Reflections From a Murky Pond

Recently there’s been a rash of forced and false – or, at least, less than convincingly sincere apologies making the rounds of the media.

Somewhat interestingly, these false apologies seem non-partisan or bipartisan in nature. Both Liberals and Conservative have been forced by circumstances to bow to outside pressures and offer what they hope will be acceptable apologies.

Two such false apologies come quickly to mind:

• Conservative media icon and pundit, Rush Limbaugh has been forced to offer an apology for describing Liberal activist, Sandra Fluke as a slut and prostitute after various of his sponsors pulled their advertising in the wake of Liberal outrage over his comments.
• Liberal “bioethicists,” Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva have been forced to offer an apology for advocating the legitimacy of infanticide for any reason or no reason at all in the wake of a broad spectrum of people calling for their deaths.

It’s somewhat interesting that both coerced apologies differed from the normal bordering upon trite, insincere, “I’m sorry if anyone was offended by what I said,” vein.

• Limbaugh claimed he made poor word choices in his attempt to apply a humorous analogy of the situation and went on to imply that the blame, if there was any to be cast, should be laid at the doorstep of the absurdity of “discussing personal sexual recreational activities before members of Congress.”
• Giubilini’s and Minerva’s apology, if one can call it that, seemed to based upon the idea that we normal people, lacking the bioethicists’ special education and ability, should never have been granted access to such material since we couldn’t be expected to understand it or approach it clinically.

Unsurprisingly, Rush Limbaugh’s apology was not considered sincere and was not accepted, nor was that, by and large, from Giubilini and Minerva.

Leaving the question of whether either of these apologies was warranted and, as well, leaving aside the utter lack of believable sincerity in these two disparate attempts at apologizing, it had to be expected by anyone with an iota of sense that they would be rejected. It’s obvious that the vast majority of people would consider these apologies worthless.

Both apologies were given only after people were taking direct action against these people.  Hence, the apologies cannot be expected to be considered anything other than an attempt to avoid the natural consequences of their actions – even when they appear to be sincere.

Perhaps, many years ago, people were more attached to the “moral high ground” of forgiving other for the shear sake of forgiving. That was then; this is now, and people have well learned that the wages of mercy are often recidivism when such forgiveness is granted before reprisal has run it course.

Tags: Abortion | Alberto Giubilini | Apologies | Coercion | Ethics & Morality | Forgiveness | Francesca Minerva | Infanticide | Politics | Rush Limbaugh | Sandra Fluke | Sincerity | Society

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 7:32 pm and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Politics, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

If you go to where the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) had pre-published the article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” you’ll find that it’s gone. They have apparently pulled the article in response to the outrage that it caused.

I don’t know if this means that the editors of the Journal of Medical Ethics have had a rush of brains to the head and remembered that “ethics” is part of their rag’s title and that they won’t be publishing the pro-infanticide drivel by the would-be baby-killers, Giubilini and Minerva. One can certainly hope so though.

Ladies and gentlemen, this may only be small ethical victory and it may only end up being a temporary one, but it is a victory both for ethical behavior and for the power of the people in this information and near universal access age.

Savor it for what it’s worth but stay vigilant.

Tags: Alberto Giubilini | Bioethics | BMJ | Ethics & Morality | Francesca Minerva | Infanticide | JME | Julian Savulescu | Power | Society

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2012 at 7:50 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

The article by Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva entitled “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?” recently published in the The Journal of Medical Ethics presents Mankind with an immediate and profound ethical quandary.

It is not the quandary of whether or not there is an ethical imperative for Giubilini and Minerva to be killed for advocating infanticide in a venue that could, as Ezekiel Emanuel’s opus proves, affect medical science and policies. The ethical imperative to kill these would-be baby-killers is so obvious that it almost goes without saying.

Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call “after-birth abortion” (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.

Any society that will not protect its children and kill threats to those children is pointless, and exercise in futility, and eventually doomed to failure and dissolution. Hence, there is no quandary about whether or not Giubilini and Minerva need, from an ethical standpoint, to be hunted down and exterminated. It’s self-evident.

Would-Be Baby-Killers At Large

Alberto Giubilini

Monash University Centre for Human Bioethics
Room W925, West Wing, Level 9
Menzies Building (Building 11 & tallest on campus)
Wellington Rd, Clayton Victoria, AU
Alberto.Giubilini@monash.edu

Francesca Minerva

The University of Melbourne, School of Historical and Philosophical Studies
Room 1.23, East wing, Old Quad,
Parkville, Victoria VIC 3010 AU
francesca.minerva@unimelb.edu.au
Tel: +61 3 8344 9951

Nor would it be overly fruitful to dwell long upon the conflict between ethical imperatives and the strictures of mortal law. That’s a conflict that people resolve on a daily basis and is a normal part of living in a society where, perforce, law and justice cannot be the same thing and often widely diverge out of perceived necessity.

The True Man will make his decision as to either follow an ethical imperative or the law based upon his discernment of the overall risks and benefits to his people. The Low Man will decide what to do based upon the costs vs. benefits to himself. In either case though, these are decisions made daily and both True Men and Low Men may reach the same conclusions as to how to act on any given imperative.

No, the ethical quandary is whether or not there is an ethical imperative to exact punitive and deterring measures upon Julian Savulescu, Editor, Journal of Medical Ethics who provided them with a dangerously high profile venue, and Professor Sergio Bartolommei, University of Pisa, who provided Giubilini and Minerva aid and comfort in the actual writing of their treatise on infanticide.

The Would-Be Baby-Killers’ Enablers

Julian Savulescu (Left) & Sergio Bartolommei (Right)

Is there an ethical imperative to kill Savulescu and Bartolommei for the heinous acts of enabling the infanticidal vermin, Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva to publish their advocacy of “Post-Birth Abortions” where it could potentially do the most harm? Will some lesser act or acts of retribution and defensive measure suffice? Does no action need to be taken against them? That’s the real ethical quandary in this case.

My first instincts are that there is certainly an ethical imperative to take harsh action against Giubilini’s and Minerva’s enablers and that their deaths might be required for the sake of society’s overall health. Savulescu willfully chose to publish the would-be baby-killer’s paper and Bartolommei had the opportunity to quell their efforts at the start but chose to abet them instead.

Yet both of these men have professional duties that might preclude their refusal to enable Giubilini’s and Minerva’s evil. They also may, as True Men must, have weighed the possible harm that what amounts to censorship might cause vs. what harm such a paper might cause.

Not knowing Savulescu’s and Bartolommei’s motivations for providing aid and comfort to Giubilini and Minerva, I can’t say for certain that there’s an ethical imperative to take any action at all against these two men. Yet, likewise, I cannot think ill of or speak out against anyone who, after consideration, arrived at the opposite decision and chose to kill them.

It’s an ethical quandary. All one can do is apply reason to it and follow one’s conscience wherever it leads them.

~*~

UPDATE: The Journal of Medical Ethics has deleted the online pre-publication of the would-be baby-killers’ article! It looks like the outrage of right-thinking people scored a small ethical victory.

Tags: Abortion | Alberto Giubilini | Bioethics | Children | Ethics & Morality | Francesca Minerva | Infanticide | Julian Savulescu | Justice | Murder | Parenting | Sergio Bartolommei | Society | Vermin

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2012 at 9:57 am and is filed under Ethics & Morality, Society. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.