poorest and most vulnerable wherever they may be, even in their mothers’ wombs.”

Pope Francis

Election year debates are an opportunity for taking our faith into the public arena; for discussing and debating our deepest hopes and values for a better society; for challenging complacency in the face of injustice; for deepening our understanding of issues that affect our neighbours and for forming our consciences. Our deepest and most important values are reflected in the way we participate in elections.

Elections do not begin with the tick we make on a ballot paper, but with the way we engage with the political process.

Even people stirred in different ways by the world’s injustices sometimes see elections as a purely cynical exercise, and feel their participation is insignificant to the final outcome. Some commentators dismiss these attitudes as apathy; but they may also be seen as a sign of disengagement and a loss of faith in political leaders and the political process. This election year we urge all New Zealanders to see election year debates not as marketing exercises, but as an urgent opportunity to argue for and build a society based on the good of each and the good of all.

In many parts of the world, voting is not a free or fair process, or it is not safe to express a political opinion or to participate in political debates. We should rejoice in our right to participate in a fair election process and in free political discussion.

The Catholic Church does not tell people who to vote for. Your bishops will not tell you how to vote.

Catholic teaching advises us on how to think about who to vote for. This takes a bit more work, and a lot more thinking and talking.

No political party or political platform represents the totality of the Church’s teaching, which values human life from conception to natural death; strongly defends and champions the needs of the poor and vulnerable; promotes development which is good for people; demands that we care for the outcast and stranger; and calls us to protect the natural gifts of the environment.

Pope Francis has renewed with vigour and his own personal example the Church’s mission to the poor, with a call for an end to an economy of exclusion, in which people are not just exploited, but discarded and cast aside. In New Zealand disparities between rich and poor have become entrenched in a society that once regarded itself as egalitarian. Struggling families with empty cupboards sometimes live only a few streets away from others for whom the provision of food and other basics is no problem. It is particularly concerning when people live in ignorance, and even indifference, to how their neighbours are faring.

Protecting the most vulnerable members of society is the responsibility of every one of us.

Sometimes there is a tension between issues in an election year. We may feel that we have to choose between important issues – for example, prioritising a politician’s or a party’s position on euthanasia or poverty. Catholic teaching does not trade off the wellbeing of vulnerable groups of people against one another. We seek political outcomes that protect the lives and wellbeing of all vulnerable people.

We have a special responsibility to engage with the political party that we intend to support in an election, and to speak up for the poor and the vulnerable through the whole political cycle. This means challenging all politicians and political parties, especially the one for whom you decide to vote.

Sometimes election year concerns are presented as a list of issues detached from the lives of the real people affected by them. The issues are someone’s reality. We are all challenged as voters to place first in heart and conscience those whose lives are potentially affected by decisions we make as voters. Our fellow New Zealanders matter, and in a world of complex relationships and interdependence, our obligations also extend beyond our own shores.

People living in poverty: It is a matter of shame that many people live in situations of material deprivation in a country like New Zealand which has the resources for all its citizens to live in dignity. We also have a responsibility to reach out to our neighbours in the rest of the world who do not have what they need to survive. 

People living with pain, illness or approaching the end of their lives: Each person is precious and valuable at every stage of his or her life. Everyone should receive the healthcare they need, including palliative care at the end of their lives. A life unnaturally cut short through euthanasia or assisted suicide is not death with dignity.

Unborn children: Every child is welcome, no matter the circumstances into which he or she is born.

Abortion is not the answer to poverty, disability, or disruption of lifestyle. Deprivation of life is never a solution.

Refugees, asylum seekers and migrants: Rejection of some groups of new New Zealanders because of their ethnic origins is unacceptable, whether in our own parishes and communities, or as political rhetoric. Millions of people around the world are fleeing violence and conflict. They are simply people seeking help and sanctuary. They have the same right to safety and security as we all have. In a global world, our responsibilities do not end at our own shores.

People in prison: Too many offenders experience New Zealand’s justice system only as punitive and dehumanising, rather than as an opportunity for repentance and restoration. Too many people are in prisons because of unmet mental health needs. No crime is without a victim, and victims of crime deserve the care and support of the community. 

People without a vote: Decisions made in the New Zealand election and New Zealand political process affect many others, including those who do not have the ability to take part.  Even though they cannot vote, the opinions and experiences of children and young people under the age of 18 are just as important as the views of older people. Prisoners cannot vote, and their needs should be taken into account. Future generations of New Zealanders are also important, as their well-being will depend upon the decisions we make today about the use of the earth’s resources.

Election years are times of significant political choices.  Question, discuss, debate, pray, be involved, and speak out for the poor and vulnerable among us as you decide how to cast your vote.

• John Dew, Archbishop of Wellington           

• Patrick Dunn, Bishop of Auckland

• Denis Browne, Bishop of Hamilton                       

• Barry Jones, Bishop of Christchurch

• Colin Campbell, Bishop of Dunedin            

• Charles Drennan, Bishop of Palmerston North

• Peter Cullinane, Emeritus Bishop of Palmerston North

Letter to a first time voter

Dear Grace,

Congratulations on reaching 18. As far as the law is concerned, your mother and I are no longer your legal guardians, you can purchase alcohol, fireworks and buy a Lotto ticket and obtain your own credit card. You can now also vote for the first time. It strikes me that many young people are selective about which new rights they claim and show little interest in the right to vote. I find that sad, particularly when it is a consequence of apathy.

Your great grandfather Daniel and grandfather Owen put their lives at great risk to protect the right to political self-determination. They, along with many other New Zealanders, went overseas to fight for the democracy we have long enjoyed. The right to vote is at the heart of that democracy.  Some of them were, like you, just 18 years of age.

When he was your age, your Opa Gerhardus lived under a violent totalitarian regime that denied him many basic human rights including the right to vote, play sport, freedom of association, free speech, listen to a radio and access education – talk to him sometime about what that was like. Then, having come to New Zealand as an immigrant in 1955, he was denied the right to vote until 1978 when he was 52. His first vote was also my first vote!

Reflecting on history helps us recall the importance and privilege of exercising our democratic responsibilities. Your right to vote has been earned for you by your forbears and it bears the stain of blood spilled. When you vote you honour them and their commitment.

The issues we face today are many and can seem overwhelming: global warming, refugees, immigration, child poverty, family violence, growing inequality, support for beneficiaries, euthanasia, abortion, health-funding, racism, education, housing and prison reform, just to name some of the ‘neon-light’ issues. I hear you ask: “How can I possibly deal to all of these issues?”

It’s hard to summon the energy needed when we have not stood in the shoes of those who experience disadvantages.  But it is even harder for them. By comparison, you have had a privileged up-bringing and they need your help. As Edmund Burke said: “For evil to succeed, it only needs good people to do nothing.”

