Review of our January meeting by Tony Brewer
The discussion of ethical dilemmas is a regular feature of our programme – it’s entertaining, thought provoking and eagerly anticipated. Usually it takes place in the pub, but for the last two years we have had to hold it virtually, via Zoom, and this has worked remarkably well. This year 16 members participated and in the 1.5 hours available we only got through four questions – that gives an idea of the scope and intensity of the discussion. The questions and discussion are summarised below.
1. Is it OK for protesters to break the law? Should a person or group with a strongly held conviction that a particular issue is not being addressed within the democratic process have the right to inconvenience the community in pursuit of their aim?
• In a properly-working democracy it should be possible for protestors to have their concerns addressed, but British democracy is far from democratic (see our meeting in March) so protests that inconvenience the public and might even break the law might be needed to gain media and government attention;
• Protests that damage commercial property should be avoided since they affect people’s jobs, but those that damage government property are OK;
• Government property is ultimately our property, the government merely manages it on our behalf;
• Violence is never justified;
• Who should decide what is a justified protest? It depends on the context and every protest must judged on its merits;
• Looking back over our history we can see that many freedoms and rights that we now enjoy were only achieved because protestors were willing to inconvenience the public or even break the law.
• (Incidentally, this question was debated in the December edition of Prospect magazine, with Peter Tatchell pro law breaking and Dominic Grieve anti. You can access the debate here.
2. Several of us have grand-children who have been given parts in their school nativity plays. As Humanists, should we protest that this is a form of religious indoctrination?
• Christianity is part of British cultural history so it is important to teach about it;
• Schools in England have a legal duty to hold a predominantly Christian act of collective worship on each school day;
• Most nativity plays are just harmless Christmas entertainment. But when does fun and entertainment become indoctrination?
• If children are old enough to absorb indoctrination they should also be old enough to understand that nativity plays are just religious stories that may contain useful lessons but do not have to be believed;
• It should be part of a child’s education to learn ow to extract messages from religious stories that are personal and relevant;
• An effective antidote to religious indoctrination in school is to provide a personal example of how to live a non-religious life and to answer children’s questions when they arise.
3. A colleague of mine takes funerals at a hospital, including for babies and foetuses. She recently led the funeral of a 17 week-old foetus whose parents were not planning to have a baby and didn’t know they were pregnant. She wondered whether it was a good idea to have the funeral. Who was the funeral for and was it a good thing?
• Who decided on the need for the funeral? Was it the parents or was it just standard hospital practice irrespective of the parents’ wishes?
• Parents in a stressful situation such as this often don’t know what they want and can easily be swayed;
• When does life begin? Does an unborn foetus deserve a funeral?
• In a religious family there might be pressure on the parents to have a funeral, even for a foetus;
• a funeral is a ceremony that brings together people with an interest in the dead person to enable them to express both personal grief and support for the family. But funerals also come with considerable emotional baggage.
4. Pope Francis is reported as having suggested that keeping pets as a substitute for having children is a selfish act that diminishes our humanity. How should Humanists respond?
• It was a wicked & unethical statement;
• There are no lessons in humanity from the Catholic Church, the Pope is in no position to comment;
• Looking after a pet does divert attention from looking after other people;
• It’s not a binary choice, one can do neither or either or both;
• The decision to have children is down entirely to the parents, children should only be born to volunteers;
• If the Pope’s statement is correct then Catholic priests have been acting selfishly for generations!
In wrapping up the session the chair, Sam Becker, said that there were several other ethical questions that there had not been time to include. These included the following:
5. Where does the boundary lie between personal freedom & community responsibility? For example: a) does a freedom-loving person have the right to refuse a vaccination but increase their risk of infecting those around them? b) Should community laws & mores refuse the right to assisted suicide of a person with an incurable illness? c) should a person who benefits from national defence & security have the freedom to refuse to fight & possibly die for their country.
6. Should eating meat be banned?
7. Is it OK for politicians, occasionally, to tell lies?
Dear reader – if you have comments on any of the above questions do please send them to us at selhuginfo@gmail.com and we will publish them in our next newsletter.
