Abortion: Parental Consent
Attempts to obtain an abortion are much more difficult for minors than for their adult
counterparts due in part to laws and restrictions that regulate the consent and notification of a
minor's parents. Thirty-four states require some form of parental involvement in a minor's
decision to have an abortion. The laws are intended to foster parent-child relationships, protect
the rights of parents, and deter young women from obtaining abortions or becoming pregnant in
the first place, but research casts doubt on whether the laws have their intended effect, and
Supreme Court rulings allow minors some privacy rights regarding obtaining an abortion.
Historical Background
The history of parental consent and notification laws extends back almost as far as 1973 and the
passage of Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion in the United States. The first case to reach the
U.S. Supreme Court in the aftermath of Roe v. Wade that tested parental consent laws was
decided in 1976. The case, Planned Parenthood of Central Missouri v. Danforth, involved a
Missouri law that required, among other things, parental consent to obtain an abortion in all
cases involving a minor. The law was found to be unconstitutional, because it did not make any
exceptions regarding minors to provide circumstances under which they could receive an
abortion without parental consent. Several other cases came before the Supreme Court following
this ruling, and in the 1983 case of Planned Parenthood of Kansas City v. Ashcroft, the court
ruled that all parental involvement laws must include a judicial bypass for minors who are unable
to obtain parental consent. Thus the Supreme Court set rules that individual states had to follow
when setting up their parental consent laws.
State Level Data
In light of the Supreme Court rulings, states approached parental involvement legislation in a
variety of ways. Thirty-four states currently mandate parental involvement. Although all include
a form of judicial bypass, they differ in the levels of stringency. Some states focus on parental
notification which is simply notifying parents of their daughter's impending abortion decision,
while others require parental consent in some fashion before an abortion can legally occur.
Understanding the differences from state to state can be challenging for both abortion providers
and the minors seeking an abortion. Without uniformity in the law, minors with the ability to do
so have been able to avoid their own state's restrictions and travel to a state with more flexible
regulations.
Federal Involvement
There have been attempts to pass federal legislation that would ensure state parental involvement
laws are not circumvented. The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA) in the
House and the Child Custody Protection Act (CCPA) in the Senate were introduced in the 2005–
2006 congressional session but were unable to garner enough congressional support to pass. The
bills sought to make it a federal crime to transport a minor out of state with the intention of
obtaining an abortion to evade the resident state's parental consent laws. No additional federal
legislation has been enacted concerning parental involvement in a minor's abortion decision.
Although the CIANA was reintroduced by lawmakers in the House of Representatives in 2007, it
has not been acted upon.
Effect on Abortion Rates
Proponents of parental involvement laws claim that more pregnant teenagers would choose
childbirth and possibly adoption over abortion if they had the benefit of their parents' guidance.
They also maintain that parental consent laws may influence teenagers to not become sexually
active in the first place. Research shows, however, that state parental involvement laws have
little effect on a minor's decision to pursue an abortion. Proponents also argue that state and
federal laws should honor parents' authority to control their children's upbringing and that
abortion is a surgical procedure, which makes it different than other health care services, such as
contraceptive information, substance abuse treatment, or care and testing for sexually transmitted
diseases, covered by other state and federal confidentiality laws.
True Impact of Parental Involvement Laws
In an article published in March 2009 by the Guttmacher Institute, "The Impact of Laws
Requiring Parental Involvement for Abortion: A Literature Review," the authors conducted a
review of twenty-nine studies of the impact of parental involvement laws. Their report states,
"The clearest documented impact of parental involvement laws is an increase in the number of
minors traveling outside their home states to obtain abortion services in states that do not
mandate parental involvement or that have less restrictive laws." They point out that while
several studies did report a decline in minors' abortion rates after parental involvement laws were
enacted, most of the studies ignored the fact that minors had left their home state to obtain an
abortion and did not account for the teens who avoided coming to the state to seek an abortion
after the change in law. Two studies did include these occurrences, one in Mississippi and one in
Massachusetts, and showed no change in the abortion rate among teens compared to prior to the
law. One exception was noted in Texas, however, which revealed a decrease in the number of
abortions but with an apparent correlation to an increasing number of teen pregnancies in the
state. The Guttmacher review found that many of the studies had serious limitations due to
incomplete data that did not focus only on minors, and the authors called for additional research
that would provide more definitive results.
Medical Professionals' Opinions
Although current research may not present conclusive results, healthcare organizations
consistently speak out against parental involvement laws. Medical groups such as the American
Academy of Family Physicians and American Medical Association take the position that even
though health care providers are obligated to encourage their minor patients to discuss matters
such as pregnancy and abortion with their parents, the groups strongly feel that minors should
not be forced by law to involve their parents in decisions involving abortion or contraception.
This strong opinion that minors must have the right to confidential healthcare is born out of the
increased risks minors face when access to abortion is restricted. Research indicates that parental
consent laws have a negative impact on the timing of minors' abortion decisions. In a November
2005 analysis conducted by the Guttmacher Institute, "Teenagers' Access to Confidential
Reproductive Health Services," the authors assert that "parental consent requirements can have
potentially serious adverse consequences associated with delayed access to timely medical care
among those teenagers who do not wish to involve their parents in their abortion decisions."
Unintended Consequences
Many teens who do not want their parents to know they are seeking an abortion find it
intimidating to pursue the alternative method, judicial bypass. They often do not know how to
navigate the court system and have difficulty sharing personal details about their pregnancy with
strangers. Many states employ waiting periods and counseling which also can be burdensome to
teens. They may be forced to delay their abortion until later in the pregnancy when it is much
more dangerous to complete or seek illegal means to terminate the pregnancy.
Proponents dispute these arguments. They contend there is a need for more stringent federal
regulations not less, which would then influence teen behavior by eliminating the option of
traveling to another state. When the CIANA bill was being debated in 2005, President George
W. Bush, a long time conservative backer of the pro-life movement, issued a written statement
encouraging passage of the law as it would "protect the health and safety of minors by ensuring
that state parental involvement laws are not circumvented."
According to NARAL Pro-Choice America, a non-profit organization advocating for women's
reproductive rights, most young women do share the news of their pregnancy with at least one
parent. However a number of teens who are the victim of abuse, rape, or incest often feel they
cannot tell their parents they are pregnant. In the presence of one of these factors, knowledge of
the pregnancy can lead to violence within the family that can delay or prevent an abortion.
A tragic incident in Michigan in 2005 highlighted the unintended consequences of a parental
consent law. A young pregnant girl and her boyfriend wanted to get an abortion but did not want
to tell her parents of the pregnancy. She felt she could not consult her family doctor and was
seemingly unaware of alternatives available in seeking a legal abortion. The couple decided to
end the pregnancy themselves, and the girl's boyfriend repeatedly beat her abdomen with a
baseball bat to induce a miscarriage, which they did. This horrific case drew national attention
and highlighted the fact that laws cannot prevent unintended pregnancies or a woman's choice to
end that pregnancy legally or otherwise. Attempts to regulate or restrict a woman's right to an
abortion have not been shown to make a difference in the number of abortions.
Solutions through Pregnancy Prevention
Evidence does suggest, however, that better access to and use of contraceptives can make a
difference in lowering abortion rates in teens. An example of this approach can be found in
Western Europe, which has the lowest abortion rate in the world. Contraceptive availability and
use is widespread and access to safe abortions is available and legal with minimal restrictions. At
the other end of the spectrum are Africa, Asia, and Latin America, who have the world's highest
abortion rates even though abortion is very restricted.
