The Reality of Human Exceptionalism

 

Dr. Alice C. Linsley

Many social issues of the Western world hinge on decisive statements about humans. They touch on human dignity, human diversity, human rights, and human reproduction. We hear from "experts" in many fields, but rarely from anthropologists whose focus is humankind.

The British biologist Richard Dawkins has been outspoken on these issues. In a particularly flamboyant statement, he denigrated the dignity of the unborn human.

"With respect to those meanings of 'human' that are relevant to the morality of abortion, any fetus is less human than an adult pig." - Richard Dawkins' Tweet

Yet Dawkins acknowledges that humans are exceptional. He states: "As Darwin recognized, we humans are the first and only species able to escape the brutal force that created us, natural selection….We alone on earth have evolved to the point where we can…overthrow the tyranny of natural selection.” (Have Humans Outgrown Natural Selection?)

The Hebrew writers of Genesis believed that God created humans fully human from the beginning in a divine act at a moment in the distant past. There is no reason to reject this view since humans appeared suddenly on the earth about 4 million years ago, and though these were anatomically archaic, they were nonetheless, fully human. We have evidence that they walked upright, had human dentition, hunted and butchered, and controlled fire.

The discovery of a complete fourth metatarsal of A. afarensis at Hadar shows the deep, flat base and tarsal facets that "imply that its midfoot had no ape-like midtarsal break. These features show that the A. afarensis foot was functionally like that of modern humans." (Carol Ward, William H. Kimbel, Donald C. Johanson, Feb. 2011)

A. afarensis used polished bone tools, had communal meals, and controlled fire. Some of the earliest evidence of controlled use of fire by humans was found at Swartkrans in South Africa. Other sites that indicate fire use include Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora and Olorgesailie in Kenya.

In 2011 researchers discovered jaw bones and teeth of four individuals in the Afar region of Ethiopia which date to between 3.3m and 3.5m years old. These archaic humans were alive at the same time as other groups of early humans. Clearly, there were more archaic humans living in Africa 3 million years ago than is generally recognized.

Jeremy DeSilva showed that Australopithecus lacked the large grasping toe typical of tree climbers, and its spine, pelvis, knees, and ankles were made for walking on two legs. DeSilva compared the ankle joint, the tibia and the talus fossils of human ancestors ("hominins") between 4.12 million to 1.53 million years old, he discovered that all of the ankle joints resembled those of modern humans rather than those of apes. Chimpanzees flex their ankles 45 degrees from normal resting position. This makes it possible for apes to climb trees with great ease. While walking, humans flex their ankles a maximum of 20 degrees. The human ankle bones are quite distinct from those of apes. (One Small Step for Man — Bostonia Summer 2010)

Muscle reconstruction provides further evidence that the Australopithecine walked as modern humans do.

From the perspective of anthropology, the deep time record of human activity is evident in the vast number of innovative objects made and used by humans. Here is a short list.

Deniers of Human Exceptionalism

Human exceptionalism proposes, on the basis of data, that humans are unique and superior to other animals. Deniers claim that the belief is dangerous because it can lead to unsustainable practices and environmental degradation. However, humans also undertake many productive measures to preserve their environments.

Deniers assert that belief in human exceptionalism can lead to forgetting how all living creatures are interdependent. However, humans protect and encourage pollinators such as bees and butterflies, and control invasive species. We create protected areas, practice sustainable land management, support conservation efforts, and encourage biodiversity.

Deniers claim that belief in human exceptionalism promotes exploitation of other living creatures. Yet humans are compassionate toward animals and seek to preserve them and their habitats. Humans came up with animal husbandry, veterinary medicine, and fund-raising projects to improve the lives of other creatures.

Humans organize for war, ritually bury their dead, and offer prayers. They venerate their ancestors, create shrines to their heroes, and develop political systems. 

To deny the reality of human exceptionalism is to deny facts. Anthropologists have observed many complex social structures among humans, our ability to laugh at ourselves, to create play, to reason using high logic, to negotiate and resolve conflicts, to deliberate moral and ethical questions, and to adapt fairly quickly to ever-changing conditions. 

Related reading: STEM Education: What Paleoanthropologists Want to Discover; Many Groups of Archaic Humans; Can Molecular Models be aligned with Human Morphology?

Mass Hysterectomies of Detainees in Georgia

Michael Cook, Editor of BioEdge

Source: Whistle-blower claims that detainees in US facility were sterilised without consent

More than 170 members of Congress have called for an inquiry into allegations that women immigrants in an ICE detention centre in Georgia had unnecessary hysterectomies.

The charges were made by whistle-blower at the facility, run by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Health Service Corps. Dawn Wooten, a nurse, claims that several women told her that a local doctor who works in the facility had removed their womb. “That’s his specialty, he’s the uterus collector,” said one woman.

These claims are vehemently denied by the doctor and have not been verified. However, they are a disturbing echo of abuses alleged to have taken place a few years ago in two California prisons.

Ms Wooten told activists at Project South that that detainees complained that they didn’t fully understand what the doctor was doing. She said: “I’ve had several inmates tell me that they’ve been to see the doctor and they’ve had hysterectomies and they don’t know why they went or why they’re going.”

