Exam dates: May 16th and 31st

On May 16^th and 31^st luck should not be in anybody’s mind. It really is time to be getting on with genuine revision.

Eight and a half weeks ‘til AS

Ten and a half ‘til A2

'The Varieties of Religious Experience' by William James

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 'The Varieties of Religious Experience' by William James.

The American novelist Henry James famously made London his home and himself more English than the English. In contrast, his psychologist brother, William, was deeply immersed in his American heritage.

But in 1901, William came to Britain.

He had been invited to deliver a series of prestigious public lectures in Edinburgh.

In them, he attempted a daringly original intellectual project.

For the first time, here was a close-up examination of religion not as a body of beliefs, but as an intimate personal experience.

When the lectures were printed, as 'The Varieties of Religious Experience', they were an instant success.

They laid the ground for a whole new area of study - the psychology of religion - and influenced figures from the psychiatrist Carl Jung to the novelist Aldous Huxley.

To date, James's book has been reprinted thirty-six times and has been hailed as one of the best non-fiction books of the twentieth century.

With:

Jonathan Ree, Freelance philosopher
John Haldane, Professor of Philosophy at the University of St Andrews
Gwen Griffith-Dickson, Emeritus Professor of Divinity at Gresham College and Director of the Lokahi Foundation

Click the link below to listen to the podcast

http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/iotr/iotr_20100513-0900a.mp3

Abortion and Infanticide - Re-discovering the Slippery Slope

By Father John Flynn, LC
ROME, MARCH 9, 2011.- "When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

While this quote from “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There” is from a work of fiction, it is an apt way to depict the article published on Feb. 23 in the Journal of Medical Ethics titled: “After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?”

Authors Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, academics based in Melbourne, Australia, argued 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.”

Abortion is routinely permitted when the fetus is suffering from some type of defect or disease, or even for economic, social and psychological reasons, they said. And in Holland, under the 2002 Groningen Protocol newborns who have a “hopeless prognosis” may be killed.

Instead of the universally accepted term of infanticide to describe such a procedure they argued in favor of their neologism, “after-birth abortion.”

"The moral status of an infant is equivalent to that of a fetus in the sense that both lack those properties that justify the attribution of a right to life to an individual,” they claimed.

They did not put any limit as to how long after birth this so-called abortion should be permitted, aside from noting that normally any disability would be detected in a matter of days. When the justification is on non-medical grounds they also omitted any time period, saying it just depended on the neurological development of newborns.

Reasoned engagement

Not surprisingly their article elicited a great deal of criticism. In reaction to this, in the journal’s blog on Feb. 20, Julian Savulescu, the editor of the journal, said their proposal of “after-birth abortion” was not disturbing, but what was disturbing were the hostile responses to what he termed “any kind of reasoned engagement.”

In an open letter penned by the article’s authors, published March 2 on the journal’s Web site, they proclaimed their astonishment at the hostile reactions, saying: “It was meant to be a pure exercise of logic.”

Their tactic of describing the article as an intellectual exercise was anticipated by Bill Muehlenberg in an article posted the day before on the Australian Web site On Line Opinion.

“Decades prior to the Holocaust there were many academic positions and pronouncements which prepared the way for what Hitler and the Nazis did,” he pointed out.

“Using the classroom and scholarly journals to make the case – coolly and calmly – for baby killing is not an indication of professionalism and progress,” he argued. “It is a sign of barbarism and regress.”
Ideas have consequences, argued Trevor Stammers in an article published March 5 on the Web site Mercator Net.

“To put it in plain English, every social revolution begins with an idea and Giubilini and Minerva’s ideas are no exception and have every relevance in the world beyond academia,” he said.

As a parent of a Down syndrome child, their arguments disgust me, declared David Warren, writing in the March 2 edition of the Canadian newspaper, The Ottawa Citizen.

It’s true, he admitted, that others such as ethicist Peter Singer have previously advocated infanticide. Then again, he pointed out, Singer also advocates the acceptance of bestiality.

“Kill babies and sleep with apes: it’s fine with the ethics mob,” was the title of Rod Liddle’s article in last weekend’s Sunday Times. Describing the article as a flawed rendition of Peter Singer’s position, Liddle ridiculed it, saying it lacked not only common sense, but any logic.

In Scotland on Sunday, commentator Gerald Warner noted that: “the most dangerous place on earth for a Scottish baby is its mother’s womb. In 2010, infant mortality claimed the lives of 218 babies; abortion killed 12,826.”

Ethical nihilism

While the advocacy of “after-birth abortion” might be a good example of what he termed “ethical nihilism,” he observed that the authors had, in fact, helped the pro-life cause. “It abandons the weasel euphemisms, lies and anti-scientific impostures of the pro-abortion lobby and calls a spade a spade,” he said.