Parental involvement laws do not appear to live up to their desired intentions of fostering better
family communications and preventing teen pregnancies and abortions. Amanda Dennis of Ibis
Reproductive Health and lead author of the Guttmacher Institute's 2009 Literature Review,
asserts "… the reality is you can't legislate good parent-child communication. If we want to
protect young women's health and safety, access to confidential reproductive health services—
both contraception and abortion—is critical."
Source Citation:
"Abortion: Parental Consent." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale,
2010. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Parental Consent Laws Are Necessary
"Well-designed parental-involvement laws have been surprisingly effective at reducing abortion rates
among minors."
Michael New is a political science professor at the University of Alabama. He is also the author of a 2008
study for the Family Research Council, which concludes that abortion rates drop when states adopt
parental involvement laws. In the viewpoint that follows, New summarizes his findings and the findings
of other researchers and reiterates that states requiring parents to be notified if their daughter is
seeking an abortion have witnessed a drop in abortion rates among minors. New asserts that parental
notification laws are helpful in reducing abortion rates, but that consent laws are more powerful
because they ensure parents the right to prevent an abortion to be carried out on their minor daughter,
despite the wishes of the minor.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. By what percentage have parental involvement laws reduced abortion in states that have
enacted such legislation, as Michael New maintains?
2. According to a 2000 New England Journal of Medicine study, how had seventeen-year-olds been
evading the parental involvement laws in Texas?
3. As New reports, how many states have enacted two-parent parental involvement laws?
Political candidates who support legal abortion have been changing their rhetoric in recent years.
Indeed, during the current election cycle, a number of pro-choice candidates, including Barack
Obama, have expressed an interest in lowering the incidence of abortion. Such statements
present a unique opportunity for the pro-life movement.
Indeed, pro-lifers should insist that these candidates support pro-life parental-involvement laws.
Such laws enjoy broad support and unlike other laws limiting abortion, they can be easily
justified as a parental-rights issue. Furthermore, my [2008] study for the Family Research
Council provides evidence that well-designed parental-involvement laws have been surprisingly
effective at reducing abortion rates among minors.
Indeed, there are a number of academic and policy studies which demonstrate the effectiveness
of pro-life parental-involvement laws. Four studies in peer-reviewed academic journals use timeseries, cross-sectional data to simultaneously analyze all the enacted pro-life parentalinvolvement laws over an extended period of time.
These studies find that these pieces of legislation reduce the in-state minor abortion rate by
anywhere from 13 to 19 percent. Case studies of parental-involvement laws that have been
enacted in Massachusetts, Indiana, Missouri, and Minnesota arrive at similar conclusions about
the effects of parental-involvement laws.
Proven Test Cases
However, the best case study of a pro-life parental-involvement law appeared in the New
England Journal of Medicine in 2006.
This study analyzed the Texas parental-notification law that took effect in 2000. The authors
found that the law resulted in statistically significant declines in the abortion rate in Texas among
15-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 17-year-olds. Now the authors did find some evidence that some
17-year-olds were able to circumvent the law by waiting until their 18th birthday to have an
abortion. However, they found little evidence that Texas minors were circumventing the law by
obtaining abortions in neighboring states.
My ... Family Research Council study contributes to this body of research.
It is actually the first study that compares the effect of different types of pro-life parentalinvolvement legislation. The results indicate that parental-involvement laws reduce the minor
abortion rate by 13 percent—a finding that is consistent with other research on the subject.
However, state laws that require parental consent instead of parental notification are even more
effective, reducing the abortion rate by an average of 19 percent. This finding held true for all
age groups that were analyzed—17-year-olds, 16-year-olds, and 15-year-olds.
Consent Laws Are More Powerful at Curbing Abortion
There are a number of reasons why parental-consent laws might be more effective than parentalnotice laws.
Consent laws, unlike notification laws, would effectively give parents the ability to prevent an
abortion from being performed on their daughter. Additionally, a parental-notice law might not
deter a minor who feels she can intercept the notification. Finally, it should also be noted that
abortion providers might have a greater incentive to follow parental-consent laws. A missed
notification can possibly be blamed on timing or other incidental factors. However, failure to
obtain consent would likely be seen as the responsibility of the abortion provider and could result
in legal action—especially if the parents did not approve of the abortion being performed.
Interestingly, those parental-involvement laws that require the involvement of two parents
instead of one are even more effective.
The regression model indicates that these laws reduce the minor abortion rate by 31 percent.
Now only three states—Minnesota, Mississippi, and North Dakota—have enacted parentalinvolvement laws that require the involvement of two parents. However, the substantial abortion
declines that have occurred in each of these states suggest that they are models that other states
should follow.
These abortion declines all sound impressive. However, it is entirely possible that some of these
in-state abortion reductions could be offset by minors who obtain abortions in neighboring states
where the laws are more permissive.
Federal legislation has been introduced that would considerably strengthen these state-level
parental-involvement laws. The Child Custody Protection Act that has been introduced in the
U.S. Senate and the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA) that has been
introduced in the U.S. House would make it a felony for anyone other than a parent to take a
child across state lines for the purpose of obtaining an abortion.
CIANA and the Child Custody Protection Act passed the House and Senate respectively in 2006.
However, this legislation ultimately was defeated when Senate Democrats refused to appoint
members to a conference committee to work out the differences in the two pieces of legislation.
Regardless, by making it more difficult for a minor to obtain an abortion in neighboring states,
these federal laws could considerably strengthen the state-level parental-involvement laws that
are already in place. Indeed, both CIANA and the Child Custody Protection Act should both
remain a high priority for pro-life organizations working on federal legislation.
Work to Be Done
Meanwhile at the state level, the pro-life movement still has plenty of work to do.
Right now about 36 states have pro-life parental-involvement laws in effect. However, about 15
of these laws only require parental notification. Furthermore, only three of these laws mandate
the involvement of two parents. Strengthening these state laws could be a worthwhile project for
pro-life activists. The Supreme Court has consistently upheld strong state-level parentalinvolvement laws, and it is certainly possible that other legislative proposals to limit abortion at
the state level may not withstand judicial scrutiny.
During the 2008 election campaign, abortion will undoubtedly continue to be a major issue. The
Supreme Court appointments by the next president will likely determine the extent to which
federal government and the states are able to protect unborn children. It is laudable that a number
of candidates have expressed an interest in lowering the incidence of abortion.
However, serious pro-life voters should support only those candidates who have a consistent
track record of supporting pro-life legislation. While campaign rhetoric often does not amount to
much, this study—and other studies—provide solid evidence that well-designed laws are
effective at protecting mothers and their unborn children.
Source Citation:
New, Michael. "Parental Consent Laws Are Necessary." Abortion. Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego:
Greenhaven Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Study Shows Parental Involvement Laws
Reduce Abortions 19-31 Percent." LifeNews.com. 2008. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9
Apr. 2012.
Parental Consent Laws Are Unnecessary
"Because of parental involvement laws, reproductive options are not a reality for teens whose parents
seek to punish their behavior rather than support or protect them."
