domingo, 9 de octubre de 2016

BioEdge: Oderberg on contraceptives, abortion and cooperation in wrongdoing

BioEdge: Oderberg on contraceptives, abortion and cooperation in wrongdoing

Bioedge

Oderberg on contraceptives, abortion and cooperation in wrongdoing
     
Conscientious objection has long been a cause of controversy in bioethics, and has the topic has received significant attention in recent months.
David Oderberg, a moral philosopher from the University of Reading, has weighed into the debatewith a sophisticated analysis of the “increasingly important issue of cooperation in immoral actions”.
In a new article in the Journal of Medical Ethics,Oderberg outlines a “set of principles that courts can apply” to cases concerning cooperation in wrongdoing -- drawing in particular upon concepts developed, though not exclusive to, the Catholic moral theological tradition.
Oderberg suggests that an appeal to the principle of double effect (PDE) can give us just the sort of jurisprudential system we need.
“The basic idea is that the fundamental principle of practical reasoning is to do good and avoid doing bad, but unless this principle requires more than can be expected of a finite human agent it has to be qualified. Since so much of what we do has bad effects whether we intend them or not … we have to be permitted to cause bad things to happen -- although within strict requirements”.
While Oderberg suggests that there are many cases where PDE may justify cooperation in evil, he argues that there are serious issues with proximate involvement in wrongful actions -- an example of which is the provision of fully subsidised contraceptives by employers for employees through health insurance plans. Analysing the legal reasoning in the case of Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, Oderberg remarks:

“On the assumption that (abortafacient) contraception is wrong, the plaintiffs were being asked to cooperate in wrongdoing...Their cooperation would have been mediate since they were supplying the means for contraception to be used, namely paying the insurance company … The cooperation would have been relatively proximate. The plaintiffs were being asked to subsidise, although indirectly, behavior they considered wrong”.
Oderberg repeatedly criticises the so-called “sincerity test” of conscience that courts apply,  saying that its laxity could lead to “an increasingly restrictive backlash by the courts, which could significantly reduce religious freedom and conscientious objection”.
“If the current mere sincerity test were replaced by a reasonableness test based on objective principles of cooperation … a more balanced jurisprudence would be likely to follow.”
Bioedge



Bioedge

British actress Sally Phillips has made a magnificent documentary about Down Syndrome for the BBC. (You can watch it here on a dodgy YouTube link.) Her own son Ollie has Down Syndrome and Ms Phillips is convinced that Ollie has been a jolly good thing for her and her family. It grieves her to see that most mothers treat a diagnosis of Down Syndrome as a catastrophe. In the UK about 90% of women abort their Down Syndrome child after screening; in Iceland 100% of mothers do. That's 100%.
Ms Phillips tells the camera, as she chokes back tears, “The type of characteristics that these people share are so benign. It’s like when the Western explorers encountered the dodo. This nice, curious bird comes up and gets … wiped out. Through not being suspicious enough. Or violent enough.” This makes her concerned about what the Brits call NIPT (non-invasive pre-natal testing) which is being rolled out across the country.
The documentary is unashamedly emotional. That’s the way it should be. Thank God somebody has the courage to feel emotional about Down Syndrome people. I started to get angry when I read a scathing review in the New Statesman dismissing the doco as “profoundly anti-choice”. But there’s no point in being angry with someone whose attachment to an ideology blinds them to the splendour of being human. 


Michael Cook
Editor
BioEdge



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