She also said: “When I met all these women who had had surgeries, I thought this was like an experimental concentration camp. It was like they’re experimenting with our bodies.”

Dr Ada Rivera, of the ICE Health Services Corps, told the New York Times that the allegations would be investigated, but that the agency “vehemently disputes the implication that detainees are used for experimental medical procedures.”

A letter from members of Congress demanded an immediate investigation:

The reports of mass hysterectomies cause grave concern for the violation of the bodily autonomy and reproductive rights of detained people. Everyone, regardless of their immigration status, their language, or their incarceration deserves to control their own reproductive choices, and make informed choices about their bodies.

Related reading: China's Mass Sterilization of Muslim Minorities; Mass Sterilization of Native American Women; Peru's Forced Sterilization of Indigenous Women; India Withdraws Forced Sterilization Order

Galway's Baby Burial Grounds

The ancient custom in Ireland was to bury unbaptised children, strangers, suicides and criminals in mass graves. Here is a map of all of the “children’s burial grounds” in Galway, taken from a National Monuments Service interactive map.

Michael Cook

The Catholic Church in Ireland and its ferocious nuns are being pilloried over yet another tranche of decades-old crimes. “Galway Historian Finds 800 Babies in Septic Tank Grave” is the headline in the Boston Globe. As the story snowballs don’t be surprised if you read about “the killing fields of Ireland”.

The remains were found on the site of a home for unmarried mothers and their children run by the Bon Secours Sisters between 1925 and 1961 in Tuam, County Galway. Sketchy accounts which are appearing in the media evoke images of murdered children and secret burials. Guardian columnist Emer O’Toole wrote in an incandescent fury: “Do not say Catholic prayers over these dead children. Don't insult those who were in life despised and abused by you. Instead, tell us where the rest of the bodies are.” A Government Senator from Galway, Fine Gael’s Hildegarde Naughton, has called what happened “manslaughter”.

But the fires of indignation burn hottest and highest when they are uncontaminated by facts. Before politicians and columnists launch into their well-rehearsed litanies denouncing sadistic nuns and misogynist clerics, it might be wise to scout whether there are enough facts to justify the scaremongering.

Read the real story behind Ireland's mass graves here.

Sperm/Egg Donor Anonymity Ban Unethical?

Donor conception is often shrouded in secrecy. At age 7, only about half of children know that they were conceived with donor eggs; the figure for donor sperm is only about one-quarter. Legislation forcing IVF clinics to give access to the identity of the donors is spreading. In Sweden, Austria, the Australian state of Victoria, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Norway, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, anonymous donation has been banned.

But is this necessary? Writing in The Hastings Center Report, bioethicist Inmaculada De Melo-Martín says No. There is no desperate need for children to connect with their genetic parents. In fact, she says, a policy of non-anonymity may even be socially harmful.

She attacks supporters of the right to genetic information on three counts.

It is argued that secrecy could harm family relationships. But, she counters, the empirical evidence is ambiguous. “It is not clear that secrets are prima facie wrong or even that all secrets are in need of justification. Secrets can protect important aspects of human life, even when they can also invite abuse. Indeed, rights proponents are not proposing an end to all family secrets, or even to all secrets that relate to mode of conception.”

It is argued that children need to know their genetic origins for the sake of their health. But says Melo-Martín, this overstates the role of genetics and biology in a person’s life. Clinics screen donors for genetic diseases, so the process should be safe. In any case, “Even if people had accurate information about their genetic relatives, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude that access to family history improves risk prediction, changes people's risk perceptions, and leads to better health outcomes.”

It is argued that we have a natural need to know our genetic forebears and that people who do not know their genetic parents suffer from “genealogical bewilderment”. But, Melo-Martín, argues, there is no robust empirical evidence for this. In any case,

“even if many donor-conceived people had a very strong interest in knowing their genetic origins and suffered when they lacked that knowledge, depriving children of such information would still not be shown wrong. People have all kinds of interests that we would be reluctant to say must be satisfied. Unless one presupposes—problematically—that knowledge about genetic parentage is necessary to develop healthy identities, then it does not seem that the legitimate interest of donor-conceived people in identity formation is thwarted by lacking such knowledge.”

Furthermore, mandating non-anonymity could be socially harmful. People who do not know their genetic parents could be stigmatised. Such a policy could promote “genetic essentialism”, the controversial notion that we are determined by our genes. Worst of all, perhaps, says Melo-Martín, “Emphasizing the importance of genetic relationships might also encourage problematic beliefs about the superiority of biological families”. Non-biological families formed by gay and lesbian couples could be treated as “pathological deviations”.

Source: BioEdge

Sweden's Hypocrisy Denies Grimmark Work

Ellinor Grimark   Photo: Fredrik Persson / TT

In 2011, the European Council adopted a resolution that protects healthcare workers' right to freedom of conscience regarding abortion and euthanasia. Sweden has signed this agreement. But reality paints a different picture. Out of the 47 member states in the European Council, Finland and Sweden are the only two which do not uphold freedom of conscience in practice.