In the following viewpoint, Diana Philip argues that laws requiring parental involvement in a minor's
decision to have an abortion are detrimental to the welfare of those young women. In Philip's opinion,
such laws force minors who are not ready for the financial or emotional responsibility of parenthood to
forfeit the right to decide whether to carry through with an unplanned pregnancy. Philip believes this is
a challenge to women's reproductive rights and a form of punishment inflicted on minors who may not
agree with their parents' views on abortion. Philip is the cofounder of Jane's Due Process, an
organization providing legal services to pregnant minors in Texas.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. As Diana Philip reports, what percentage of Texas minors involved their parents in the abortion
process before the passing of the 2000 parental involvement law?
2. Why does Philip consider the waiver needed to bypass parental consent another obstacle for
teens seeking abortions?
3. What are "Baby Moses" laws, according to the author?
No one wants to see a teenager be trapped by poverty, abuse, or neglect. Yet, laws concerning
the rights of pregnant minors to access certain medical care do just that.
Since the late 1970s, state legislatures have been passing state "parental involvement" laws,
which mandate that a parent or legal guardian be notified of or give consent for a pregnant
minor's decision to seek an abortion. Texas has one of the most recent laws, now five years old
[in 2005], and as of June 5, 2005, its law changed from requiring notification to mandating
consent. Congress is now in the process of creating a nationwide parental notification law
through the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA). CIANA also would make it
illegal for anyone to help a teen obtain an abortion in another state without satisfying her home
state's law. Supporters of this bill generally think such a law will protect children. However,
before the Senate votes on CIANA or similar legislation, lawmakers should carefully consider
the damage parental involvement laws have done to pregnant youth in Texas.
Overcoming Obstacles in Texas
Mandated notification by Texas clinics did not result in an increase of actual parental
involvement in teenagers' decisions regarding abortion, as the law intended. Instead, the state's
parental notification law targeted youth whom some lawmakers claim they did not intend to
harm. Before the law's enactment in January 2000, Texas abortion providers reported that 80-95
percent of minors involved a parent in the decision to terminate a pregnancy. The ones who did
not had compelling reasons. For instance, some parents physically abused, abandoned, or
disowned their daughters when they found out they were pregnant. These youth understood that
a family that is unable to communicate due to a significant degree of dysfunction, separation,
and/or abuse is unlikely to respond appropriately during such an important life decision.
If at least one parent cannot or will not give written consent to the clinic, a minor may seek a
judicial bypass waiver by demonstrating that she is mature enough to make the decision, that the
abortion would be in her best interest, or that notification will lead to physical, sexual, or
emotional abuse. However, although Texas has had over five years to implement a fair system,
minors seeking judicial bypass still experience challenges in locating effective counsel and
struggle with confidentiality and due process issues in local courthouses. Judges have been
known to deny waivers even when the petitioner has met more than one of the three alternative
grounds that qualify for a waiver. If the waiver is denied, the minor has a right to appeal.
However, when a minor seeks legal relief through the courts, her abortion procedure is delayed,
increasing the costs, and at times, the risk of complications in terminating a pregnancy at a more
progressed stage. For these and other reasons, some youth consider seeking abortion services out
of state, in Mexico, or under unsafe and illegal circumstances.
Desperate Teens and Trying Circumstances
No population of minors is exempt from this law. Not teens removed by the state from their
homes for family violence. Not victims of sexual assault whose parents would not believe they
were raped and would force them to continue the pregnancy as a punishment for "youthful
indiscretion" or due to certain religious beliefs. Not teens who have already given birth and are
either active parents or have given babies up for adoption in the past, some forced to do so by
their parents. Not orphans or other youth whose parents are missing or incarcerated. All minors
must find ways to comply with this very harmful law.
In the last few years, problems have grown regarding pregnant youth along the Mexican border,
which some activists have attributed to Texas's parental involvement statutes. Despite the
passage of a "Baby Moses" law, which allows a mother to leave her newborn infant at designated
safe havens like hospitals or churches without legal repercussions, the number of abandoned
infants has risen, resulting in their deaths and the prosecution of their teen mothers. More minors
have sought second trimester procedures after illegal ones obtained over the border earlier in
their pregnancies failed. And there have been increased reports of abnormalities in infants born
to immigrant teens along the border. When tests were run to see if the babies had been affected
by environmental causes such as water pollution, medical professionals found that 25 percent of
the babies were the result of incest.
A Form of Neglect and Abuse
Mothering with dignity? Becoming a parent when emotionally, physically, and financially
ready? Not for these youth. Deciding when to become a parent or whether to have another child
has been taken out of their hands entirely. Because of parental involvement laws, reproductive
options are not a reality for teens whose parents seek to punish their behavior rather than support
or protect them. Just like in any other domestic violence dynamic, the decision to make a teen
bear a child against her better judgment is more about power and control than anything else.
Where is the dignity in becoming a parent amid domestic violence, sexual assault, and economic
abuse? In essence, states have passed laws that allow parents to abuse their daughters and neglect
their emotional health. And now Congress wants to do the same.
Source Citation:
Philip, Diana, and Center For American Progress. "Parental Consent Laws Are Unnecessary." Abortion.
Ed. Tamara L. Roleff. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Legal Child
Abuse: The Harm of Parental Involvement Laws." 2005. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9
Apr. 2012.
Bioethics
Ethics are rules and principles prescribing right and wrong actions; ethics can also refer to the
study of how moral standards of right and wrong can affect the conduct of individuals and
groups. Bioethics refers to the moral standards, questions, and regulations pertaining to the
practice of medicine, the scientific and medical research of living beings, and the applications of
such research. These applications include assisted reproduction, organ donation, animal
experimentation, cloning, embryo research, and genetic engineering.
The rapid advances in such areas as genetics and biotechnology have continually raised new
ethical issues in the biomedical community. The fundamental questions of bioethics can perhaps
be summarized as follows: What are the ethical obligations of doctors and scientists in the course
of their work? If scientists or doctors can do something, does that mean they should? Or should
some science and medical experiments be avoided because they do not protect the rights and
dignity of individuals or in some other way cross the ethical line?
The Field of Bioethics
Beginning in the 1970s bioethics emerged as a separate interdisciplinary field of study in
universities, combining elements of philosophy, medicine, biology, theology, and history. By
1990 more than one hundred institutions devoted to bioethics existed in the world, most of them
in the United States. In addition, many major scientific and medical institutions employ
professional bioethicists to help them make decisions if their work poses ethical questions.
In addition to local and professional groups, many countries have established official and
semiofficial committees and consultative bodies to recommend laws on bioethical questions.
These bodies generally bring together scientists, philosophers, religious scholars, lawyers, and
other experts to discuss implications of biomedical research and what laws and rules should be
developed. In the United States, the President’s Council on Bioethics consists of experts
appointed by the president; the council studies and issues periodic reports on human cloning,
stem cell research, and other issues. France has the National Consultative Ethics Committee for
Health and the Life Sciences. The European Group on Ethics on Science and New Technologies
(EGE) advises the European Commission, while the International Bioethics Committee (IBE)
performs a similar function for the United Nations.
One issue under debate is how much the doctrines of various religions should be taken into
account in making bioethical decisions. Religious scholars and theologians helped pioneer the
academic field of bioethics in the 1960s and 1970s and are often included in bioethics
committees and consultative groups such as the president’s council. Arguments for or against
certain scientific and medical practices are often couched in religious terms, such as the
argument that humanity should not play God by, for example, creating new forms of life by
combining genes of different species. But some argue that religious views should play a limited
role in these debates and should not set binding limits for individuals who are not adherents of a
particular faith.