Writing in Australia’s Daily Telegraph newspaper, Andrew Bolt said: “Indeed, there is no obvious boundary once you've rubbed out the absolute line in the sand: Thou shalt not kill the baby in the womb.”
The slippery slope does exist, he argued, and this case shows just how slippery it can become.

On March 7, Barney Zwartz, religion editor of the Age newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, said that a fatal step was taken in the debate about life when “quality of life” was allowed to replace the value of life in such discussions.

Also the father of a child with Down, he said that: “Nor is it any justification to claim one is following logic. Logic is a tool, whose usefulness depends on the premises with which it works; it is not a good in itself.”

Those upholding firm moral principles are criticized as being overly “rigid.” This latest episode shows what being “flexible” comes to when dealing with fundamental moral principles.

Exam deadlines and revision

11 weeks ‘til AS

13 weeks ‘til A2

You really do need to be getting on with revision, even if only for your timed essays.

You have had the specification many times from me, if you still don’t have easy access to it either go to the website and get a copy or see me.

“Know your enemy”

Multiple Births: When 'Supply' Exceeds 'Demand'

What's to Come of Treating Children as Commodities?

By Dr. Rebecca Oas

WASHINGTON, D.C., FEB. 29, 2012 (Zenit.org).- In 1934, a French Canadian mother gave birth to five daughters who would become internationally famous as the first recorded set of quintuplets to survive infancy. During their childhood, the Dionne sisters became a popular tourist attraction and went on to appear in several Hollywood movies.

Seventy-five years later, Nadya Suleman, a single mother of six in California, gave birth to octuplets and became infamously known as the "Octomom," following in vitro fertilization (IVF) conducted by a doctor whose license was subsequently revoked. Throughout human history, multiple births have been regarded with interest, sometimes bordering on morbid fascination as we approach and surpass the known limits of human reproductive capability, now with the assistance of novel scientific interventions.

Part of what makes multiple births interesting is their relative rarity. Within the United States, the rate of multiple births compared to total births remained relatively steady at close to 2% from the early 20thcentury to the early 1980s. However, in January, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a report in which they documented a dramatic increase in twins, triplets, and higher order multiple births in the United States between 1980 and 2009 (1). This reflects an international trend, as studies from other countries such as Canada and Japan reported similar findings (2,3). From a public health standpoint, as multiple births have been associated with a greater risk of prematurity and other resulting complications than single births (4), such a significant increase in twins and other multiples has important implications for health care standards.

Advancing medical technologies in the latter half of the 20th century have greatly reduced the level of infant mortality in general, and notably among multiple births as well. Between 1960 and the early 1980s, mortality rates among triplets and higher order multiples decreased by approximately 50% (5), which signaled that while such children were likely to require special care to survive, their survival was increasingly likely. Nevertheless, given the inherent hazards of being a twin or triplet as opposed to being a singleton, it follows that care must be taken wherever possible to not artificially increase the likelihood of multiple births, given the medical risks to the unborn children, as well as their mothers. To put this in terms of Catholic teaching, as the 1987 instruction Donum Vitae reminds us, the life and integrity of unborn children must be respected and not subjected to disproportionate risks, whether diagnostic or therapeutic (6).

A further matter of concern involves the underlying causes of the reported increase in multiple births in the last three decades. The studies from the United States, Canada, and Japan all cited two hypothesized reasons for the increase: greater maternal age (particularly the increased delay in having one's first child), and the expansion of fertility treatments, both in terms of variety and frequency of use. It is demonstrably clear that women are increasingly postponing childbirth into their 30s, and that the difference in maternal age within the population is causally linked to an increase in the incidence of twins or other multiple births, for reasons independent of medical treatments to increase fertility. However, as an increasing number of international studies show, this factor alone cannot account for the entire rise in multiple births, and there is a strong consensus among the authors of these studies that fertility treatments are a major influence as well. According to the study from Japan, as many as 50% of multiple births in 2004 and 2005 were iatrogenic, or directly resulting from medical intervention (3). The CDC report from the United States estimates that two-thirds of the increase in multiple births can be attributed to assisted reproductive technology (2). Clearly, even as medical advances are improving the outcomes for multifoetal pregnancies, the reproductive industry is making this increasingly necessary.

There is no doubt that reproduction is an industry, and a very lucrative one, at that. The costs of IVF run in the tens of thousands of American dollars for a single attempt, and the woman must receive regular hormone injections and undergo invasive procedures to both retrieve eggs and transfer embryos into her uterus. Given the physical and financial toll exerted by IVF, prospective parents and medical professionals place a great deal of emphasis on achieving a successful birth with as few attempts as possible. Therefore, it is common to transfer more than one embryo at a time, in the hopes that at least one will survive. In the event of the survival of multiple embryos, or if the embryos further divide in a case of identical twinning, the parents are offered the option of a "selective reduction," in which one or more of the foetuses is aborted.