Ellinor Grimmark, 37, is the first midwife in Sweden to report a hospital to the Discrimination Ombudsman (DO) concerning abortion. She claims to have been discriminated against on the basis of her religious beliefs and moral convictions. Newly-graduated, she was fired from her position last summer because she refused to assist abortions. Even though there is a shortage of midwives at the moment, and even though she is willing to take on double shifts, she has been denied a job ever since. One employer had first agreed to hire her in spite of the “complication”, but withdrew the offer when her story began to spread in media.

Read it all here.

Embryo Selection: Some ethical concerns

By Amy Julia Becker

It sounds pretty basic. A lovely young couple wants children, and they want those children to prosper and grow. They want to do as much as they reasonably can to ensure that those children have good, full lives. Happy lives. Lives that are as free from suffering and pain as possible. The problem is that they run the risk of bearing children with a gene that will probably cause a slow and painful death, albeit a death many decades in the future.

What should they do? Never have children? Adopt? Take the risk and conceive, come what may? Take the risk, conceive, and then terminate the pregnancy if the gene is present? Or try preimplantation genetic diagnosis, which involves creating embryos and testing them for the problematic gene and only implanting embryos free of the gene?

In the case of the Kolinsky family, as Gina Kolata reports for the New York Times, they chose preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) in order to be certain that none of their children inherited their mother’s rare, painful, fatal neurological disease. As Kolata reports, the use of genetic testing and PGD is on the rise, and so the ethical questions associated with these tests are all the more relevant to all of us. As she writes:

Ethicists are divided about use of the method.

Janet Malek, a bioethicist at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University, said that people who carry a gene like GSS have a moral duty to use preimplantation diagnosis — if they can afford it — to spare the next generation.

“If there is a paradigm example in which a parent can have an obligation to use this technology, this is it,” she said.

But David Wasserman, an ethicist at Yeshiva University and consultant to the department of bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, says there is no obligation to use it for diseases that do not start until adulthood. Eliminating embryos with such genes is essentially saying someone like Ms. Kalinsky should never have been born, he said.

I should say here and now that technologies such as PGD concern me for a host of ethical reasons, including the fact that we as a culture tend to let ethics follow technology rather than the other way around. PGD provides yet another example of a technology that people are using in the midst of an ongoing debate about the potential personal and social repercussions.

Read it all here.

Availability of Voluntary Sterilization

The choice not to have children places women in a difficult situation. They are often judged as selfish, and their motives are questioned. They must rely on long-term contraception which poses health risks. Should conception occur, they usually opt for termination of the pregnancy. Ironically, the option of voluntary sterilization is not as available. Here is a BioEdge review of a recent report:

Voluntary sterilization has been legal since 1974 in the United States for women over 21. Why, then, is it so difficult for them to find a doctor who will do the procedure, asks Cristina Richie in the latest issue of the Hastings Center Report.

About one in five white women in the US will never bear a child, writes Richie, a theology graduate student at Boston College. This is the highest proportion in modern history. Of these, half, or 10% will be voluntarily childless. Life for them would be much easier without the stress and inconvenience of contraception. Yet many doctors refuse to sterilize them. Their position is that women may regret their decision in later years. "Yet regret is the competent woman's burden, not the doctor's. Very few providers of other permanent elective treatments like plastic surgery refuse treatment over fear of regret. Why should sterilization be different?" Richie asks.

Why do women want to remain childless? Richie says that there may be several reasons. They may have well-founded fears that pregnancy will damage their health. They may be carriers of a genetic disease. They may have vaguer personal reasons: the financial burden of children or revulsion at traditional maternal roles. One group, the GINKS (green inclinations, no kids), fear creating more agents of pollution and carbon emissions. Some dislike "unnecessary hard work".

Why do doctors refuse? Normally because women are deemed too young or have no children. Many doctors are not trained in sterilisation techniques. Memories of forced eugenic sterilisations early in the 20th century have coloured some doctors' attitudes.

Oddly enough, Richie does not counter the common objection that medicine is about restoring diseased organs to health, not about destroying healthy organs.

Richie argues that it is no business of the doctor what reasons a mentally-competent woman over the age of 21 might have. "American medicine should act as the law permits and good patient care requires, providing sterilization to women who are legally able to obtain it, regardless of parity."

California sterilization of women prisoners

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has been accused of forcing female prisoners to have tubal ligations. In an article that has sparked public outcry, the Centre for Investigative Reporting (CIR) claimed that 150 inmates had been pressured into being sterilized. This included a woman who was told during labour; she barely escaped after protesting.

The CIR says that "doctors under contract with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation sterilized nearly 150 female inmates from 2006 to 2010 without required state approvals." The report also states "At least 148 women received tubal ligations in violation of prison rules during those five years."

Many of the sterilizations were performed by Dr James Heinrich, the former Valley State Prison obstetrician. In an interview with the CIR, Heinrich felt the need to justify the spending of tax payers money on the procedure - he said that "this isn't a huge amount of money compared to what you save in welfare paying for these unwanted children - as they procreated more."

The shocking report has raised the spectre of eugenics in a state which sterilized about 20,000 people between 1910 and 1964. "I was like, 'Oh my God, that's not right,' " a former inmate who worked in the infirmary, Crystal Nguyen, told CIR. "Do they think they're animals, and they don't want them to breed anymore?"