Continue to learn and think about those whose experience of life is different from yours, especially those who struggle for the basic things that you might not think twice about. In Catholic Social Teaching we refer to this as taking a ‘preferential option for the poor’, something grounded in the biblical tradition and exemplified in the life of Jesus. Study the party policies and reflect on how they either help or hinder those most disadvantaged. Cast your vote always with them in mind rather than your own well-being.

You enjoy the outdoors and feel strongly about the environment. You also care about other big life issues, including euthanasia and abortion. It gets confusing when, within parties, there are inconsistencies and even contradictions in their policies. Politics is complex and messy. Firstly, resist the temptation to see things as ‘black and white’. Secondly, within our current voting system, you get two votes; one for the party and one for the electorate. An approach I recommend is to cast your electoral vote for the candidate who will best represent your views on the issues on which there should be no compromise – often described in parliament as ‘conscience votes’ – and to give your party vote to the party you think has the better policies regarding the bigger-picture social issues which can allow, or even require, a bit of give and take.

Even then, it is likely you will find yourself having to make compromises by voting for a politician or party at odds with certain beliefs you hold dearly. In which case, remember that it is possible to influence MP’s thinking after the election through information and political lobbying. Not being able to vote for the ideal doesn’t necessarily mean compromising your beliefs or commitment to greater justice. In other words, see your ‘right’ to vote as being more like a ticket that gives you life-long entry to the stadium of political engagement rather than a one-off happening every three years – i.e.,  be an active voter.

Lastly, believe that your involvement in the political process, insignificant as it seems, can make a real difference. Pope Francis writes that we are “small, yet strong in the love of God”. I like that. He has also said that we are each called to watch over the world in which we live. As Catholics we stand for certain things, and we also need to stand-up for certain things. Voting and getting involved in political advocacy is an important way for you to live out your call to follow Jesus.

Grace, having turned 18, you are now being invited to play your part in making our country and the world a better and more just place … and I know you are ready to do that.

Your loving Dad

Dr John Kleinsman is the director of The Nathaniel Centre

Promoting good discussion on public issues

Andrew Bradstock

For the last four years I have been building and directing New Zealand’s first Centre for Theology and Public Issues. Based in the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Otago in Dunedin, the centre is one of several ‘public theology’ institutions around the world, with a remit to contribute to thinking on current issues from a Christian theological perspective. As well as seeking and responding to opportunities to do this through the media, the Centre also undertakes research and teaching, and runs a busy programme of public lectures, forums and conferences.

The discipline of public theology is premised on a conviction that the resources of the Christian faith – primarily Scripture but also the teachings of the Church and the writings of individual theologians and thinkers – contain a wealth of insights, visions, teachings and narratives that, with careful exegesis and due regard to changing contexts, can enable fresh light and wisdom to be shed on the many challenges we face globally, nationally and locally.

The idea that theology might have anything interesting or worthwhile to say about public issues will strike many people as odd, particularly in a proudly ‘secular’ country like New Zealand. No one objects to people having religious beliefs – that’s a basic human right – but the idea that public thinking or government policy might be influenced by opinions based on a religious world-view is, for many people, deeply troubling. A draft document released by the New Zealand Human Rights Commission in July 2010 summed up this view quite neatly when it stated that ‘matters of religion and belief are deemed to be a matter for the private, rather than the public, sphere’. This document also made it clear that this demarcation between the public sphere, in which religion has no place, and the private sphere, the proper place for ‘matters of religion and belief’, is what essentially defines New Zealand as ‘secular’.[i]

One can readily understand the rationale for such a position, since religious people do often like to impose their views on others, even when they’re in the minority. And the language and line of reasoning they adopt can sometimes be incomprehensible, or simply unacceptable, to those not sharing their beliefs. No-one would argue that discourse in the ‘public square’ shouldn’t employ vocabulary, principles and reasoning which are intelligible to any reasonable person and based on public canons of validity. But this narrow understanding of ‘secularism’ also means that the genuinely-held differences people might have on moral issues remain hidden, as well as discriminating against those who want to offer religiously – or ideologically –rooted opinions in a non-dogmatic way. Hence a more ‘inclusive’ interpretation of the term ‘secular’ has been advocated by both religious and non-religious intellectuals and commentators in recent years, one which recognises that the quality of public debate can be enhanced when all voices are granted a hearing, provided none is privileged over the others.

Public theology is acutely aware of the marginal position that religion has in today’s world, and the implications this has for the way it needs to offer its perspective in the public square. Yet it also wants to stress the value of that perspective because of the fresh and constructive nature of the insights it can bring to sometimes rather stale and circular public debates. For example, asserting that, despite the radically different contexts in which they emerged, Scriptural insights into the nature of humanity, the ‘gifted-ness’ of Creation, the importance and nature of ‘justice’ and the purpose and meaning of markets, have much to teach us in the 21^st century.

Public theology is also concerned about the language it uses to make its contribution, recognising that it will need to find a way to talk about concepts like ‘the sanctity of life’ or humankind having been ‘created in the image of God’ in ways that will be readily understood without devaluing their deep and unique (and theological) content.

One notable way in which our Centre at Otago contributes to ‘public issues’ is by creating the space for informed, respectful and balanced conversation. Given that debates in Parliament often generate more heat than light, and that our (now all commercially-driven) television channels give low priority to serious ‘current affairs’ programmes, universities seem increasingly to be filling the gap by generating reflection on public issues. In one sense this is to be expected, given their statutory obligation to be ‘critic and conscience of society’.[ii] Nevertheless, at Otago we have found a high degree of interest in the public forums our Centre has organised, often in collaboration with other similar centres based at the university. TV producers (and the advertisers whose revenue they need) are probably right in thinking that serious discussion of public affairs is only a minority interest, but there is certainly an appetite for it, and not just in Dunedin.

The main limitations on our Centre’s work in this field are time and resources: there is certainly no shortage of ‘public issues’ crying out for serious, intelligent analysis. Some observers query how issues like the partial sale of state-owned assets, or the global financial crisis, or MMP (all topics we have covered in public forums in the past eighteen months) can be ‘theological’, but of course they are in the sense that theology has much to say and deep questions to ask. Questions about:  the nature of our society and the values underpinning it; how and in whose interests markets operate; how we elect our representatives; how natural resources are owned and distributed; and how serious we are about pursuing the common good. Among the more ‘obviously theological’ issues we have tackled in recent years are care of the planet, our treatment of children and older people, and the nature of our secular society. We have also explored wider issues such as the global food shortage, the situation in the Middle East and lessons from the Breivik trial in Norway. Interestingly, these ‘international’ forums have been among our most popular and valued.

The paucity of quality public debate in our country has huge implications for the shaping of public opinion – and public policy – on bioethical issues. One topical example is the debate about legalising euthanasia and assisted suicide., While our television, radio and newspapers will devote considerable air-time and column inches to reporting, often in a quite sensational way, notable cases of one individual helping another to die, relatively little time or space by comparison will be allocated to exploring the issues surrounding these cases. And while readers may often be left with the impression that the punishment meted out to a person responsible for hastening their friend or relative’s death was harsh or unjust, and that therefore the law needs changing, little effort may have been made to provide commentary or expert opinion to help them to think in a critical or balanced way about the deeper issues. Given that a private member’s bill to legalise certain end-of-life options is currently in the mix, it is not overstating things to say that we face the very real prospect of significant changes in the law relating to euthanasia and assisted suicide being passed with only minimal public consideration of the profoundly important issues and implications at stake.