The practice of medical and scientific research itself often raises ethical questions, especially
when humans are the experimental subjects. In addition to research methodologies, other areas in
which ethical questions are often raised include how humans are conceived and born and how
the genes of humans and other living creatures are studied and manipulated.
Medical Research
A significant historical event in the field of bioethics was the discovery of the horrific
experiments the Nazis performed on human prisoners during World War II. At concentration
camps, Nazi doctors infected people with diseases to test vaccines, submerged people in freezing
water to see how long they would survive, and committed other atrocities. After these doctors
and other Nazis were tried and convicted for war crimes at Nuremberg following the war, the
Nuremberg Code was developed to distinguish ethical research on humans from unethical
research.
In the 1960s critics of America’s medical establishment noted that unethical research was not
confined to the Nazis. Two famous examples are the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which hundreds
of black men were denied medicine to treat syphilis so the effects of the disease could be studied,
and the Willowbrook study, in which disabled children at the Willowbrook State School were
infected with hepatitis so that disease could be studied. Reforms and safeguards have been
established within the medical community since then to ensure that humans give informed
consent to being part of experiments and to ensure that children, prisoners, and others who are
unable to give consent are protected.
One area that remains controversial is research on human embryos. Embryonic stem cells—the
cells created at the earliest stages of human development—may be the key to treating or curing
many diseases. However, stem cell research and cultivation generally involves creating and then
destroying very young embryos. This has raised many of the same issues as in the debate on
abortion. Many who oppose abortion also oppose human embryonic research because they
believe that such embryos are potential human beings who have rights. Supporters of stem cell
research counter that the embryos are not human beings.
Assisted Reproduction
The status of embryos is also a factor in another significant area of bioethics controversy—
assisted reproduction. For much of human history little could be done to help couples or
individuals who wanted to be parents but were unable to have children. That has changed. In
1978 scientists removed an ovum from a woman, fertilized it with sperm in a laboratory (in vitro
fertilization), and implanted the fertilized egg in the woman. Nearly nine months later the
world’s first "test-tube baby" was born. The development was criticized by some at the time as a
monstrous interference with a natural process, but since then thousands of children have been
born with various forms of assisted reproduction. In addition to in vitro fertilization, couples can
use artificial insemination by donor (AID), donated eggs, and surrogate wombs. Fertilized eggs
can be selected for sex and screened for genetic disorders before being implanted (an
experimental process called preimplantation genetic diagnosis). Assisted reproduction has also
enabled gay and lesbian couples, single women, and postmenopausal women to have children.
Assisted reproduction has been celebrated by some who say it helps people who desperately
want children. But it has also been criticized by some as unethical. Some critics object to what
they view as deviations from the "natural" family of a mother and father. Another objection some
have is to the fate of unused embryos. Many assisted reproduction techniques involve the
creation of multiple embryos, not all of which are implanted. Those that are not used are either
frozen or destroyed—something that is morally objectionable to those who believe all embryos
deserve a right to life. Finally, some people object to children being made-to-order, like a
product. Bioethicists Arthur L. Caplan and Glenn McGee say, "preimplantation genetic diagnosis
… could one day be applied to such traits as personality or intelligence, raising additional ethical
questions about the rights of parents to design their descendants."
One human reproductive technique that has not yet been tried—but which has generated much
discussion over its ethics—is human cloning. To clone something is to grow an organism from a
single cell, resulting in a new organism that is virtually genetically identical to its parent. In 1996
scientists successfully cloned a sheep, leading some to speculate that human cloning, then the
subject of science fiction, was close at hand. The prospect was highly controversial, and many
countries and states have passed laws banning reproductive cloning.
Genetic Engineering and the Creation of New Life Forms
Genetic engineering refers to techniques that artificially alter the genes (the chemicals that
control heredity) in an organism, thus changing both the organism and its descendants. In the
1970s, scientists developed ways to make new combinations of genes and to introduce individual
genes into the genetic makeup of plants, animals, and other organisms. Scientists have developed
bacteria, for example, with genes that produce or break down certain chemicals. They have
inserted a growth gene into mice, causing them to grow twice their natural size. They have
transferred genes from one species into another; in one experiment, a bacteria gene was inserted
into a tomato plant, creating a line of plants resistant to caterpillars. Researchers for the J. Craig
Venter Institute replaced the entire genetic identity of a microbe and applied for a patent for the
new bacteria in 2006.
Such developments, like those of assisted reproduction, have been met with concern about their
ethical implications. Some opponents of genetic engineering stress the possible environmental
damage caused by the accidental or purposeful release of genetically engineered bacteria or other
organisms. Others object to the creation of chimeras (genetic combinations of multiple species)
or the idea that any life form can be patented. As in the field of assisted reproduction, many
object to the idea that life is a commodity that can be manipulated or tinkered with for selfish
reasons. Longtime genetics critic Jeremy Rifkin asks, "Do we want our children to grow up in a
world where the genetics codes of plants, animals, and humans are interchangeable and living
things are programmed as engineered products with no greater intrinsic value than autos or
microwave ovens?" But many researchers on the cutting edge of biotechnology reject the notion
that their work is unethical. Mark Bedau, a philosopher and chief executive of a company trying
to make single-cell organisms from chemical components, acknowledges that what he is doing
could be seen as "playing God," but argues that "playing God is a good thing to do as long as
you’re doing it responsibly."
Source Citation:
"Bioethics." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Gender Selection Is Ethical
Norbert Gleicher, professor of obstetrics, gynecology, and reproductive sciences at Yale
University School of Medicine, is a consultant at the Center for Human Reproduction. David H.
Barad is professor of epidemiology and social medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine
in the Bronx, New York.
In developed nations such as the United States, gender selection is not inherently unethical. Research
suggests that while there is a greater demand for male than female babies among those parents who
choose to select gender in the United States, the bias disappears when certain ethic groups are removed
from the analysis. This finding contradicts the assumption that gender selection always discriminates
against females. Thus, adopting ethical opinions concerning gender selection that apply to all cultures
worldwide is unfair. Women who meet objective criteria and have not been coerced should be allowed
to choose the gender of their children.
Elective gender selection has remained controversial worldwide. In the United States (US), the
issue had remained largely dormant until the Ethics Committee of the American Society for
Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) published an opinion, potentially validating elective gender
selection under selected circumstances. This publication gave rise to controversy in the US,
matching differences of opinion elsewhere in the world.
A Variety of Ethical Opinions
Some ethics opinions (from major professional societies) have differentiated between 'prefertilization' gender selection by sperm sorting, and 'post-fertilization' sex selection through in
vitro fertilization (IVF) and preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), with the former considered
more ethically acceptable than the latter. The reasons are complex, with many ethicists
considering the creation of a human embryo as a differentiating step. A recently issued opinion
by the Ethics Committee of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG),
however, placed a surprising degree of emphasis on a different argument: in following the
reasoning of the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, it considers all forms of
elective gender selection as discriminatory and sexist.
In its opinion, the ACOG committee states, 'The committee shares the concerns expressed by the
United Nations and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics that sex selection
can be motivated by and reinforce the devaluation of women'. Continuing, the committee
concluded that, '...the use of sex selection techniques for family balancing violates the norm of
equality between the sexes; moreover, this ethical objection arises regardless of the timing of the
selection (i.e. preconception or postconception) or the stage of development of the embryo or
fetus.'