The argument used to support this practice is that the fewer the number of babies, the better the projected outcome for the survivor(s). In other words, even if a mother would be happy to accept twins or triplets, she may be counselled to "reduce" the number of her children for fear that she might be more likely to miscarry and lose the entire pregnancy. Sadly, this barbaric practice is being increasingly recommended not only for higher-order multiples, but also for twins, including those which occur naturally (7). In an opinion piece in Newsweek, a doctor justified his practice of performing reductions by asserting that "lots of lives are at risk" -- yet further admitted that he takes parents' gender preferences into consideration when deciding who lives and who dies (8).

Just as medical advances are being abused to produce children as commodities, they are likewise being abused to destroy those children when the "supply" is perceived as being greater than the "demand." Researchers, medical professionals, and ethicists alike are working to establish standards regarding the number of embryos transferred in IVF, and there is broad condemnation of those who ignore all standards and recklessly endanger patients and their children, such as the doctor responsible for Ms. Suleman's shocking case.

A recent article in the journal Fertility and Sterility reports a novel way to screen unfertilized oocytes (eggs) to determine which would be more likely to produce viable embryos once fertilized (9). This method, if successful, might be used to strengthen the argument for single-embryo transfer in IVF, and since the test is performed prior to fertilization, it might potentially reduce the number of embryos being generated in vitro and subsequently frozen. However, this discovery, as well as all other efforts to "perfect" IVF, are insufficient inasmuch as they fail to address the core problem with the fertility industry: the removal of the procreation of human life from the context of the marital embrace is an affront to the dignity of the couple, and to produce children on-demand as commodities is an affront to their dignity as human beings.

While every child born is cause for celebration, the sharp increase in multiple births is cause for sober reflection since we have identified assisted reproductive technology as a major contributing cause for this increase. On the one hand, medical advances have made it possible for more sets of multiples to be born and survive infancy than ever before in human history. On the other hand, the booming fertility industry and the resulting commodification of children have certainly made its mark on international demographics, as evidenced by these recent reports. As faithful Catholics, we must continue to educate our culture about the arguments against IVF, even as we welcome the children conceived both naturally and through the use of assisted reproductive technology -- whether they come alone or in groups of two or more.

* * *

Rebecca Oas, Ph.D., is a Fellow of HLI America, an educational initiative of Human Life International. Dr. Oas is a postdoctoral fellow in genetics and molecular biology at Emory University. She writes for HLI America's Truth and Charity Forum.

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1) Martin, JA; Hamilton, BE; and Osterman, MJK. Three Decades of Twin Births in the United States, 1980–2009 http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db80.htm

2) Cook, JL; Collins, J; Buckett, W; Racowsky, C; Hughes, E; Jarvi, K. Assisted Reproductive Technology-Related Multiple Births: Canada in an International Context. www.jogc.com/abstracts/full/201102_HealthPolicy_1.pdf

3) Ooki, S. Effect of Maternal Age and Fertility Treatment on the Increase in Multiple Births in Japan: Vital Statistics, 1974–2009. Journal of Epidemiology. http://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/jea/21/6/21_507/_article

4) Alexander, GR; Kogan, M; Martin, J; Papiernik, E. What Are the Fetal Growth Patterns of Singletons, Twins, and Triplets in the United States? Clinical Obstetrics and Gynecology. Issue: Volume 41(1), March 1998, pp 115-125

5) Kiely, JL; Kleinman, JC; Kiely, M. Triplets and higher-order multiple births. Time trends and infant mortality. American Journal of Diseases of Children. 1992 Jul;146(7):862-8.

6) Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Instruction on Respect for Human Life in Its Origin and on the Dignity of Procreation (Donum Vitae), 1987.

7) Antsaklis, A and Anastasakis, E. Selective reduction in twins and multiple pregnancies. Journal of Perinatal Medicine, Vol. 39, 2011.

8) Evans, MI. The Truth About Multiple Births. Newsweek; 3/2/2009, Vol. 153 Issue 9.

9) Swann K, Windsor S, Campbell K, Elgmati K, Nomikos M, Zernicka-Goetz M, Amso N, Lai FA, Thomas A, Graham C. Phospholipase C-ζ-induced Ca(2+) oscillations cause coincident cytoplasmic movements in human oocytes that failed to fertilize after intracytoplasmic sperm injection. Fertility and Sterility. 2012 Jan 2.