Last year our Centre sought to avoid this scenario by staging what has so far been its most influential public forum. Titled ‘Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide: A discussion we need to have', the panel featured Nathaniel Centre director, John Kleinsman; medical-ethicist and neurosurgeon Professor Grant Gillett; Labour List MP Maryan Street, the proposer of the putative ‘End of Life Choice Bill’; and Professor Sean Davison, the South African-based academic who was sentenced to a period of home detention in 2011 for assisting the death of his mother in October 2006. We were fortunate to secure the attendance of Professor Davison in the short period between the completion of his sentence and his return to South Africa, and undoubtedly his presence contributed to the profile our event secured (which included coverage on TV3’s ‘Campbell Live’ and Radio New Zealand National’s ‘Morning Report’). The fact that some 300 people turned out for two-hours of discussion and debate, including a 20-minute presentation by theology student Thomas Noakes-Duncan on how the debate on euthanasia and assisted suicide has been conducted in New Zealand in recent years, shows our preparedness to properly inform ourselves and engage in meaningful debate about serious issues.

Indeed, one striking feature of this event was the quality of the questions and comments from the floor, particularly from students in the medical faculty. (For a podcast of this event see the Centre’s website - www.otago.ac.nz/ctpi/resources/podcasts

Feedback from this event suggests that it has helped in a modest way to stimulate serious thinking on a highly important topic. Indeed, I would say that even making it known that we held such an event is important in terms of reminding people that issues like euthanasia and assisted suicide need much more than the ‘sound-bite’ treatment they sadly often only attract. Democracy, we need to remind ourselves, involves far more than the casting of a vote once every three years, and as both Amartya Sen and Michael Sandel have argued in recent works, it is public reasoning, more than elections, which defines what it is essentially about.[iii]

I hope that our Centre can continue to promote more ‘public reasoning’ around the challenges we face, including those we might categorise as quite literally ‘issues of life and death’.

Andrew Bradstock is Howard Paterson Professor of Theology and Public Issues at the University of Otago and Director of the University’s Centre for Theology and Public Issues.

[ii] Under Section 162 (v) of the Education Act (1989) a university is required to ‘accept a role as critic and conscience of society’.

[iii]Amartya Sen, The Idea of Justice (London: Penguin, 2010) 321-37; Michael Sandel, Justice: What’s the right thing to do? (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

________________________________

O blessed fault; an evolutionary reflection on original sin

Neil Vaney

Introduction
Not long after the appearance of The Catechism of the Catholic Church (1992) scholars made nuanced calls on its contents. Some sections were seen as a happy synthesis of tradition and new insights; others were regarded more as summaries of tradition. The coverage of original sin came very much into the latter category. It was as if the writers looked at all the developing insights in this area, saw them as too difficult to locate in a new synthesis so simply summarised what had come out of the Council of Trent.

The last sixty years, however, have produced so much knowledge that can no longer be ignored that a new synthesis is needed. This is not simply to vindicate the traditional sense of Catholic belief but even more to make it a strong and useful instrument for catechists and apologists in explaining the state of contemporary society. A brief list of such advances would include the findings from the mapping of the human genome, the similarities and differences between humans and the great apes emerging from primatology; our new vision of the role of climate changes in world history and how these link to the numerous hominids now extinct (and how homo sapiens very likely came near to extinction about 70,000 years ago); finally, but far from least, the crucial document “The Interpretation of the Bible in the Church” (1994) from the Pontifical Biblical Commission. This document marks a definitive acceptance not merely of the very diverse literary genres of the Bible but also how these must be read in the light of the author’s intention and cultural situation. Many scholars would now accept that the same criteria should also be applied to historical documents such as the decrees of the Council of Trent.

This essay is a modest attempt to begin such a study of original sin

A. Beginning From Intimate Relationships

My project begins with a study of the work of two very different writers, Harville Hendrix and Rene Girard. Both deal with anthropology, Hendrix in the field of marriage relationships and Girard in social and cultural anthropology. The former is a popular writer working out of personal narratives, the latter a more academic and controversial figure whose theories embrace literary criticism as well as social and political theory.

Perhaps Hendrix’s central work is Getting the Love You Want: a Guide for Couples (Simon and Schuster, London, 2005). His central theme is stated very succinctly in his preface:

We are born in relationship, we are wounded in relationship, and we can be healed in relationship. Indeed, we cannot be fully healed outside of a relationship. (xix)

 After the break-up of his first marriage, Hendrix, a committed Christian, wanted to uncover the dynamics of this failure. His theory arose out of interviews with hundreds of couples. The imago therapy which has arisen from this research has restored and reinvigorated many failing marriages.

The first and more theoretical part of his work examines why couples fall in love. Using modern knowledge of the different sections of the brain he explains how many of our key childhood reactions such as separation, abandonment and betrayal are stored in the primitive areas of the brain, not accessible by conscious effort. The sense of total oneness that we felt with our mothers also remains a profound yearning despite the many knocks it endured as we matured into separate identities. Inevitably we are subject to hurtful and repressive pressures which we strive to contain, so fragmenting our personality into disconnected parts: a lost self, shaped out of society’s demands, a false self – the face we show to the world – and the disowned self, negative parts of our false self which others have found objectionable so we have disowned them.

According to Hendrix’ s research  lovers, when choosing a life partner, unconsciously seek someone carrying both negative and positive characteristics of their caregivers, especially the former. This is a reparative instinct, an attempt to reconnect with our lost selves by linking up with a partner bearing similar defects. Unconsciously we create an image (imago) of the perfect partner to bring us back to wholeness. This helps to account for the rosy glow of romance when we see our beloved as the one who meets our needs perfectly and renews our energies.

As the deeper intimacy of marriage develops, however, love seems to cool and anxieties grow. First we notice that our partners have the same negative characteristics as our parents, so stir up old wounds. Suppressed feelings well up, old childhood hurts are rekindled, and our words and behaviour become increasingly defensive. We try harder and harder to get our needs met, resorting to dishonest questions, nagging, even verbal or physical violence.

Reflecting theologically on this theory it is not difficult to see how it engages deeply with the Christian vision of humans (male and female) being together the image of God. Just as the persons of the Trinity reside totally in one another, somewhat similarly we do not have any identity apart from relationship.. God calls us to spiritual and emotional wholeness, but that cannot take place without becoming whole in relationship with others. It is the turning inwards in self-possession and protection that is the basis of egotistic self-diminishment or sin.