Such an implied utilization of elective gender selection for sexist and discriminatory purposes,
devaluatory to women, of course implies that, given the opportunity, a large majority of couples
would choose gender selection for male offspring. This contention has been disputed on
theoretical grounds, and based on population surveys, but still has led to international regulatory
and legal prohibitions, although, in an exception, the House of Commons Science and
Technology Committee of the United Kingdom recently adopted less dogmatic
recommendations.
The introduction of elective gender selection would, at least in the developed world, not affect gender
ratios to a significant degree.
Studying Gender Selection
The issue has, however, never before objectively been investigated. This study attempts such an
investigation in a multiethnic US patient population, which chose to undergo gender selection
procedures for family balancing purposes....
The results of this study demonstrate overall a statistically larger demand for male than female
gender selection. When these data are, however, further analyzed, it becomes apparent that the
demand for males is driven by strong biases toward male selection in only some ethnic
minorities. Except for Chinese, Arab/Muslim and Asian-Indian patients, no other ethnic group
demonstrates a bias toward male selection. Indeed, the opposite is true, especially among
Caucasian/Hispanic patients, where 59.6% of selections were for female. This finding confirms
previously expressed opinions, and population surveys in a number of countries, which have
argued that the introduction of elective gender selection would, at least in the developed world,
not affect gender ratios to a significant degree.
In the US, two prior surveys have addressed this issue: [T.] Jain et al. noted a significant
preference for female gender, especially in older women, who were not religious, had more
living children, had only sons and carried a diagnosis of male factor infertility. Interestingly,
nulliparous [never having given birth] women, who, of course, were not the subject of our study,
did not demonstrate preference for the selection of one gender over the other. Among parous
[having given birth] women, the distribution of gender among their children significantly
affected their preferred choices: those with only daughters preferred to select for male; those
with only sons preferred selection for female, thus validating the concept of family balancing.
[E.] Dahl et al. noted that 50% of men and women wished to have a balanced family, 7% wanted
more boys, 6% more girls, 5% with only boys, 4% with only girls and 27% had no preference.
Our study did not demonstrate that age represented a contributing factor toward the differences
observed between ethnic groups. Asian patients were, however, minimally younger than nonAsian and younger age predisposed to male selection. Especially remarkable was the fact that the
two most committed ethnic groups, Caucasian/Hispanic (to female selection) and Chinese (to
male selection), were almost identical in mean ages.
The Contradicting Arguments
This study also contradicts the argument that offering elective gender selection for family
balancing purposes 'always' is discriminatory against females and should, therefore, 'always' be
considered sexist, as expressed by the United Nations, a recent ACOG Ethics Opinion and in a
number of ethical opinions in the literature. The data presented here instead suggest that in the
US, the situation is more complex: although certain minorities may still have maintained cultural
biases of their homelands, a majority of remaining couples do not demonstrate discriminatory, or
sexist, behavior toward females. Indeed, this majority may actually act discriminatorily against
males by predominantly selecting for female. Discrimination against male gender has, however,
to our best knowledge, never been recognized by any of the international ethical panels
commenting on this issue.
This study does not address the potential choice [of] gender [that] couples would prefer in first
pregnancies. Although the studies by Jain et al. and Dahl et al. suggest that expected findings
should not differ significantly from those reported in this study, such a conclusion remains to be
confirmed by future studies in the field.
Studying Ethnic Minorities
As a New York based fertility center, our program appears well suited to investigate this issue
because many of our patients represent ethnic minorities, where, for cultural reasons, gender
discrimination in favor of male selection can, indeed, be expected. The 22 Chinese, 6
Arab/Muslim and 6 Asian-Indian couples, who to a significant degree favored male selection,
represent the approximate overall representations of these ethnic groups within our center's
patient population. It is, therefore, reassuring that the availability of gender section for family
balancing purposes does not appear to have selectively drawn couples from these two minorities.
In the US, ethnic minorities are usually concentrated in large urban centers. For example,
Chinese minorities can be found in largest numbers in New York City and San Francisco areas,
whereas Arab/Muslim populations concentrate in the New York City and Michigan areas. The
ethnic biases presented here toward male gender selection will, therefore, only be visible in
relatively small parts of the country.
The offer of elective gender selection for family balancing purposes does not necessarily violate the
norm of equality between the sexes to the disfavor of females.
Other minorities were represented in only small sample sizes, and lack of obvious biases can,
therefore, not necessarily be understood as absence of such biases. Further studies, involving
larger patient populations, are needed to fully absolve other minority populations from antifemale biases.
At the same time, this study also suggests that in a less ethnically diverse population,
representing a more homogenous Caucasian/Hispanic population, and thus a large majority of
the US population, one, indeed, can expect no bias toward male selections and, potentially, even
bias toward the selection of females.
Drawing Conclusions
This observation suggests that in an ethnically diverse, and economically developed country, like
the US, the offer of elective gender selection for family balancing purposes does not necessarily
violate the norm of equality between the sexes to the disfavor of females, as suggested in the
recent Ethics Opinion of ACOG, and, therefore, does not universally appear to represent a
discriminatory and sexist medical practice.
In developed countries ethnic biases [in favor of male selection] will fade over time as new generations
are influenced by their new homeland's cultural habits.
Yet, at the same time these findings raise the question [of] how obviously existing biases toward
male gender selection in certain minority populations should be addressed. We have given
considerable thought to this issue but have been unable to reach an unequivocal answer: on the
one hand, we strongly believe in the right of patients to choose the makeup of their families;
however, our belief in such rights is, of course, predicated on free choice for each individual,
which in an enlightened society will, as most published data and this study have demonstrated,
lead to an approximately equal gender distribution, not discriminatory toward females. When
such free choice, based on ethnic habits and/or pressures, is lacking, it would seem only fair to
withhold the right to choose the gender makeup of one's family. The decision to withhold the
right of elective gender selection would, therefore, appear appropriate in countries where
widespread discrimination against females, indeed, exists.
Moral and ethical values, however, vary in different societies and, as this study demonstrated, in
different ethnicities within US society. It would, therefore, appear mistaken to assume that
universal ethics opinion can be developed for worldwide consumption, as suggested by the
United Nations' opinion on elective gender selection, and by some individuals. Instead,
developed nations would be well advised to develop educational outreach programs for their
ethnic minorities, which teach non-discriminatory value systems, while allowing the conduct of
practices which are not abused by a large majority of the population.
It seems reasonable to assume that in developed countries ethnic biases will fade over time as
new generations are influenced by their new homeland's cultural habits. Our experience with
elective gender selection also indicates that, independent of ethnicity, the choice to pursue this
process is in over 80% of couples initiated by the woman. In developed countries, with mixed
ethnic populations, like the US, this observation suggests that a psychological investigation, prior
to initiation of treatment, may allow for an objective differentiation between women who chose
gender selection out of free will, and those who feel coerced. Such a psychological examination
could then, in a non-discriminatory way, be used to determine who should, and who should not,
be given access to selective gender determination of their offspring.
We in that sense agree with Dahl who commented that outlawing a harmless practice in one
country, simply because it has been demonstrated to have potentially harmful effects elsewhere
in the world, represents bad public policy. Similarly, there is no reason to impose ethics opinions
on a whole nation, simply because a small minority acts in an unethical fashion. Ethical
advisories should, in their respective opinions, be more considerate of national value systems,
and should not attempt to find consensus based on lowest common denominators.