In fact, in 2003, Governor Gray Davis issued a formal apology for eugenic sterilisations. "Our hearts are heavy for the pain caused by eugenics. It was a sad and regrettable chapter in the state's history, and it is one that must never be repeated again," he said.

State politicians have reacted strongly to the report and a number of groups are calling for a government enquiry. Senator Ted Lieu has sent a letter to California's medical board demanding answers. The California Legislative Women's Caucus has sent a letter to the head of California Correctional Health Care Services.

Source: BioLogos

UK entering designer baby market?

The UK government has decided that it will allow the creation of three-parent embryos to prevent the births of children with mitochondrial diseases. The announcement came after an extensive consultation carried out by the fertility watchdog, the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, last year which found that most Britons were not opposed to the procedure.

The UK’s Chief Medical Officer, Professor Dame Sally Davies, said: “Scientists have developed ground-breaking new procedures which could stop these diseases being passed on, bringing hope to many families seeking to prevent their future children inheriting them. It’s only right that we look to introduce this life-saving treatment as soon as we can.”

While the news was reported as a breakthrough and a world first by the media, there were voices of dissent. Dr David King, of the lobby group Human Genetics Alert, was bitterly critical.

"These techniques are unnecessary and unsafe and were in fact rejected by the majority of consultation responses. It is a disaster that the decision to cross the line that will eventually lead to a eugenic designer baby market should be taken on the basis of an utterly biased and inadequate consultation."

Read it all here.

Myanmar's 2-Child Policy for Muslims

Michael Cook

It is hard to imagine a more inhumane policy than China's one-child policy. But there is one: the two-child policy imposed on Myanmar's Rohingya Muslims. Late last month government authorities in the largely Buddhist country reaffirmed a 2005 policy which punishes Rohingya women who bear more than two children with hefty fines and loss of legal rights for the children.

After a long silence on the issue, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi has condemned the measures. She has told the media that if reports of the policy were true, it was illegal. "It is not good to have such discrimination. And it is not in line with human rights either."

According to al-Jazeera, a government spokesman, Win Myaing, explained that the regulations were meant to dampen sectarian tensions. The Rohingya live mostly in two town, which are islands in a sea of Buddhists. "The population growth of Rohingya Muslims is 10 times higher than that of the Rakhine (Buddhists)," he said. "Overpopulation is one of the causes of tension."

The Rohingya number between 800,000 and 1 million, most of them living near the border with Bangladesh. They have been the target of legal discrimination and sectarian violence. Human Rights Watch has accused the Myanmar government of conducting a campaign of "ethnic cleansing" against the Rohingya.

Tensions between Buddhist Burmese and the Muslim Rohingya go back centuries but were greatly heightened during the British colonial period and the Japanese occupation in World War II. Since 1982 Myanmar has not even acknowledged that they are citizens.

In 2005 local authorities began to enforce a two-child policy. Rohingya couples who wish to marry must seek government approval - a process which can take up to two years. They must agree to have no more than two children. More children are punishable with fines and imprisonment. As a result unsafe abortions are common among women who become pregnant before they are legally married or who are carrying a third child.

According to Human Rights Watch, "Rohingya children born out of wedlock or in a family that already has two children do not receive any status whatsoever from the government, making them ineligible for education and other government services, unable to receive travel permissions, and they are later not permitted to marry or acquire property. They are subject to arbitrary arrest and detention."

Source: BioEdge

Big Money Backs Sterilization Camps

A government hospital in West Bengal's Malda district is facing an inquiry for conducting mass sterilization of women and relocating the women to a nearby open field.

Biswa Ranjan Satpathi, West Bengal's director of health services, was reported to have said, "This is inhuman and we have ordered a probe into the incident." 

Staff at a mass sterilization camp in West Bengal dumped 106 women in a field to recover after their painful surgeries.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the British government organized a family planning summit in London. Rich nations and NGOs pledged US$2.6 billion for population control/contraception in the developing world.

At the summit "sterilization camps" were not mentioned, but India's representatives spoke of a "paradigm shift" in their family planning. Likely, some of the $2.6 billion went into the pockets of the doctors who sterilized Indian women at the Manikchak Rural Hospital.

After the operation, women still under the effects of anesthesia, were dumped in an open field. According to the local media, "such frenzied sterilization camps are routine".

India no longer has centralized family planning quotas, but in practice state and district officials set targets, leading to disgraces like this.


Related reading: Australia Forced Sterilization Investigated; Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women; Judge Harms' Abortion-Sterilization Order Overruled

Israel's Abuse of Ethiopian Women

Years of rumours that Ethiopian women were pressured into having contraceptive injections by Israeli officials have finally been confirmed. The Health Ministry has ordered immigration officials in Ethiopia and health workers in Israel to stop coercing or coaxing women into accepting the long-lasting injectable contraceptive Depo-Provera.

The directive instructed doctors "not to renew prescriptions of Depo Provera to women of Ethiopian origin or any other women who, for whatever reason, may not understand the treatment's implications." They should also ask patients why they want to take the shot, using a translator if necessary. The Ministry did not confirm or acknowledge any wrongdoing.