B. The Role of Violence; the Work of Rene Girard

Girard’s initial field of research was cultural and social anthropology. Fascinated by the similar structures of violence that he encountered in widely diverse societies, he began to search for the roots of such behaviours. This led him back to the Bible and to rediscover his Catholicism. His work can be classified under three headings: mimesis, the scapegoating mechanism, and the role of religion and violence in societies and how this has been transformed by Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

Girard’s first insight focuses on how all infants learn by imitation, not merely of behaviours but also of affects or feelings. We discover love by being loved. This makes of learning a triangular process: the thing learned, the learner and the teacher. This seems to be hardwired in the human brain even before understanding, e.g. the way infants learn speech and language. This Girard labelled mimesis. It leads humans to imitate a desired figure and their qualities; such desires then shape the reactions of others, giving rise to rivalry because of competition for the loved one’s response. This process is holistic, spreading to every area of life. Here we see many points of contact with the work of Hendrix.

When entire societies become wracked by issues of such anger and hatred for which there are no obvious solutions, many resort to a type of ‘magical thinking’ seeking someone or some group to carry the blame. Often these figures are outsiders, marked by a diverse culture or refusal to integrate, such as the ‘witches’ executed in Salem in 1692, or the millions of Jews wiped out in the shoah. Such common action against a perceived  enemy (scapegoating) often unites and strengthens a society e. g. Londoners during the blitz. When, as always happens, this sense of solidarity weakens and frictions begin to re-emerge, then societies may turn to ritual re-enactments to re-awaken feelings of union and deliverance, as in the apprentices’ marches in Northern Ireland. In our time scapegoating has become ever more subtle e. g. depicting all Islamic discontents as the fruit of terrorists and extremists.

Girard has also noted how often the state has co-opted religion to shore up its own authority. This often happens in time of war. Sometimes authority will condone violence to avoid what it sees as an even greater evil e.g. when Caiaphas proclaims that Jesus must die for the sake of the entire Jewish people (Jn 18.14). Because it is the winners who are the usual chroniclers of history, victorious states use such techniques to justify their violent acts. Girard, however, stresses that the Bible, especially the New Testament gospels, portray history from the viewpoint of the victim. Though Jesus is the scapegoat par excellence his free acceptance of death, refusal to retaliate, and subsequent resurrection, unveil the hidden nature of political violence, so undermining the power of the state.

Girard notes that dominant powers have become much more subtle, for instance in promoting liberation from stifling institutions such as the Church or the traditional family in the name of freedom. In the name of such freedom the state itself has become more oppressive e.g. the USA condoning the use of torture and the wholesale monitoring of social media

In conclusion, we can see that Girard, like Hendrix, sees relationship and its failures as the fundamental dynamic in shaping a human sense of completion and fulfilment. Moreover, he goes further in elucidating the mechanisms by which these dynamics shape society, morphing into political structures. In this way they shape family and clan relationships, national and international life – our way of existing in the world.

In the Garden of Eden story both Adam and Eve try to shift the blame for their refusal to trust in God onto another, in Eve’s case, onto her mate; on his part, onto a scheming third party. Cain goes even further in denying any responsibility for his own brother’s life. Here we see original sin at its fountainhead: blame and distance from the other. The work of both Hendrix and Girard shows how this same trend continues writ large in our own society.

C. Original Sin Seen through the Lens of the Hendrix and Girard Paradigms

Midwives point out how babies come into the world wet, hungry and angry. For this is the most traumatic journey they face till they meet death. In many ways the perils of birth are but a prelude to the fragility of life. What highlights such fragility is that humans have achieved their seeming domination over nature and other animal species by their mutual cooperation – yet other humans are also their most deadly foes. We stand in utter need and dread of one another.

It was St Augustine in his battle against the Pelagian heresy who linked original sin closely with sexuality. Reflecting on his own life and inability to use reason to control his sexual passions led him to see the vast bulk of humanity as a massa damnata, carrying not just the consequences of Adam’s sin but its guilt as well. This interpretation had a huge impact on medieval theology, right through to the Council of Trent. Here we seem to have a clear case of the need to draw upon the insight of the Biblical Commission in its 1994 document. Fifth century Western anthropology was marked by great pessimism, especially about the human body, which clearly coloured Augustine’s reading of scripture. Today popular culture has swung to the other extreme but we still need to acknowledge how much Augustine’s view of original sin was the fruit of his own life experience, reinforced by the dominant mood of his age.

In the light of what we now know of our biology and evolution, might it not be more helpful to see original sin in terms of our innate relationality? The more consistent temptation is surely our inclination to renege on such relationality, acting out of the belief that we can completely control our life and destiny by our own efforts. Conversely, assenting to our essential relationality means accepting that we came into being, are sustained, and will eventually perish in ways beyond our control; we are utterly contingent. We have been summoned from nothing; we receive all while meriting nothing.

The Adam and Eve story is clearly symbolic.  We know there was there was much suffering and death, many proto-humans before the first homo sapiens came to a moment of moral choice. Scripture scholars point out that the Garden of Eden story is but one of a sequence of incidents (Cain and Abel, the great flood, the tower of Babel) pointing to growing resistance to God’s gift of life. Each one of these calamities results from a failure to trust, a desire to dominate and control others.

As Girard points out, blaming and scapegoating mechanisms also evolve, becoming more subtle over the ages. A clear instance appears in the development of attitudes in physical science. Early astronomers such as Galileo and Kepler saw their work as a deeper penetration of God’s knowledge, and elements of religious awe permeate their reflections. Such attitudes increasingly give way to motivations of power and control over nature, Francis Bacon being a clear example of such a stance. As we in modern nations have moved from an organic to a more organised society we have also seen an even deeper concentration on production, the assimilation of nature into human desires, and material gain as dominant themes. Accompanying this is a drive towards individualism, the prevailing of personal desires even against wider environmental health and conservation. As A. J. Conyers notes: “In modernity, the new version of original sin is that we are born into a human family. Salvation consists in the struggle to escape it.” (The Listening Heart, Baylor University Press, Texas, 2009, 104). Under the onslaught of deconstructionism all narratives of religion, patriotism and human solidarity have come under suspicion. What has taken their place is the domination of the market, around which so much work, recreation and aspirations for the good life now centre. The sole value now universally recognised is the value of exchange, seen concretely in commodifiable options, with arbitrary free choice the greatest good. All other value systems and beliefs are cast into the realm of personal choice and foible.

Religion itself is now subject to commodification. The dominant God of western culture is a therapeutic deity, all notions of truth or virtue becoming decidedly uncool. While decline in friendship and lasting marriages continues, there is still immense desire for healing and new life. Nowhere is this more evident than in the USA where the number of professional caregivers has risen a hundredfold since 1950. (Ross Douthat, Bad Religion, Free Press, NY, 2012, 240).