Source Citation:
Gleicher, Norbert, and David H. Barad. "Gender Selection Is Ethical." Reproductive Technology. Ed. Cindy
Mur. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. At Issue. Rpt. from "The Choice of Gender: Is Elective Gender
Selection, Indeed, Sexist?" Human Reproduction 22 (1 Nov. 2007): 3038-3041. Gale Opposing Viewpoints
In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Gender Selection Can in Some Cases Be Unethical
Preeti Shekar is a feminist activist and journalist from India.
According to Preeti Shekar, the decision to select a child's gender may be harmful if made for social
rather than medical reasons. In societies that favor male children, gender selection technologies help
parents to select male rather than female offspring. This helps the parents avoid resorting to female
infanticide and feticide and removes pressure on the mother from husband and relatives to bear sons.
However, use of these technologies for gender selection for societal reasons perpetuates sexist
attitudes about the feminine gender. Moreover, the practice creates an imbalance in the ratio of males
to females in countries, such as India and China, that favor the use of these gender selection methods.
Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen speaks of "missing women." Other experts call the
phenomenon "gendercide." They refer to gender selection, a practice that is thriving in South
Asian societies in the United States and abroad, thanks to new, sophisticated reproductive
technologies.
"We get several calls a week from folks, especially from India and China either living here or
who plan to visit, asking if we can definitely help them make a baby boy," notes a hotline
operator for The Fertility Institutes in Los Angeles, one of numerous clinics that have
mushroomed in the United States to cater to the growing demand for state-of-the-art reproductive
technologies.
Doctors Use Three Techniques
There are currently three techniques of gender selection available: pre-natal testing, preimplantation genetic diagnoses and sperm sorting. Pre-natal testing consists of ultrasound that
detects the gender of the fetus, allowing parents to abort if the fetus is of an undesired sex. The
latter two techniques are more complex. With genetic diagnosing, a woman first goes through in
vitro fertilization, during which her eggs are surgically extracted and fertilized outside the body.
Doctors then test the embryos and implant only those of the desired gender. Originally developed
for the detection of sex-linked genetic disorders, the technique is now employed in gender
selection. MicroSort technology, or sperm sorting, involves literally sorting through sperm to
find the sex-determining chromosome (Y for a boy and X for a girl) and then inseminating the
woman with sperm that will create a baby of the desired gender.
Gender selection technologies are of increasing interest to an elite class that filters issues through
a paradigm of choice and access. While many mainstream news reports and articles do gently
hint at the ethical issues of using the technologies for non-medical purposes, the final verdict
rests on each family's shoulders. Since genetic diagnosing and sperm sorting help families avoid
the trauma of female infanticide and feticide that earlier, less sophisticated technologies allowed,
it is a popular notion, even among some progressive members of the South Asian community.
What's lacking, however, is a deeper analysis of the sexist and racist consequences of the
technologies.
"It is important to have a critical discussion of the implications of reproductive technologies,
especially for women of color," affirms Sujatha Jesudason of the Center for Genetics and
Society, who is a veteran reproductive rights activist and community organizer. "Because if we
don't, then we as a society let the market determine what is acceptable instead of challenging the
current and future misuse of technology that is growing increasingly sophisticated. This is a
deeply ethical and feminist issue."
South Asians Are Targeted
Despite the formidable costs—between $18,000 and $23,000 on average—it is not uncommon
for middle-class and affluent couples from India and China to visit the United States to access
these technologies, which are either banned or unavailable back home.
Dubbed as the new face of reproductive tourism, many clinics encourage the practice with slick
marketing strategies targeting South Asian communities. Advertisements for gender selection
appear in Asia-bound in-flight magazines and increasingly in South Asian community papers.
Often, the new technologies are framed in "neutral" ways (many U.S.-based institutes refer to
gender selection as "family balancing"), reducing the practice to the level of the family's choice
to have a baby boy or girl.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect underlying the availability of these technologies is the racism
that helps perpetuate it. In their newsletters and online testimonials, the Washington, D.C-based
Genetics and IVF Institute and The Fertility Institutes with centers in L.A., Las Vegas and
Mexico, feature largely white American couples who herald the technology for enabling them to
complete their families. The fact that Asian families use these technologies to sire boys is
completely suppressed. While clinic websites project availability and access as a race-neutral
phenomenon, the news reports featuring these centers and calls to their information hotlines paint
a different picture—one in which representatives grudgingly acknowledge that Asian couples are
a huge consumer base that typically prefers boys.
A 2006 UNICEF report finds India battling a highly skewed national gender ratio of 927 females for every
1,000 males—a drop from the 1991 figure of 945 females for every 1,000 males.
Most of the calls to centers like The Fertility Institutes are from women. There is enormous
pressure on women from their families and husbands to produce that baby boy who will continue
the family name and be their future economic savior. "A lot of women who come to us for help
tell us that the sex of their baby determines the security of their married life," says Atashi
Chakravarty, who heads Narika, a Bay Area-based group that works to end domestic violence in
the South Asian community. "Giving birth to a girl can many times accelerate the abuse and
violence they experience from their husband or his family."
A Worldwide Issue
As profits of these U.S.-based clinics soar, several South Asian governments have become
alarmed at the imbalanced gender ratios in India and China, where "son preference" is an
established reality. A 2006 UNICEF report finds India battling a highly skewed national gender
ratio of 927 females for every 1,000 males—a drop from the 1991 figure of 945 females for
every 1,000 males. China is experiencing a similarly alarming imbalance that is compounded by
its one-child-per-family policy. But this hasn't stopped the Genetics and IVF Institute from
operating branches in Shanghai and Guangzhou since 1996.
Numbers a[s]ide, the concerns of reproductive rights groups and activists worldwide focus on the
ethics of gender selection. These concerns caused Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom to
ban the use of reproductive technology for gender selection purposes. But in the United States,
the clinics propagate it as free choice.
As new technologies emerge that enable a booming middle class in South Asian countries to
access them freely and guiltlessly, activists, community organizers and policymakers are
recognizing the need to work across borders and boundaries.
Source Citation:
Shekar, Preeti. "Gender Selection Can in Some Cases Be Unethical." Reproductive Technology. Ed. Cindy
Mur. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. At Issue. Rpt. from "Reproductive Racism: Gender Selection
Technologies Target Asian Communities." Colorlines Magazine 10.5 (Sept.-Oct. 2007): 23-24. Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Civil Rights
Civil rights are the rights of all citizens to political and social freedom and equality. These
include the right to vote and the right to be treated fairly by the legal system. In the United States
intense battles have been waged over civil rights throughout the nation’s history, particularly
since the end of the Civil War in 1865, when 4 million newly freed slaves suddenly found
themselves in a nation that no longer considered them property but did not yet regard them as
citizens.
The End of Jim Crow
The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were the worst periods of civil rights abuses in
America, especially for minorities. In many Southern states, so-called Jim Crow laws were
enacted by state legislatures that relegated African Americans to a second-class status. Based on
the assumption that there should be two separate spheres of public life divided by race, the Jim
Crow statutes mandated separate schools for black students, prevented the descendants of slaves
from voting in elections by placing onerous restrictions on voter registration or required the
payment of poll taxes, and banned interracial marriage. Railroad cars, public restrooms, and even
drinking fountains were labeled "Colored" or "White." There were also unwritten rules. Owning
too much property, being overly friendly with a white woman, or even attempting to exercise the
right to vote were all violations of an unwritten Southern code that compelled blacks to "mind
their place," as white Southerners put it. To challenge any of these laws or rules was to invite
swift and harsh retribution. For decades African American males were targeted by local lynch
mobs or more organized white-separatist groups like the Ku Klux Klan, which kidnapped
them—sometimes at night, from their homes, in front of their families—and subjected them to
mock trials and summary execution, usually by hanging. In other cases African Americans were
tortured or their homes were burned to the ground.