Ethiopians who claim to be Jews are welcome to migrate to Israel under the Law of Return, but they face discrimination and have not always integrated well into Israeli society. Births among Ethiopian women have dropped by 50% in the last decade, according to a report by the "Vacuum" investigative news program on Israeli Educational Television. "This story reeks of racism, paternalism and arrogance. It's a story to be ashamed of," journalist Gal Gabai concluded.

Ethiopian women told the journalists stories of unsubtle coercion and misinformation. "They said, 'Come, there are vaccinations, gather everyone," one of them said. "We said we wouldn't receive it. They said, 'You won't move to Israel.'" Women said that they were told that it would be hard for them to work or find accommodation of they had large families.

This is not a new problem, but the government is finally facing up to the lack of informed consent on the part of a marginalised, poorly-educated minority. In 2008, Hedva Eyal, of the feminist group Isha L'Isha, wrote a report alleging that the medical profession had failed Ethiopian migrant women.

"The paternalistic attitude towards women of Ethiopian origin and the state's concern over high rates of birth among poor and black populations drove Israeli official bodies, such as The Jewish Agency and the medical establishment, to act, allegedly for the benefit of women's health, but in fact according to the concepts and wishes of the establishment regarding the desirable way to conduct family life. As a result, and as this paper shows, women did not get crucial medical information and their right of choice regarding their bodies, families and lives was severely curtailed."

From here.

Israel did offer an apology for the abuse of these women.

Australia Forced Sterilization Investigated

Australia regards itself as a champion of human rights, but in 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council has detected an abuse - the involuntary sterilisation of women and girls with disabilities (report, 86.39). Now a Senate committee has launched an inquiry.

According to National Disability Discrimination Commissioner Graeme Innes, it appears that unauthorised non-therapeutic and forced sterilisation is still common in Australia. "I'm seeking the criminalisation of forced sterilisations," Mr Innes told the Sydney Morning Herald. "It should be a criminal offence for any adult to be sterilised without consent and for any child at all, apart from life-saving circumstances."

Dr Leanne Dowse, of the University of New South Wales, told the ABC that some doctors are prepared to sterilise disabled women. "It's well known that you're able to doctor shop, so that there will be doctors who will be prepared to perform not necessarily full hysterectomy, but around things like endometrial ablation and other kinds of very invasive and very traumatic procedures which have the same effect," she said.

Dr Margaret Spencer, of the Intellectual Disability Rights Service, in Sydney, has two disabled foster daughters. She argues that being disabled is often no barrier to being a good parent, if the right support is in place. "They're very hurt, they feel betrayed, they feel denied something [fertility] that is in essence basic to them," she says.

The World Medical Association recently took a strong stand on forced sterilisation at its general assembly in October. "Sterilization of those unable to give consent would be extremely rare and done only with the consent of the surrogate decision maker," it declared.

Source: BioEdge

Philippines Debate Over Contraception

Unlike so many countries in the world (like say, Scotland or Cuba) the Philippines is not in danger of having to rely on immigration to prop up its demographic future. With a birth rate well in excess of 3 children per woman (down from 7.4 sixty years ago) the Philippines is still a growing population. It is in the position of being able to export workers to other countries who need the help (for example, Singapore).

However, at the moment the Philippines is debating whether its population growth is desirable or whether the Government needs to do something about it. When other countries are trying to get people to pair up and breed for the future, the Philippines President, Benigno Aquino has pushed forward a controversial health bill that subsidizes contraception. According to the Wall Street Journal:

“The reproductive health bill – which would also mandate sex education and widen family planning offerings – passed an important hurdle Monday, when lawmakers decided to end long periods of debate on the issue so that a vote can be held, most likely in the next several weeks. If the bill passes in the Philippines House, backers would also need to get support from the Philippines Senate before the law can be enforced.”

The supporters of this bill are worried that if something is not done, then the Philippines will not be able to afford required infrastructure – roads, hospitals, schools etc – and will be unable to deal with poverty. In short, the Philippines must lower its population growth to become rich. As you may imagine, in a very Catholic country like the Philippines, there are vocal opponents to the bill. For example:

“Archbishop Oscar Cruz, a veteran Catholic leader, said on the online news portal rappler.com that the bill ‘hates life, wants to do away with life’ and questioned the economic value of efforts to rein in the country’s reproductive rates.”

But perhaps the hardest-hitting opponent of the bill is the Congressman representing the district of Sarangani, boxing icon Manny Pacquiao. As the Wall Street Journal reports, Pacquiao has “hit out” against the bill and has “com[e] out swinging”:

“God said, ‘Go out and multiply.’ He did not say, just have two or three kids,” [Pacquiao] said in an interview earlier this year with the Philippines’ GMA Network…Mr. Pacquiao has continued to reference contraception as one of his key political issues, arguing that lawmakers should instead focus on laws that would alleviate poverty, rather than using government funds to subsidize birth control.”

While it is unlikely that Pacquiao’s opposition will be a knock-out blow to the bill, it does give opponents a well-known figure to rally around and will undoubtedly help their message to get out to a wider audience. The debate has been raging on and off for ten years now in the Philippines, so it fair to say: watch this space; there are a few rounds to go before the final bell.

