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The Oxford Amnesty Lectures 1998
Edited by Justine Burley; Forward by Richard Dawkins
Oxford University Press, Stelle, Illinois -- 1989, 1997
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0192862014/
Is the practice of eugenics morally defensible? Who should have access to genetic information aobut particular individuals? What dangers for cultural and racial diversity do developments in genetics pose? How should scientific research be regulated and by whom? ...
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Cloning and Public Policy -- Ruth Deech
[John] Harris [in his paper "Clones, Genes, and Human Rights"] calls the public reaction against cloning, 'hysterical'. But, as my preceding remarks make clear, this characterization is misleading. It is perfectly reasonable of us to think that human reproductive cloning, even if used responsibly, violates the sensible rules that we have about the moral status of human embryos; the technique would undoubtedly involve unlawful creation and immense wastage of them. It is also reasonable to fear that a cloned child's well-being might well be threatened. And it is eminently reasonable to worry that cloning technology poses problems about parentage and that it might be abused in the absence of internationally enforceable regulations. Thus, while it is true that adverse public reaction to cloning has been strong, it is not as misplaced as Harris implies,
The refinement of the meaning and uses of cloning allow more precise consideration of the practical, social and ethical issues involved. This is where philosophers such as John Harris have helped most--clarifying and defining the questions that individuals, society, and policy-makers need to address in light of Dolly. John Harris challenges some of the assumptions that underscore our reactions to the possibility of human cloning and, in so doing, he forces us to confront these issues and has moved the debate forward. Meanwhile the HFEA (Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority) and others have a responsibility to ensure that the understandable fears of society at large are not forgotten. (100)
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A Perspective from Africa on
Human Rights and Genetic Engineering--Solomon R. Benatar
Solomon R Benatar is Professor of Medicine and Founding
Director of the UCT Bioethics Centre. He was Chairman of the
University of Cape Town's Department of Internal Medicine and
Chief Physician at Groote Schuur Hospital from 1980-1999.
Additional appointments that he currently holds are Visiting
Professor of Medical Ethics at University College London Medical
School (1997-), Visiting Professor in Public Health Sciences and
Medicine at the University of Toronto (2000-), Chairman of the
National Research Ethics Committee in South Africa, and
President of the International Association of Bioethics
(2001-2003). He is Director of a NIH (Fogarty International
Center) funded program for capacity building in International
Research Ethics in southern Africa.
http://www.utoronto.ca/jcb/solomon_benatar.html
Powerful Forces
Intense poverty, widespread starvation, recurrent wars, infectious diseases--including escalating rates of HIV infection--and failure to achieve widespread democracy, are all manifestations of failure at the level of whole systems which cause untold misery and may in the long term undermine progress throughout Africa, including South Africa. . .
I will suggest that acknowledging the powerful forces which sustain social injustice is the first step towards new ways of thinking that could promote a broader notion of moral behaviour and a socially responsible concept of rights. . .
Witnessing the squalid conditions of life and facilities in public hospitals in central Africa evokes the feeling of being transported back into the middle ages and vividly portrays the extent to which spectacular developments in the modern era have not even remotely benefited billions of people. . .
The minimum prices paid for raw materials associated with devaluation of the currency of poor countries, payment of demeaning wages to workers in foreign countries less committed to human rights, protectionist trade practices, and the trillion dollar a day market in foreign exchange across financial networks (only 10 percent of which is for trade in goods and services) have resulted in extremes of wealth and poverty. While material conditions of life have generally improved, not all have benefited, as wealth and misery are generated simultaneously. . .
The extent to which the military has become autonomous in many countries (including the USA) and immune ot democratic control has been described with foreboding by J.K. Galbraith. Virtually all wars since 1945 ahve been fought in Third World countries, resulting in 23 million deaths. More recently, civilian wars, often linked to historic ethnic enmities, opposition to oppressive governments, or arising from artificial geographical boundaries created by colonial powers, have resulted in millions of deaths. UNICEF estimates that in 1994, 30 million children died due to wars and poverty--300 times as many deaths as resulted from the bombing of Hiroshima and Hagasaki. . .