Lynchings persisted in some parts of the South well into the 1950s, but the integration of the
U.S. armed forces at the end of World War II helped push the civil rights movement forward.
The landmark 1954 U.S. Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education was another major
milestone. In this case the Court ruled that separate-but-equal schools were unconstitutional. The
official beginning of the civil rights movement in the United States, however, is often cited as the
four-month period between August and December 1955. The late-summer lynching of a
fourteen-year-old Chicago youth named Emmett Till, who was visiting relatives in Mississippi
when he became the victim of mob justice, shocked the nation, especially when Jet magazine
published a picture of the late teen in his coffin that showed his disfigured face. On December 1
Rosa Parks, a forty-two-year-old seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama, refused to comply with
the city’s decades-old rules that governed public transportation. Blacks were supposed to sit in
the rear seats on buses, and if the bus was full, they were required to give up their seats to whites
and stand in the aisle. They also had to enter at the front, pay the fare, and if whites were present,
exit and reenter through the rear door. Sometimes the driver left before a black passenger
reentered. Parks was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat to a white passenger, and her case
spurred a year-long boycott of the Montgomery city bus system that galvanized blacks across the
South. The Montgomery boycott was followed by scores of sit-ins, strikes, and court challenges
to repeal all discriminatory laws in the former slave states.
The passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a pivotal event in U.S. history. It states in part,
"all persons shall be entitled to the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services, facilities,
privileges, advantages, and accommodations of any place of public accommodation, as defined
in this section, without discrimination or segregation on the ground of race, color, religion, or
national origin or sex." A year later, Congress passed the National Voting Rights Act of 1965,
which prohibited poll taxes, literacy tests, and other means by which local election commissions
in many Southern states had prevented African Americans from exercising their right to vote.
Rights Versus Liberties
The term civil rights is sometimes used interchangeably with civil liberties. Both refer to the
protections guaranteed to all Americans in the U.S. Constitution. Some of the most important
civil liberties include the right to privacy, the right to trial by jury, and the right to due process
and equal protection under the law. After the terrorist attacks on the United States on September
11, 2001, several new laws were enacted that have raised fears about the civil liberties of all
Americans to be free of unwarranted intrusions into their private lives by the government.
Several core tenets that have historically served to guarantee certain basic civil liberties that most
Americans believed were inviolable were also repealed. The attacks on September 11th (9/11)
and fears about national security were the basis for these new laws and strategies.
The Patriot Act
Just six weeks after 9/11, Congress approved the USA PATRIOT Act; its name is an acronym
for "Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept
and Obstruct Terrorism." Several of its more controversial provisions give law-enforcement and
intelligence-agency personnel unprecedented new powers. Conservative politicians who, twenty
years earlier, had decried the "police state" mentality in Communist nations in comparison to the
guarantees of "freedom" that defined America were now supporters of measures that breached
the traditional system of checks and balances enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. For example,
the Patriot Act allows for warrantless wiretaps; previously, law enforcement was required to
submit an application to a judge and show probable cause if they wanted to tap a suspect’s
telephone lines. The judge then reviewed the reasons and either approved or declined the request.
National security letters (NSLs) are another investigative tool whose expanded use, like
wiretapping, is sanctioned by the provisions of the Patriot Act. NSLs can be issued by Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents above a certain rank and do not require judicial approval. In
2005, concerns were raised about several thousand NSLs issued to casinos and other touristrelated businesses in Las Vegas, Nevada. It was not necessary for the FBI to demonstrate
probable cause to compile information on credit-card transactions and even hospital visits, and
there were fears about the compilation of a secret database that might be used in the future to
embarrass potential political opponents. The city’s mayor, Oscar B. Goodman, told Business
Week that NSLs were worrisome and certainly in direct contrast to the slogan used for the city’s
national advertising campaign—"What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas." Referencing the
fictional works of early-twentieth-century German writer Franz Kafka, who imagined a chilling
totalitarian world, Goodman called the FBI’s tactics "Kafkaesque. The central component to our
economy is privacy protection. People are here to have a good time and don’t want to worry
about the government knowing their business." In the argument for national security, however, it
is known that six of the 9/11 hijackers traveled to Las Vegas at least six times in the months
before the attack. Intriguingly, they gambled, visited bars where exotic dancers simulated sexual
acts on patrons, and drank alcohol, all of which are prohibited by their religion, Islam.
The Real ID Act
A national identity card was another aftereffect of 9/11. While U.S. drivers hold vehicleoperating licenses issued by their state, and overseas travelers are required to carry a federally
issued passport, the idea of a national identity card had long been resisted as one of the hallmarks
of a repressive society. Even in some European countries, a police officer can stop a citizen on
the street and, for no reason, ask to see an internal passport or national ID document. Such
tactics, however, are more commonly used in totalitarian regimes. Concerns about preventing
future terrorist attacks led to the passage of the Real ID Act by Congress in 2005. It mandates
that all states must issue redesigned driver’s licenses that meet new federal antiterrorist standards
by May 2008. The act has been met with widespread resistance from the states, largely over cost
and privacy concerns, and the deadline has been extended to May 2011. Civil-liberty watchdog
groups have also raised concerns about biometric data collection. This refers to fingerprinting
and iris scanning, used in conjunction with photographs, to prevent ID theft. Even though several
of the 9/11 hijackers had been identified as potential terrorists, they were allowed to board planes
because they used false identities or state-issued drivers’ licenses that were not part of the
antiterrorism database. Advocates for increased security measures note that had those measures
been in place on the morning of 9/11, the nineteen men would not have been allowed to board
their planes.
Nature Bestows, Not Governments
Some critics argue that the recent erosion of civil rights in the United States supports the idea
that al Qaeda—the Islamic militant group behind the 9/11 attacks—actually did gain a significant
advantage by their act: a democratic society willingly handing over its prized personal freedoms
to the government. In 1774, future president Thomas Jefferson wrote A Summary View of the
Rights of British America, a blistering attack on abuses perpetrated by England’s King George
III on the thirteen colonies in the New World. He warned the monarch that "a free people [claim]
their rights as derived from the laws of nature, and not as the gift of their chief magistrate."
Source Citation:
"Civil Rights." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Ethnic and Religious Profiling Is Necessary
"There is nothing intrinsically wrong with profiling. Some people, quite simply, pose greater security
risks than others."
Carl F. Horowitz is the director of the Organized Labor Accountability Project of the National Legal and
Policy Center in Fall Church, Virginia. In the following viewpoint, Horowitz asserts that racial and
religious profiling is a necessary defense against terrorism in a post-September 11, 2001, world.
Horowitz argues that Muslim extremists commit the vast majority of terrorist acts against the United
States in subterfuge, so their movements and activities in the country must be scrutinized. Increased
surveillance of suspicious Muslims—which was enabled through the Patriot Act—have stifled terrorist
activity and prevented potential attacks without violating civil liberties, he claims.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. As stated by Horowitz, what has eroded national identity and security?