Contrary to this is a vision of every human being as an icon of God, one tiny facet of God’s unlimited beauty and goodness. Each of us is the result of God’s totally free creativity and playfulness in creation. Our endless variety is a masterpiece of creation, parallel to the way in which each gene is constructed from only four chemical bases repeated and connected in a myriad of combinations, modified and reshaped constantly over the course of evolution. It is in accepting and loving the other purely as other, not as an extension of our personal needs and fears, that freedom from original sin lies. This is precisely what we see in the life of Jesus Christ the sinless one. But with the coming of Christ, and through his power continually transmitted by the Holy Spirit there is a new creation in grace that is far greater than any putative original innocence. Whereas original sin is a turning away from relationality and creaturehood, assimilation in Christ becomes a celebration of relationality, a joyous acceptance of being a frail but deeply loved creature.

This insight could have many applications in moral fields. I point to just one bioethical issue – euthanasia. Two of the justifications for physician assisted suicide are freedom of choice and the growing cost of maintaining life for a rapidly ageing population. Based on the work of Hendrix and Girard, we might see elements of avoidance of responsibility and the domination of economic goods over human needs, hidden beneath such justifications. More positively, we might point to the time of dying as a privileged moment in which thanks for the gift of life and the healing of family rifts would be points of growth and new hope for families that still live on.

Dr Neil Vaney is a Marist priest who has specialised in moral theology. His doctoral research is in the areas of environmental ethics and the theology of nature. He is presently a resource person for pastoral and spirituality ministry in Hawkes Bay. He will be joining the leadership team of the Society of Mary in Wellington in 2014.

Editorial: The Church (and bioethics) in the (post) modern world

It is 50 years since the Second Vatican Council opened in Rome. For Catholics, the Council marked a significant transition in self-awareness – from a Church which saw itself as largely set ‘apart’ from the world to one which is deeply connected with – literally ‘in’ – the world.

Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Council document “The Church in the Modern World” which sets out how the Church should conceive its activity in the world, scrutinising and interpreting “the signs of the times” in the light of the Gospel.¹ It admonishes Catholics who would shirk their “earthly responsibilities” in favour of seeking “a city to come”; rather, authentic faith means they are more obliged than ever to measure up to their secular duties and activities (n. 43).

Importantly, the document acknowledges that the Church has profited richly from the experience of past ages, the progress of the sciences, and the treasures hidden in human culture (n. 44). While the implications of this would have astounded many Catholics of the 1960’s, they are hardly radical today. Yet, they remain incredibly challenging in the post-modern world in which we live: Christians do not have the monopoly on the truth but are joined with all of humanity in searching for it (n. 16); the presence and grace of the Holy Spirit are not confined to the Church, but work in an unseen way in the hearts of all (n. 22).

In addition, the document offers a sober reminder that we are all weak beings who often do things we should not and fail to do what we should (n. 10): “It does not escape the Church how great a distance lies between the message she offers and the human failings of those to whom the Gospel is entrusted” (n. 43). Recent events in the Catholic Church have forcibly reminded us again of this fact – the scandals of sexual abuse mean we should dare to witness to our faith only with a real sense of humility grounded in an awareness that the weaknesses of human nature run through the Church and all its members. If prior to the Council it was the Church that presented itself as a perfect society and was in certain ways hostile to the world, now, at least partly because of the current scandals, it is the world that has become more hostile to an imperfect Church – a situation that is both understandable and regrettable.

Consequently, many Catholics wishing to bring a faith-based perspective to the social and political realms are experiencing a new antagonism; when we speak, we can no longer expect that what we offer will always be welcomed or seen as credible. This state of affairs is surely one of the signs of our time that we are obliged to scrutinise, interpret and respond to.  The question arises: ‘How can we best articulate our faith-based perspective in the post-modern world in which we live?’

There are great insights to be gleaned from “The Church in the Modern World”: we must strive to understand the world in which we live (n. 4); we must promote “a living exchange between the Church and the diverse cultures of people” (n. 44); we need to acknowledge that the Church requires the special help of those who are versed in the different institutions and specialties (n. 44); we must extend respect and love to those who think or act differently than we do in social, political and even religious matters and strive deeply to understand “with such courtesy and love” that we enter into real dialogue with others (nn. 21, 28).

Further, taking to heart the document’s claim that nothing genuinely human should fail to raise an echo in the hearts of Christians (n. 1), we need to show that the power of the Catholic moral/ethical tradition lies in the way our teachings are themselves signs – signs pointing to the truth about human existence and allowing that truth to be more deeply penetrated and better understood for human advantage (n. 44). As the document itself notes, faith throws a new light on everything, ultimately directing the mind to solutions which are ‘fully human’ (n. 11). There is, in other words, an intrinsic link between faith and human flourishing (n. 43).

For those engaged in Catholic bioethics there is a clear onus to first listen so as to understand and learn from others while facilitating the conditions for honest and sincere dialogue. Then, within that dialogue, we must convincingly articulate the wisdom of the Catholic tradition in terms of its relevance for constructing a world more genuinely human, all the while using language intelligible to the current generation (n. 4) and remaining faithful to the “befriending Spirit” (n. 3) that animates and guides us all.

50 years on, I find much wisdom and hope in a document that was promulgated before I could even read.  

John Kleinsman is director of The Nathaniel Centre

1. "Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World." In Vatican Council II: The Conciliar and Post Conciliar Documents, edited by A Flannery. Collegeville, Indiana: The Liturgical Press, 1965, n. 4.

The hidden ideology of technicism

Petrus Simons

Introduction

We have come to rely heavily on science and technology. As a result we find ourselves heavily dependent on technical things such as aeroplanes, cars, roads, cell phones, computers, chemical fertilisers and pesticides, power stations, domestic appliances and more. Technology shapes our lives to a major extent. We enjoy its benefits daily.

Such benefits notwithstanding, technology also presents us with significant challenges, many of which raise questions of a bioethical nature. This article seeks to stimulate critical reflection on the meaning of modern technology and our responsibility for its on-going development.

The evolution of technology

Technology can be defined as the activity by which people give form to nature for human ends by means of tools (Schuurman, 1980: 5).

In the past such activity was largely the domain of artisans who used relatively basic tools and worked with materials found in nature. Today it has become much more complicated; we rely largely on scientists and engineers who use already existing technical objects to design the tools and processes to make things. Furthermore, many contemporary materials, such as plastics, are not found in nature.

Many people seem to operate out of an unquestioned belief that technology evolves naturally for the benefit of humankind. According to this view the world is itself an evolving piece of machinery and technology develops as if it were part of nature. As an example of this thinking, the Expo 2000 World Fair held in Hannover (Germany) portrayed the course of technology as an ever widening river meandering through history and bringing forth, naturally, developments such as modern nuclear technology in our age. Thus, nuclear energy has arrived at the precise time when oil runs out, the Internet has come about so that we can cope with the complexities of the modern world and genetic technology will enable us to cure diseases that have so far proved to be incurable. (Assheuer, T. 2011: 44).