Within a globalizing economy, economic power has been shifted from potentially accountable governments within nations, to multinational corporations and other unaccountable transnational market forces. The fear of big government has resulted in the creation of big business wielding enormous power that cuts across nations. . .
Africa
Since the release of Africa in the 1960s to independence, powerful nations have colluded with selfish leaders co-opted into neo-liberal economic policies, and enslavement has continue to obstruct development under the more covert and sophisticated guises I have described. It has been argued that in time it will be recognized that the impact of these processes, and in particular the creation of an unpayable debt, will greatly exceed the horrors of slavery.
Africans must, of course, take some responsibility for the state of their continent since post-colonial independence. Poor leadership, corruption, internal exploitation, nepotism, tribalism, authoritarianism, military rule, and overpopulation through patriarchal attitudes and disempowerment of women have all contributed to its sad state, although, to be fair, these shortcomings must be seen in the context of powerful external disruptive forces acting over several centuries. The tragedy of Africa is now being aggravated by its elimination from the foreign policy agendas of powerful countries perceived to be of its own making and 'of such diffuseness and magnitude that he world at large shrinks from engaging them'. . .
The viewpoint I shall express from an African perspective regarding modern biotechnology should be seen against this background, but not as an attempt to provide and all embracing view. . .
Attitudes
Secular Western attitudes to the concept of the sel as highly individualistic, and unconnected to the community or the spiritual world, further undermine the confidence of Africans who view people as both uniquely individual and as intimately connected by relationship to others in the present, past, and future. This African conception of humanity, which places great value on both the individual and on the collectivity of people, views the life-forces of an individual both during life and after death as incompatible with both organ donation and the cloning of an identical body. While this view--expressed through abhorrence for organ transplantation and a fear of the implications of twins for the individual soul--may be waning as African cultures transform under the influence of other cultures; the concept remains powerful.
We should not be surprised or derogatory about this unless we are consistent in applying our attitudes to the religious beliefs, myths, and superstition which persist in a scientific and secular era in the west. Given the pervasiveness of a deeply spiritual and communal world-view in Africa--and the fact that many Africans perceive most sources of modern power to be used against them (or not for their benefit) by those lacking spiritual awe for life, and by those whose political and economic decisions are focused on individualism and materialism--it is not difficult to imagine why Africans should lack confidence that the ability to alter genetic structures will suddenly be used for the benefit of all humans--including them.
Economic Freedoms
The triumph of freedom in economic life, in the thrust towards a global economy, has created a huge zone of unaccountability that result in defection from other liberal values, such as those supportive of community and social reform. The concern has been expressed that this may foster the unfolding of a tyranny of unaccountable economic rulers--that is to say economic totalitarianism in place of the political totalitarianism that was feared by some as the road to serfdom.
This increasing dominance of an economic way of thinking is illustrated by comments from one US economist that 'Two thirds of the world's population are . . . superfluous from the standpoint of the market. By and larger we don't need what they have; they can't buy what we sell' . . . and 'In the perspective of world capitalism as we know it these people just do not count. . . Unless that part of the world develops the capacity for terrorist blackmail, they will be in the charity ward for a long time.'
Such considerations remind us of the danger to the world from violence among the poor and dispossessed and the potential for mass migration and social chaos when poverty and disaster cause law and order to disintegrate.
While liberalism may be the only comprehensive and hopeful vision of world affairs, it is not of necessity only tightly linked to capitalism. Some who are committed to the ideals of capitalism recognize that the perception of this tight link has been formed in a period that is now moving to a close, and that there is a need to search for new ways of understanding that go beyond believing that behaviour driven by economic considerations alone can be the order-generating force for any society.
From the human rights perspective it is necessary to appreciate that one of the fundamental underpinnings of the international consensus on human rights norms is that the two major categories of rights--civil and political rights on the one hand and economic, social, and cultural rights on the other--are interrelated and indivisible.
Neglect of Conceptual Logic of Rights
. . . Human rights cannot be satisfied in poor countries if rich countries do not honour their duty not to exert economic and military power in ways that undermine the rights of others.