Related reading:  Vicente “Tito” Sotto Refutes Propaganda; Chile Study Exposes Lie of "Safe" Abortion; Clinton Talks Pro-Choice in the Philippines

Eggsploitation

Michael Cook
Editor, BioEdge

I thought that the shocking American documentary Eggsploitation had the last word on the exploitation of young women for their eggs. It showed that all over the world they are being promised lucrative sums "to make someone's dream come true". Some were racked by regret, some worried about cancer, some had suffered potentially fatal ovarian hyper-­stimulation syndrome (OHSS).

But when I heard the words "young woman", I never, ever, thought of a 15-year-old. That's how old a slum girl in Mumbai, Sushma Pandey, was when she first donated eggs for US$450. She did it three times. A year and a half later she was dead, presumably of OHSS. No one knows where the money went.

The clinic which retrieved her eggs boasts that it is a world leader and a specialist in gay surrogacy. It appears to have been targeted by a criminal gang which somehow dragooned young Sushma into donating. But the shocking thing about this case is that although it happened in 2010, the news has only emerged now. How many other 15-year-old girls in India (and other countries) are being ruthlessly exploited in this way? There could be thousands of them. Are some of them 14? 13? No one knows. No one cares. The important thing is to make sure that dreams come true: the dreams of IVF clinics for money and of Westerners for children.

Almost two years after she died, no one involved in the death of 17-year-old Mumbai woman Sushma Pandey is facing charges. Ms Pandey, who was unmarried, was earning 4,500 rupees a month working in a scrap depot. She had donated eggs three times in 18 months at an IVF clinic, the Rotunda Center for Human Reproduction. Two days after the third donation, she complained of severe abdominal pain. She died on August 10, 2010. At the time of her first donation, she was probably about 15 years old.

The story appears to have appeared in the press only because charges against her former boss were dropped in Bombay High Court.

The Rotunda Center describes itself as a "world-renowned infertility clinic", a "center of excellence in donor egg IVF and gestational surrogacy" (see YouTube video below), and "the only clinic in India that is LGBT-friendly". Its medical director, Dr Gautam Allahbadia, was responsible for the first successful surrogate pregnancy of twins for a gay couple in India.

Newspaper accounts describe a bewildering number of people involved in the death, but no one seems to be responsible for it. Ms Pandey's parents did not know that she was donating. Sunil Chaumal, the 49-year-old owner of the scrap depot, was charged with culpable homicide but has been discharged for lack of evidence. A woman named Noorjahan accompanied her to the clinic and posed as her guardian but seems to have vanished. Ms Pandey stayed in the house of a man named Iqbal Hussein and was driven to the clinic by another man named Rakesh Bhat, but neither of them has been charged. Dr Allahbadia claims that the girl presented fake papers which showed that she was above the legal age limit and that his clinic cannot be blamed.

The fee for egg donation is 25,000 rupees. Since Ms Pandey donated three times, she should have earned 75,000 rupees. The money seems to have disappeared.

The case highlights the fact that India has hundreds of IVF clinics which operate with hardly any regulation. A bill is being studied, but the Indian legal system works at a glacial pace and it is still far from becoming law. This death suggests that criminal gangs are dangling the carrot of easy money in front of potential egg donors, regardless of their age.

Jennifer Lahl, producer of the documentary Eggsploitation, said that Ms Pandey's death was typical. "What happened to Sushma Pandey is happening to women every day, all over the world. The infertility industry knows the seriousness of the health risks, yet objects to any oversight, to long-term studies, and to regulation, simply because it will compromise their profits." ~ Indian Express, July 12

Relate reading:  Sperm Donation Needs Regulation; Egg Extraction from Dead Israeli Raises Questions

Gendercide Coming to America

On Thursday, May 31, the House fell short in an effort to ban abortions based on the sex of the fetus as Republicans and Democrats made an election-year appeal for women's votes.

Representative Marsha Blackburn said: "A vote against ending sex-selection abortion is a vote in favor of gender bias and female gendercide."

My friend Father Rick Lobs has written, "If governmental approval of abortion for sex selection, does not drive collective America to its knees begging God for mercy, probably nothing will. Think of all the females that will be deprived of life by the action of government."

Given the American woman's fixation on frilly and pink, I fear more for the boys.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ5WyCnUr6g&feature=youtu.be

Chile Study Exposes Lie of "Safe" Abortion

Recent research from Chile shows that when therapeutic abortion was banned in 1989 after a long period when it had been legal in that country, there was no increase in maternal mortality. None at all. 

On the contrary, maternal deaths continued to decline. Chile today has one of the lowest maternal mortality rates in the world (16 per 100,000 live births), outstripping the United States (18) and, within the Americas, second only to Canada (9). 

Rather than the rogue violator of women’s reproductive health that the UN makes it out to be, Chile is looking this week like a model for countries that really want to save the lives of mothers.

Figure 1. Trend for maternal mortality ratio, Chile 1957–2007.

