New Scientist: Faith in denial
Declan's difficulties while attempting to sell The Big Issue (a magazine sold by homeless people on registered street pitches) have continued – on Thursday afternoon he had to write to the founder and editor-in-chief of The Big Issue, John Bird, see previous blog. On Thursday and Friday evening Declan's pitch was unceremoniously taken over by a distributor of the free daily London Lite and he had no choice but to walk off. So since he had some magazines left, on Saturday we decided to take a bus to Covent Garden, where we have a weekend pitch for the two of us. We shouldn't have bothered spending money we don't have on the transport: almost as soon as Declan was on the pitch, four homeless with cans of beer came along, sat beside him and, well, more or less scared away any potential Big Issue buyer. (Noam Chomsky – described by The New York Times as "arguably the most important intellectual alive", and an early signatory of Declan's petition to the UN on therapeutic cloning – identifies economic strangulation as a primary method of domination and control – see blog of 12 June “The threat of a good example”).
Delacroix's 1830 masterpiece Liberty Leading the People
The latest issue of the New Scientist carries a piece by British philosopher AC Grayling "How humans dared to know", with the subheadline: "Our passion for 'Enlightenment values' owes a lot to the 18th century. But where do those values come from and what do they mean today?" Grayling, one of Britain's foremost public intellectuals, says that if one compares the lives of ordinary people 300 years ago with those we can enjoy now, the impact of the Enlightenment on the structure and practice of society can be fully appreciated - and admired. "As a historical phenomenon," writes Grayling, "the Enlightenment movement emphasised reliance on reason, sought to take a scientific approach to social and political questions, championed science, and opposed the clergy, the church and all forms of superstition as obstacles to progress." He also writes: "Enlightenment values today are commitments to individual autonomy, democracy, the rule of law, science, rationality, secularism, pluralism, a humanist ethics, the importance of education, the promotion of human rights."
Science is also central to an article by Michael Brooks, former senior features editor at the magazine, titled "Faith in denial", with the subheadline: "The Catholic church's insistence on demonising IVF is making it look irrelevant and out of touch". Brooks comments that it is time for the Vatican to accept IVF: Louise Brown, the world’s first test-tube baby, turned 30 last week; and, with more than 3 million people having now been conceived through IVF, she is no longer the miracle she once seemed.
At the time of Brown’s birth the church was undecided about the morals and ethics of IVF, but it has since banned its members from using the technology, declaring it "morally unacceptable". That, Brooks explains, is primarily because it views the destruction of embryos, a common aspect of the IVF process, as equivalent to murder. The church also takes the view that IVF allows us to play God. “The Catholic church’s position is looking ever more absurd, especially when you consider that it stands virtually alone on this matter,” Brooks writes. “The vast majority of Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu groups see IVF as a useful means to an essential end: overcoming infertility. Muslim scholars issued their first proclamation, or fatwa, on IVF within two years of Brown’s birth. This came from the leaders of the majority Sunni group, to which over 90 per cent of the world’s 1.3 billion Muslims belong. The fatwa decreed that a married couple was free to use IVF as long as there was no donation of gametes from third parties. The minority Shiite group is even more tolerant: it has allowed its members to use donated eggs or sperm since the mid-1990s, so long as all parties adhere to Islamic codes regarding parenting.”
Brooks points out that most Catholics “are similarly progressive, but this means they have to flout the dictates of their church”. He adds: “After a 1987 Vatican pronouncement on the immoral nature of IVF, Margaret Brooks, an Australian Catholic and the first woman to have a child born from a frozen embryo, boldly told The New York Times that no one paid any attention to such decrees. At the same time, several European Catholic hospitals announced that they would defy the church and continue to provide IVF treatment. It was, one hospital said, ‘an infinitely precious human service’.”
“The pope is not in the business of bowing to popular demand, but even he must sense that the church’s position is becoming ever more isolated,” Brooks writes, adding: “He could do something about it. The church has changed its views in response to scientific and technological developments before. It was the invention of the microscope and the subsequent discovery of the ovum that first persuaded Catholics to err on the side of caution and adopt their current position on the sanctity of the embryo. Why can't the Vatican take account of all we have learned in the IVF area and revise the rules again?”
Brooks goes on to argue that making "a sensible retreat" over IVF would also open the way to resolving other controversies over reproductive technologies – for example, stem cell research, which the Vatican opposes. “This in turn might enable other conservative religious groups to back down without losing face. Muslim scholars have already blazed a trail here too. In 2001 the Islamic Institute, a think tank based in Washington DC, convened a panel of medical, scientific and religious experts to work out how IVF and stem cell research fit in with Islamic teaching. They concluded that IVF is ‘a compassionate and humane scientific procedure’. On stem cells they went even further, calling it ‘a societal obligation’ to perform research on the extra embryos that are produced in IVF procedures because of the potential benefits that could accrue from it.”
Since it seems unlikely the Vatican is going to willingly embrace "Enlightenment values" in respect of IVF, as part of our international campaign on therapeutic cloning and human embryonic stem cell research we intend having a ‘take action’ section with an email to Pope Benedict XVI urging him to revise the church's rules on IVF in response to scientific and technological developments. (Our NAC website, which was suspended on 8 March due to an erroneous Spamcop report that was sent to our web host, carried three original campaigns, one of which "The Vatican and the achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals" contained as a 'take action' an email to the Pope urging him to stop obstructing family planning.)