Inconsistencies in Monitoring Human Rights Abuses and
in Applying Human Rights
. . . the United States is notable for two aspects of its programme. First (1) it selectively monitors and reports on human rights in other countries but fails to monitor/report human rights abuses within its own borders. In so doing there is denial and masking of the extent to which the freedoms of its own citizens to control their lives have been eroded by powerful economic forces...
Second (2) the exploitation and control of the economy of poor countries, which obstructs the development necessary to provide conditions conducive to respecting civil and political rights, is further aggravated by setting human rights standards for itself that exclude socio-economic rights. By ignoring the impact of its economic and foreign policies on the rights of citizen of these countries the USA seems oblivious to the damage done to the concept and the achievement of human rights by its own actions.
The propagation of human rights without respecting others in the universal manner intended, and assessment of human rights standards inconsistently by a country which most actively espouses the concept, also fails to instil confidence in those who have long been oppressed, and lead them to fear that the economic and security interest of the rich will always take precedence over humanitarian considerations. . . .
The Rights of Future Generations
. . . Some industrialized countries acknowledge their excessive consumption and urge environmental and population control but show scant concern for the needs of others by focusing on control of population and pollution of the environment in poor countries, without making a serious commitment to reducing their own unsustainable patterns of consumption. . . .
Some Directions for Change
The time has come for a new mind-set, one in which a highly individualistic concept of human rights based on the notion of individuals as merely selfishly autonomous, is broadened into a socially responsible concept of human rights which recognizes both our individuality and the mutually advantageous relationships between individuals and nations.
Imaginative and ambitious national agendas and global development strategies are needed. These could be coupled with progressive deflection of resources away from military might to moral right. Diverting a small fraction of the almost $1 trillion annual military expenditure to human development could prevent more than 95 percent of the premature deaths of over 30,000 children in the world every day in infancy, childhood, and adolescence from starvation and preventable infections diseases. . .
For those who continue to believe that the 'free hand of the market' is the gest way to achieve optimum human living conditions, Heilbroner provides several cogent reasons why the market system does not operate in this idyllic way. First, (1) the units of operation within the market are no longer small, adaptable enterprises. The growth of powerful transnational companies has destroyed the stability and adaptability associated with smaller enterprises, and has created 'giant beams in the super structure of capitalism' that destabilizes national economies.
Second, (2) ignoring the cost of external effects such as pollution allows for inaccurate and irrational cost-benefit calculations with serious adverse long-term implications. Third, (3) promotion of a culture of selfishness with emphasis on the consumption of saleable goods diminishes investment in those public goods--such as education, health care, and the environment--that are essential for the long-term survival of the social system within which the market operates.
Capitalism as an economic system is closely linked to liberalism as a political order and the integral connections between the two are often overlooked. However, the market, as the conduit for the energies created by capitalism, is acknowledged as imperfect and potentially subversive of some of liberalism's broader ideals. The design and implementation of new forms of control may make it less dysfunctional. . .
Conclusions
Trends in scholarly work reveal slowly emerging new paradigms of thinking that provide hope for such progress. These changes include a deeper understanding of history and of the social forces which shape the world, gradual shifts towards new ways of economic thinking, new directions in political philosophy, broadening concepts of the self, enhanced ecological sensitivity, shifts in understand how power can be used more constructively, greater respect for other cultures, and new perspectives on international relations. It is in such changing conceptions that there is hope for wisdom in the use of new forms of power that will flow from genetic engineering and other scientific advances.
We need to conceive of systems approaches within which patterns of behaviour at individual, national, and international levels could contribute to achieving our high ideas. Such ideals may be attainable if we could be more self-aware, more honest about ourselves and about our dependence on others for our existence--and more concerned about future generations.
While I am fully cognizant of the great complexity of the task that lie head I should like to echo the words of Chinua Achebe, the distinguish Nigerian author:
Despair should not eclipse hope . . . neither history nor legend encourages us to believe that a man who sits on his fellow will some day climb down on the basis of sounds reaching him from below. And yet we must consider how so much more dangerous our already very perilous world would become if the oppressed everywhere should despair altogether of invoke reason and humanity to arbitrate their cause.
(159 - 186)
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The Genetic Revolution and Human Rights
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Dr. Solomon Benatar
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