The fundamental belief that underpins this understanding of technology is the notion that technological developments are inevitably beneficial for humans. It is not that those who think along these lines don't accept that new technologies may cause unforeseen problems and accidents. However, in line with their unshaken trust in the benevolence of technology, they hold that the challenges created by technological developments are the means that will, in turn, inspire the development of further new and improved technologies.

While there is a core of truth in this stance, inasmuch as new technologies build on preceding ones and yield many benefits, the most basic problem with this view of the world is that it minimises human responsibility for technological developments. This may be seen most starkly in the light of nuclear accidents.

Nuclear catastrophes

Nuclear power was made possible once scientists had figured out how atoms could be split. By aiming neutrons at Uranium 235 a chain reaction is triggered which releases huge amounts of energy. However, ever since the first nuclear power stations were built in the 1950s, no-one has managed to solve the problems associated with the accumulation of dangerous radioactive wastes or the fall-out of radioactive pollution as has occurred from time to time. The explosions of the Fukushima nuclear reactors are the most recent example of this.

In March this year the tsunami that followed the 9.1 earthquake in Japan crippled the nuclear reactors of a power plant in Fukushima, resulting in the release of radioactive materials. As a result, agricultural land close to the plant has been contaminated for hundreds of years, whilst radioactive water has been spilled into the ocean. Other major mishaps include the 1979 incident in Harrisburg (USA) and the 1986 massive explosion which destroyed reactors at Tchernobyl (Ukraine), causing many deaths and widespread cancer as well as taking a large swath of fertile land out of production.

Assheuer (2011:44) is of the opinion that the recent explosions of the Fukushima nuclear reactors have begun to shake human belief in the notion that technological development is naturally friendly to human well being. While renewed caution in regard to the use of nuclear power is understandable and timely, the key question is whether such caution ultimately challenges the dominance of the metaphor that shapes people's attitudes to technology – namely the idea that the world is an evolving piece of machinery.

The link between science and technology

Scientists, to use yet another metaphor, might well be described as people who use microscopes to focus in on the smallest of details, isolating from the broader context the thing they want to analyse in depth. This process is known as 'abstraction'. The scientists' aim is to present a precise logical account of how things work. Then, armed with such precise knowledge, they find themselves in a position to develop and make new things. This approach typically involves four abstractions, as pointed out by Schuurman (2003: 96-102). Scientists:

1. Seek knowledge that is universally valid, abstracting (ignoring) from what is concrete.
2. Analyse functions, generally focussing on one function, rather than things in their entirety.
3. Ask what sort of law applies to the phenomena under investigation. How do they make sense?
4. Abstract from their private interests in the interests of truth.

For example, rather than giving thought to the fact that real cows function in many different ways, scientists might focus on the question of how they digest their food, or how they process grass into milk. Equally, scientists may focus in on the question of how humans learn to speak (lingual function) or how we act economically (economic function).

As a way of illustrating the process of 'abstraction' Schuurman (2003: 98) uses the example of giving four apples to four children. From a theoretical perspective the solution seems easy. In practice, however, because children prefer particular apples, the outcome can be much more complicated. In reality everything is unique, multi-functional, connected to everything else and in a state of change.

The process of analysis and abstraction is enormously powerful. It has led to the development of many of the technical wonders of our age. However, because the world consists of concrete things, plants, animals and humans, rather than abstractions, we must all continuously exercise great care and responsibility in the application of new technologies.

As abstractions are projected into the development of increasingly complex modern technology, the technical objects we use become highly functional and uniform and are typically fabricated in large numbers. Laptops and mobile phones are essentially the same everywhere. In the field of agriculture, where cows are bred to become efficient milking machines, we also find ourselves moving towards more uniform monocultures, a trend which potentially threatens the biodiversity which is so essential for life.

While scientific technology has been seen as the key to controlling and exploiting the world since the 17th Century, we now need to seriously question the ideology of technological progress.

Technicism

The responsible use of science and technology in a multi-faceted and complex world of interconnected concrete realities requires that we apply our discoveries with a critical attitude. It is a matter of technology being at the service of humankind rather than vice-versa.

Unfortunately, such prudence tends to be lacking. In a world in which technical innovations are often developed by business corporations with significant financial interests, science and technology are too often deployed as instruments to achieve material benefits regardless of the long term human and environmental consequences.

Schuurman uses the label 'technicism' to describe the use of scientific technology to control and subdue the earth for human purposes:

Technicism is the pretension of humans, as self-declared lords and masters using the scientific-technical method of control, to bend all of reality to their will in order to solve all problems, old and new, and to guarantee increasing material prosperity and progress (Schuurman, 2003: 69).

I would argue that technicism exists as one of the hidden ideologies of our time. As an ideology it acknowledges no limits. We are currently experiencing the influence of technicism in all areas of life, including human inter-relationships. The use of telephones and/or computers in rural areas in certain countries for diagnosing medical conditions is a ready example of this.

If it is true, as I believe it is, that many of our problems today have been brought about by the hidden ideology of technicism, then we must seek a more responsible way of developing and using technology.

Another way

Technicism can be avoided if we abandon the metaphor of the earth as a machine and replace it by the Biblical metaphor of a garden-city (Schuurman, 2003: 165-168).

A garden is a peaceful, beautiful place, full of variety, in which plants, paths, animals and humans all have their rightful place. In the Bible, the narrative begins in the book of Genesis with a garden and it ends in the final chapter of the Book of Revelation with a city in a garden setting. The biblical view is clear; there is a rightful place for science and technology within the world in which we live.

The reference in Revelation 22 to the river of life-giving water flowing through the new Jerusalem with the tree of life growing on either side whose leaves serve as a medicine for the nations, provides a powerful reminder of the interconnection between the health of the environment and human well-being. Among other things this should inspire us to clean up polluted rivers and waterways, such as the Manawatu and to take all possible steps to minimise the future risks of oil pollution from ships such as the Rena.

There are already many examples that point towards the possibility of a basic renewal of our technological culture. The garden-city metaphor challenges us to use biological science and methods in agriculture in a way that does justice to nature. For example, farmers who have changed from milking twice a day to once a day have discovered that the costs saved make up for the somewhat smaller volume of milk produced. In addition there are encouraging developments in sustainable ways of generating and using energy.

While this path is certainly not easy, it is, nevertheless, full of promise.

Conclusion

New scientific technological developments should be carefully evaluated before they are put into practice. Too often we try to do this only after problems have become apparent.

If we continue without questioning the concept of the world as a huge machine we may seriously endanger life and the planet's ability to feed and house humankind. When king Midas was granted his wish that everything he touched would become gold he died. Similarly, our sophisticated technology has the potential to stifle life on our planet.

The challenge we face is to think and behave as if our society and the earth we inhabit is a garden that is progressing to a peaceful garden-city.

Petrus Simons is a retired economist, with a PhD in philosophy.

References

Assheuer, T.H. 2011. Tausend Sonnen; die nuklearen Katastrophen von Tschernobyl und Fukushima haben das Vertrauen in eine menschenfreundliche Evolution der Technik zerstört. Die Zeit (Hamburg) no. 17, 20 April, p.44.