It’s important to note here what the study, Women's Education Level, Maternal Health Facilities, Abortion Legislation and Maternal Deaths: A Natural Experiment in Chile from 1957 to 2007, does not claim. It does not say that making abortion illegal caused a decline in maternal deaths. But it shows, importantly, that the 1989 law did not increase mortality. It continued to decline substantially, although other factors were at work in the decline -- notably, the education of women and their ability to shape their own reproductive behaviour. (The latter does not mean quite what birth control fundamentalists mean, as we shall see.)

The study, published in the open access online journal PLoS One, is the work of Chilean and American researchers led by Dr Elard Koch, epidemiologist and a professor at the University of Chile and Universidad Católica de la Santísima Concepción (UCSC).

Read more here.

Blind Chinese Dissenter Fights Mandatory Abortion

Chen Guangcheng, the “barefoot lawyer" has exposed one of China’s most hideous human rights abuses and he has challenged the Obama administration to truly make human rights – in the President’s words -- "a core national security interest and core moral responsibility."

Chen may be blind; he may be poorly educated; he may be a peasant – but he has outsmarted the world’s two most powerful governments. Neither of them wanted the one-child policy exposed to the glare of the world media. But now it is being discussed around the globe.

Forty-year-old Chen is a man of remarkable courage and intelligence. Blind almost from birth, he was raised on classic tales of courageous heroes fighting corrupt officials. He came from a poor family and only began school when he was 17.

In 1996 he began to lobby for rights for the disabled in Shandong Province, about 500 kilometres south of Beijing. He was so successful as a “barefoot lawyer” that local people took their grievances to him. He gained a national reputation by leading protests against illegal taxes, polluters, and discrimination against the disabled.

Local officials had already started harassing him when he launched a protest against illegal implementation of the one-child policy. He documented abuses and worked with victims and lawyers to organise a class-action suit against family planning officials in 2005. This failed, but his reputation grew.

Then local officials revenged themselves. They charged him with "wilfully damaging public property and organising a mob to disturb traffic". In 2006 he was sentenced to jail for four years.

In 2010 Chen was released but, together with his wife and son, he remained under illegal and sometimes brutal house arrest. Making his guards look like a bunch of Keystone Cops, Chen escaped on the night of April 22. Supporters drove him to Beijing.

From his hiding place Chen has released a YouTube appeal to Premier Wen Jiabao asking that officials who attacked his family be prosecuted and that the government prosecute corruption cases according to the law. Appealing to the law may seem quixotic, but if the draconian family planning laws had just been obeyed to the letter, women would have been spared some of the horror of forced abortions and sterilizations.

Horror is not too strong a word. Activist Annie Jing Zhang, of Women’s Rights in China, told a US Congressional hearing in 2009 that some towns display slogans like “Pregnancy with permit”, “When you are required by policy to get abortion, but if you don't, your house will be destroyed, your buffalo will be confiscated”, “Abort it, kill it, terminate it. You just cannot give birth to it” or “We would rather to have blood flow like a river than to allow one extra baby to be born”.
Chen ends his YouTube appeal by saying:

“Premier Wen, many people don’t understand these illegal actions. Is it the local Party officials who are disobeying the laws, or do they have the support of the central government? I think that in the near future, you must give the public a clear answer. If we have a thorough investigation and tell the truth to the public, the results will be self-evident. If you continue to ignore this, what will the public think?”

Chen’s audacious ploy discomfits the US as well. Although President Obama recently set up an Atrocities Prevention Board, his administration has been reluctant to question the notorious one-child policy of its biggest trading partner. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters in 2009 that human rights shouldn’t interfere with practical concerns:

"Successive administrations and Chinese governments have been poised back and forth on these issues, and we have to continue to press them. But our pressing on those issues can't interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis, and the security crisis."

And Vice-President Joe Biden gave a speech at Sichuan University last year in which he spoke so diplomatically about the one-child policy that he seemed to be endorsing it: “Your policy has been one which I fully understand -- I’m not second-guessing -- of one child per family”.

Now it’s time for the Obama Administration to show some courage of its own in standing up for Chen and his family. Essentially his demands are modest. All he wants is the protection of Chinese law. Even his activism against the one-child policy has been focused on getting officials to observe the informed consent enshrined in the law, not to overturn it.

Besides, it is possible that reformers in the upper echelons of the Communist Party like Wen Jiabao actually welcome Chen’s move. The hardline chief of security, Zhou Yongkang, who orchestrated the persecution of Chen, has already been rattled by the purging of party princeling Bo Xilai. Sympathy for Chen weakens his own position.

In any case, it is becoming increasingly clear that the one-child has been a disaster for China, as The Economist recently pointed out. China’s burden of elderly is growing, and the proportion of younger tax-payers is shrinking. Already there are labour shortages. Notwithstanding its current strength, China is a country which will grow old before it grows rich. Chen is a reminder not only of his government’s brutality but its folly in defying the laws of economic growth.

Chen Guangcheng’s fate now depends upon negotiations between two governments who both wish that he would step under a truck. But there is a way to support him. Nominate him for the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Population Award “outstanding contributions to increasing the awareness of population questions”.

In the past the prize has been given to odious family planning apparatchiks and to dictators like Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and Indonesian President Suharto. Its inaugural recipients, in 1983, were Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, after her notorious campaign for forced sterilization in the 1970s, and Qian Xinzhong, an architect of China’s one-child policy.