Schuurman, E. 1980. Technology and the future; a philosophical challenge. Wedge, Toronto, trans. H.D. Morton.

Schuurman, E. 2003. Faith and hope in technology. Clements, Toronto, trans. J.Vriend.

Preventing births of the poor: Birth control proposals and welfare reform

Lisa Beech

More children from the fit, less from the unfit – that is the chief issue of birth control.
                             U.S. eugenics and birth control advocate Margaret Sanger, 1919

The Pharaoh of old, haunted by the presence and increase of the Children of Israel, submitted them to every kind of oppression and ordered that every male child born of the Hebrew women was to be killed. Today not a few of the powerful of the earth act in the same way.
                                                             Pope John Paul II, Evangelium Vitae #16, 1995

The idea that poverty and other social problems can be solved by controlling who is and who is not permitted to have children has been a long favoured idea of the eugenics movement. It has been explicitly or implicitly part of global debates on population control as a means of poverty reduction, as well as a significant aspect of United States and European welfare debates. In contrast, the Catholic Church has been a powerful advocate for the rights of the poorest families not to be subjected to coercive birth control.

These debates are unfamiliar in the New Zealand social welfare context. It is therefore shocking to hear community voices advocating not only for beneficiaries to be required to take contraception, but even explicitly using the language of eugenics. “I was raised on a farm,” argued one well-respected social worker recently in support of greater birth control of beneficiaries. “And on a farm, you do not permit the unfit to breed”.

On 22 February, the New Zealand government appointed Welfare Working Group recommended that long-lasting reversible contraception be made ‘available’ to parents receiving benefits. The recommendation also states that further measures should be considered if this alone does not reduce numbers of children born into beneficiary families. Since contraception already widely available in New Zealand, there is a concern that availability may translate in practice into contraceptive use being a requirement of benefit eligibility.

This concern is shared by diverse groups including churches, beneficiary groups, women’s groups and disability groups.

The Welfare Working Group was appointed by the Minister of Social Development in 2010 to consider whether reform of the welfare system would address perceived problems of welfare dependency. At the same time various churches and community groups joined together in an Alternative Welfare Working Group which saw benefit receipt as a symptom, rather than the cause of poverty, and looked for wider measure to address the economic hardship and exclusion of people on benefits.

As a relatively isolated country with a small population, many New Zealand Catholics, as well as our wider society, are somewhat removed from international population control debates and have an impression that Catholic teaching on sexuality and birth control is primarily a private and personal matter. Therefore, the Welfare Working Group’s focus on birth control as a solution to poverty represents a significant shift in our social welfare debates, one that demands consideration of the Catholic Church’s teaching against population control as an imposition placed on the poor.

Historical background: birth control in welfare and international development debates
Debates around sterilization and contraception as requirements of welfare programmes for poor and vulnerable citizens have long been explicit in United States social security policy, as well as in wider debates about population control as a solution to global poverty.

The eugenics movement of the early 20^th century was at the forefront of debates around the shaping of populations. It was based on assumptions that society could – and should – be reshaped by promoting more births among ‘desirable’ groups, and reducing births amongst ‘less desirable’ groups. People with psychiatric illnesses, and physical and intellectual disabilities were among those targeted for population reduction. There was also a strongly racist element, with Caucasian people seen as most desirable, while many other racial groups were seen as less desirable or even undesirable.

Despite the discrediting of eugenic theory in Hitler’s extreme application of these ideas in Nazi Germany, involuntary sterilisations of psychiatric patients continued in certain European countries and the United States past the end of World War II. Proposals for compulsory sterilization of sole mothers on welfare benefits were readily evident in the United States during the 1950s and were explicitly justified using racist and eugenic arguments at that time. These days the language of birth control has become more subtle. Nevertheless, the 1950s U.S. stereotypes of ‘welfare queens’ who continue to have additional children in order to maintain their eligibility for benefits continue to the present day. As already noted, these stereotypes have now found their way into New Zealand political rhetoric about beneficiaries.

In more recent times these ideas have been fostered by a population movement that sees reduction in fertility as the key solution to poverty and an answer to overuse of the world’s resources. This agenda has been promoted on the world stage by a number of groups and at various gatherings including the United Nations sponsored Population and Development conferences in Budapest (1974), Mexico (1984) and Cairo (1994).

Pope Pius XI’s injunction against sterilisation for eugenic reasons in 1930, Pope Paul’s encyclical Humanae Vitae were all written against a backdrop of movements and world conferences aiming to reduce poverty by preventing births of the poor rather than by addressing the behavior of the rich.

Within the global population control movement, methods of contraception were sought that could be widely distributed with minimal medical oversight. Matthew Connelly details a flagrant disregard for women’s safety as contraceptives were trialled on the women of the third world despite significant evidence of negative outcomes such as perforated wombs and pelvic inflammation. Adoption of coercive population control programmes reached their extreme in the emergency period of Indira Gandhi’s government in India (1975-77) during which time 1774 people were officially recorded as having died from botched sterilisations, with many thousands more affected.

From the early 1990s, a number of U.S. states introduced family caps, which reduced assistance to welfare recipients with additional children, alongside financial incentives and, in some cases, requirements to use Norplant, a long-acting reversible contraceptive. In response to this, Catholic groups, including the United States Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Charities USA, were concerned that moving people off welfare would not move them out of poverty. Among their concerns was that the intended reduction in births to beneficiaries would not necessarily mean a reduction in pregnancies, but could mean an increase in abortions.

Supporters of United States style welfare reform in New Zealand have pointed to an overall decline in United States abortion numbers since the welfare changes. However, some studies taking a closer look at specific target groups have shown a different picture. Joyce et al (2004) cite an experimental evaluation of New Jersey’s family cap policy as showing an overall increase of abortions by 12 percent among welfare recipients, and by 32 percent for black welfare recipients.

In their own research, Joyce et al observed a fall in birth rates and an increase in abortion rates among poor women in states both with and without family caps. While they found that a link between family caps and abortion rates was inconclusive, they reported an overall increase in abortions among poor women – the target groups for welfare reform – contrary to the general decline in United States abortion rates.

Meanwhile, in response to the persistent argument that the birth rates of the poor need to be controlled, the Catholic Church has consistently argued that over-consumption by wealthy nations is more of a strain on the world’s limited resources than family sizes of the poor. Despite falling fertility rates in developed countries, the wealthiest 20 percent of the world’s population consumes 80 percent of its resources. Catholic social teaching recognises the human dignity of every person, regardless of the situations into which they are born, and also calls for the structural causes of poverty, such as unequal distribution of resources, to be addressed.

Present social welfare reform debates in New Zealand
New Zealand has been substantially influenced by United States views on welfare policy, and since the early 1990s has frequently looked to the United States welfare policies. The current move to frame the New Zealand government’s public policy welfare discussion in terms of ‘welfare dependency’ is a particular reflection of United States welfare debates. A direct consequence of this is that it places the onus for poverty on the behavior and lack of motivation of the poor rather than structural causes.

Similar debates and welfare reforms are currently underway in many countries including Great Britain, Australia and Europe, following the 2008-2009 global financial crisis. It needs to be noted that, both locally and globally, the language of ‘unsustainability’ of welfare systems is taking place against a backdrop of financial institution bailouts costing millions – or billions – of dollars. Looked at like this, the use of such language appears as part of a strategy for (unfairly) shifting the burden of paying for the economic crisis to the poor.

Underlying the welfare reforms aimed at women raising children alone are certain assumptions about sexual promiscuity and irresponsibility. Most New Zealanders would generally agree that a stable married family is the best environment for raising children. However, there is also a realization that there are a wide range of circumstances in which women find themselves raising children alone.

Among the many circumstances that lead to sole mother households are the death of a husband or partner; women pregnant as a result of rape or sexual abuse; women who have escaped domestic violence; women who have been abandoned by husbands and partners; and women who have found themselves pregnant and alone but have chosen not to have abortions. It is nothing less than offensive to imply that sexual irresponsibility has caused the poverty of many of these women and their children.

Even in circumstances where a range of informal and changing sexual relationships mean that children are growing up in fatherless households, it needs to be asked whether encouraging contraceptive use is going to increase committed partnerships. It seems more likely to increase the attitude that women alone are sexually available for men who do not wish to make long-term commitments.

However, allowing the debate to focus on sole mothers overlooks the significant fact that the Welfare Working Group recommendation is not restricted to sole parents, meaning that married couples who find themselves on a benefit resulting from unemployment, natural disaster (such as the Christchurch earthquakes), illness or disability would also be discouraged from giving birth to children. For disabled couples, who may always require some benefit support, this is equivalent to a permanent discouragement of children.

The Welfare Working Group recommendation about reducing numbers of children born to beneficiary families is not the only recommendation which offends Catholic concepts of human dignity and protection of the vulnerable. Also of concern are proposals which would redefine most sick and disabled people as ‘jobseekers’ and force them into a labour market at a time when it cannot currently accommodate those already seeking work. Proposals such as reductions in hardship assistance and restructuring base benefit levels will potentially cut incomes of New Zealand’s poorest citizens.

Concluding remarks
The argument about the Welfare Working Group’s contraceptive proposals are most critical because they reveal underlying attitudes towards the poor which imply that some people are of more value as human beings than other people. The unstated assumption is that bringing fewer poor children into the world can and will resolve complex social problems. Among other things this absolves other New Zealanders from facing up to the inequalities resulting from historical injustice and structural poverty.

In contrast to perceptions of poor children as burdens on the state, parents in developing countries often choose large families for precisely the opposite reason – because they see them as their most precious resources and their social security in old age. New Zealand society depends no less on the next generation for our old age provision. New Zealand’s superannuation entitlements for current decision makers and voters also depend on the earnings of the children who are being born – or being prevented from being born – today.

It is important to see the Welfare Working Group’s birth control recommendation as being more than a matter of personal choice or personal morality. Proposals to reduce poverty by discouraging or preventing births to the poor have deep eugenic roots, based on the idea that some people have greater value than other human beings. There should be no place for this sort of thinking in New Zealand’s social welfare system.

Lisa Beech is Research and Advocacy Coordinator for Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand

Editorial: Bioethics and the Paradox of the Human Condition

John Kleinsman
Issue 33, April 2011

Humankind and the world we are a part of are defined by paradox; we constantly experience life in ways that highlight the contradictory nature of our existence .

The recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan serve to remind us of the fragility of human life in the face of the brutal and amoral forces of 'Mother Nature'. Photographic images of the devastating aftermath are permanently etched into our minds as we watched, appalled, the breaking news. We are confronted by our utter powerlessness.

At the same time, as a result of the damage suffered by the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, we have become conscious again of the immense destruction that we humans are able to cause. We are simultaneously confronted by our power to destroy the planet.

We are at once powerless and powerful. We are called to be stewards of the planet we live on even while we recognise that it is part of our human nature to overcome obstacles and to modify the world and ourselves. We also experience paradox at a more personal level. On the same day a family grieves the loss of a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather a young woman goes into labour and a new child is born; death and grief coexist and are intermingled with life and love. Paradox is also something each of us encounters within; we draw on our strengths while gradually becoming aware that they also define our weaknesses. And, through our weaknesses, we discover new strengths.

Because it lies at the heart of human existence, the question of paradox is particularly relevant for the discipline of bioethics.

Understandably, we struggle to make sense of the paradoxical nature of human existence which calls us to hold together contradictory realities. How do we reconcile the cognitive dissonance that characterises paradox and seems to defy rational logic? We do it in different ways.

All too often, in the face of the existential anxiety that flows from the awareness of our mortality and powerlessness, we draw on technology to try and exert ever greater control over the world in which we live. Rather than opting for a simpler lifestyle and reducing our carbon footprint in response to the environmental crisis, we look for solutions that won't interfere with our consumerist lifestyles. Rather than live and struggle with the challenges raised by disability we start to use prenatal testing to deny certain persons the right to life. Rather than caring for people with terminal illnesses in ways that invite us deeper into the mystery of suffering we start to argue for the legalisation of euthanasia to make a pre-emptive strike against death at the time of our choosing. Rather than acknowledging and reflecting on our responsibility to the common good we argue even more loudly for the right of the individual to choose.

What these responses have in common is that they attempt to cope with paradox by seeking to dissolve it. But this approach comes at a heavy price; it demands a degree of disconnection from our own bodies, other people, our environment, our universe and ultimately God. As Daniel O'Leary notes in an article titled " They shall be comforted" (The Tablet , 5 March 2011) , this disconnection results in a state of alienation that causes psychic damage. It is at odds with what we know deep within – that we are part of a loving unity that holds all things together, including those things that we experience as contradictory realities. It is also at odds with the findings of quantum physicists who have recently come to understand that the universe is interconnected in much more subtler ways than was previously thought.

Therefore, instead of dissolving or denying paradox, bioethics faces the challenge of holding in tension what is paradoxical. In our bioethical arguments this calls for us to protect and promote the inherent connectedness that exists between all things. It also calls for us to be wary of those ethical approaches which, in the way they seek to resolve dilemmas, rely on a fragmented description of reality that ignores or attempts to deny what is paradoxical.

The paradoxical nature of our existence offers a useful point of reference for critiquing the different human responses to the many dilemmas thrown up in the world of bioethics. More specifically it gives rise to a key question: To what extent do our reflections and thinking take adequate account of the reality of human paradox?

While the notion of paradox might present a philosophical conundrum for some, it is straightforwardly logical to those who are contemplatives. In the words of the prayer attributed to St Francis: For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

John Kleinsman
Director
The Nathaniel Centre

Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI

 Issue 30, April 2010

Address of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI to the Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life about the issues that revolve around the theme of bioethics.

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