An avalanche of nominations for Chen Guangcheng would show that the world has finally repudiated one of the most despicable, senseless violations of human rights ever implemented by a government against its own people. Click on this link to download an official nomination form.


Michael Cook is editor of MercatorNet.

UN Guards Confiscate Youth's Backpacks

By Wendy Wright

 

 

NEW YORK, March 2 (C-FAM) Youth attending a UN conference on women’s issues this week say UN security officers confiscated their backpacks after discovering pro-life literature.

 

The confiscated materials were petitions to “Stop Sexualizing Children,” and were connected to a UN approved workshop led this week by Dr. Miriam Grossman, a child psychiatrist and author of “You're Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child.”

The offending flyer announced a project called the “Girls Coalition to Protect the Health and Innocence of Children,” which is an ad hoc group that sponsored the Grossman event. At the panel, girls from China, Spain and Mexico launched a petition calling on UN agencies to “Stop Sexualizing Children.” They charge the UN’s promotion of “comprehensive sexuality education” is harmful to children.

The young people insist they were not leafleting, which is forbidden on UN property, though it is routinely ignored. The young students left UN grounds to make more copies. Upon their return they were stopped by UN security.

One of the students, Kalli Lawrence, said that the guards noticed the group’s distinctive green backpacks and then ordered the students to hand them over. “The guards had this confused, angry look on their faces,” she reported, “and they started telling all the security guards, ‘don’t let any of these yellow papers go through, just take them all and keep them.’”

The green backpacks and literature were stored in lockers at a security checkpoint. Students and their teachers were allowed to retrieve some of the backpacks as they left UN property.

According to teacher Jody Dunn, some of the backpacks were not returned, those that contained a pro-life documentary called “180”. Dunn then insisted and those backpacks were returned also.

Pro-lifers have long felt the sting of selective enforcement of UN rules. Kali Lawrence said, “They didn’t stop anyone else that we could see passing out flyers.”

Upon questioning by the Friday Fax, the security officer in charge at the time said guards don’t “target” items. He went on to say they were not allowed to discuss policies or procedures.

Observers speculate that someone connected to Commission organizers complained to UN security. At the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1994, without any evidence, former US Senator Timothy Wirth told UN security that a certain pro-lifer was a violent threat. The person was detained and deported.

Alliance Defense Fund attorney Piero Tozzi told the Friday Fax, "The UN cannot censor speech it does not agree with. Both the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the Human Rights Committee have recently emphasized the need to protect this fundamental freedom. Why then is speech by respectful, clean cut kids on a topic vital to keeping young people healthy being censored at the UN?"

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states, “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Source:  Friday Fax

Independent Researchers Challenge Another WHO Report

Lucia Muchova

Washington, DC, February 24 (C-FAM) A new study by an independent group of researchers shows that the World Health Organization (WHO) has significantly underestimated malaria mortality figures in its 2011 Malaria Report. This is another blow to the credibility of the top global health organization in just two years.

A paper published in The Lancet medical journal this month by researchers from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington in Seattle found that 1.238 million deaths worldwide were directly attributable to malaria – almost twice the 655,000 deaths reported by WHO.

The report also delivered surprising news about the real causes of global child mortality. Malaria mortality was 1.3 times more than the reported WHO figure for children younger than 5 years in Africa; 8.1 times higher for those aged 5 years or older in Africa and 1.8 times higher for all ages outside of Africa.  The IHME team estimated 24% of child deaths in Africa to be attributable to malaria compared with 16% quoted in the WHO report for 2008.

Compiling data from 105 countries using modern methodological tools, IHME found that malaria deaths in 2010 in individuals aged 5 years or older were 524,000 compared to the WHO figure of 91,000, almost 6 times higher. Overall, 433,000 more deaths in those aged 5 or above occurred due to malaria in 2010 than quoted by the WHO. The researchers say these numbers could be even higher if more corrections were made to misclassified data and if malaria was counted as an aggravating factor for other causes of death.

That malaria mortality has been underestimated has significant policy implications. It means that organizations like UNICEF should scale up their funds to child survival programs to reduce the large number of child deaths from malaria in Africa. It means that WHO and others should increase their engagement in malaria control and prevention programs. It also means that the UN agencies should pay much closer attention to their data collection and use.

This is not the first time that independent researchers acted as watchdogs on the UN’s use of poor statistics. Slightly more than a year ago, the same journal published a credible report by the same group of researchers exposing the inflated maternal mortality figures reported by UN agencies. The statistics used by the WHO and UNICEF were deemed erroneous and the methodology badly flawed. And yet such statistics have been cited by policy makers to push for more funding for reproductive health measures – including abortion – instead of mortality-reducing programs aimed at the main causes of maternal death.

In the past few years, independent monitoring of international bodies and the information they disseminate has discovered serious discrepancies. One of the most recent initiatives is the establishment of WECARE, the World Expert Consortium for Abortion Research and Education, bringing together credentialed scientists in the area of abortion-research to present objective information about health effects of abortion. Most recently, they have published a comprehensive critical analysis of a widely cited Guttmacher study claiming abortion is safer than childbirth.


Source: Friday Fax