2. How does Horowitz use the example of Muhammad al-Qahtani to support his argument for
profiling Muslims in the United States?
3. How does the author describe "fourth-generation warfare"?
Good evening. I'd like to thank the Robert A. Taft Club for giving me the opportunity to speak
on an incendiary subject: ethnic and religious profiling as an anti-terrorism strategy. Some
people, on the Right as well as the Left, believe that examining movement into and within the
U.S. by Muslims, especially Arab Muslims, is irreconcilable with preserving basic civil liberties.
With all due respect, I happen to reject that view. There is no reason to believe that a policy of
vetting individuals who belong to the ethno-religious entity responsible for most of the terrorism
against this country harms law-abiding citizens. Toward that end, I offer a defense of ethnic and
religious profiling, and one of its primary tools, the USA Patriot Act.
Profiling: Workable and Necessary
National identity and security now more than ever go together. The terror attacks against the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon [in 2001] were the result of decades of erosion of our
national identity and national security. They were the result of a comfortable self-delusion that
all ethnic, national and religious groups want to be, and are equally capable of being,
Americanized. It's as if entry into this country is an act of de facto patriotism. The reality, of
course, is that many people come to this country with every intention of conquering us, or at any
rate, flouting our laws. More invaders than immigrants, such people live in a state of infantile
wish-fulfillment that equates mass murder and religious obligation. And they have a rather nasty
tendency to be Muslims, especially from the Middle East.
Now unlike certain misguided "patriots," I regard as poisonous the psychology of Battered
American Syndrome. This is the famous we-got-what-was-coming-to-us argument. The 9/11
[September 11, 2001] terror attacks, we are told incessantly, constituted "blowback," just
desserts for our gratuitous meddling in the Middle East. This is anti-Americanism, whether it
comes from the Right or the Left. It certainly is inadequate to the task of understanding the
nature of our terrorist enemies.
It is true that most Muslims living in this country, not to mention those who plan to come, are not
terrorists by any stretch. But a good many are the kind who would give terrorists aid, comfort
and applause. And as we all know now, it only takes a few dozen terrorists to inflict nationwide
mayhem. Back when our immigration policy really functioned—that is to say, prior to the 1965
amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act—virtually none of these people, even the
sympathizers, would have gotten into the U.S.
That leads to a governing principle. To stand an old expression on its head, the best offense is a
good defense. About 175 years ago [military strategist] Carl von Clausewitz put it this way:
Defense is simply the stronger form of war, the one that makes the enemy's defeat more certain ... We
maintain unequivocally that the form of warfare we call defense not only offers greater probability of
victory than attack, but that its victories can attain the same proportions and results.
Profiling Based on a Statistical Fact
In today's context, on a practical level, that means that the movement, conversations and other
behavior of Muslims, whether native-born or foreign-born, need to be scrutinized, monitored and
analyzed—in a word, profiled. In all likelihood, they are not radical anti-Americans. Yet on the
other hand, they just might be. And unlike mere dissenters, these people are at war with us. That
is the underlying reality of the cliche, "the post-9/11 environment." It is a statistical fact: A
young Muslim man is tens of thousands of times more likely than anyone else in the world to
commit an act of terrorism. He should be profiled.
Consider the following scenario: I am an airport security inspector. A young Middle Eastern man
or women walks up to my checkpoint. Would I be inclined to ask (or have another person ask)
this passenger some extra questions about his background and beliefs before I let him through?
You bet I would. Equally to the point, I'm not going to give extra attention to persons who don't
look Middle Eastern or display outward signs of Islamic belief. To ask extra questions of each
and every passenger, on a practical basis, would be a logistical disaster. Taking such
inconvenience to its extreme, almost nobody would choose to fly.
There is nothing intrinsically wrong with profiling. Some people, quite simply, pose greater
security risks than others. Membership in a particular ethnic or religious group is a valid marker
for assuming and judging unobserved behavioral traits in another person, especially when we
have no other information to go on at that moment in time. To insist otherwise is to not live in
the real world.
Can profiling produce results? Purer-than-thou libertarians insist the U.S. government is
incapable of defending us from terrorists. I say baloney. When federal law enforcement is
allowed to do what local cops long have been able to do—monitor, question and detain criminal
suspects based on observable physical traits—they can catch terrorists planning their misdeeds.
And they have caught them, despite pressure from supervisors to look the other way....
In August 2001, a month before the 9/11 attacks, a certain Muhammad al-Qahtani, a Saudi, was
turned away from this country while attempting to enter the U.S. at Orlando International
Airport. Customs officer Jose Melendez-Perez understood the real requirements of his job rather
than the bureaucratically mandated requirements. Though he'd been warned by his superiors
against racial profiling of Arabs, he responded, "I don't care. This guy's a bad guy. I can see it in
his eyes." Officer Melendez-Perez was right. There was something in this guy's eyes.
As al-Qahtani was being led off, he turned around and announced, "I'll be back." He kept his
word, though under unplanned circumstances. Qahtani was identified as the would-be 20th
hijacker. In the recent trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, it had come out that 9/11 mastermind Khalid
Shaikh Muhammad had pointed to al-Qahtani as the hijacker who would "complete the group."
His assignment: United Flight 93, the one that crashed in rural Pennsylvania, now the subject of
a splendid new movie, a suicide hijacking mission whose intended target, based on all available
evidence, was either the White House or the U.S. Capitol. The three other planes each had five
hijackers; Flight 93 had only four. That fact might have been why the latter's passengers were
able to overpower the terrorists. Our armed forces in Afghanistan, by the way, managed to track
Qahtani down. He's now reportedly a resident of Guantanamo Bay prison....
Yet the [George W.] Bush administration has learned little. Federal officials, if anything, appear
more frightened of offending the sensibilities of Islamic and Arab "civil-rights" groups than
going the extra mile to track down and arrest the most dangerous criminals in the world. On June
17, 2003, acting on the stern advice of President Bush, the Department of Justice [DOJ] ordered
a total ban on racial and ethnic profiling at dozens of federal agencies. The DOJ guidelines
directly affected around 120,000 law enforcement officers at the FBI, the DEA [Drug
Enforcement Agency], the Department of Homeland Security, ATF [Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives], the Coast Guard and elsewhere....
The Patriot Act Reconsidered
The case for profiling, put simply, is far stronger than the case against it. Whether the USA
Patriot Act is an appropriate vehicle for profiling is a separate issue. Let us go into a bit of detail.
This legislation, officially known as the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing
Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, does not formally authorize
profiling persons on ethnic, racial or religious grounds. Yet given its overwhelming passage in
the House and the Senate in October 2001, only weeks after the 9/11 atrocities, the context was
the danger posed by this country's current and future Islamic population. By giving law
enforcement extra tools of surveillance, infiltration and arrest, and by breaking down the
traditional information-sharing firewall between enforcement and intelligence agencies, the
Patriot Act was meant to root out Muslim terrorists before they attack. Congress, after a lengthy
and contentious debate, reauthorized the act in March 2006.
The law is needed, quite simply, because the enemy gives us no choice. Their mode of operation,
to use military strategist William Lind's term, is "fourth-generation warfare." In this form of
combat, subterfuge is everything. The Islamic terrorist radicals are masters of deception as well
as destruction. Consider that:
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They don't have a national capital and, with the exception of the Chechen thugs, are in no sense
nationalists.
They don't have tanks, uniforms, infantry or battle formations.
They don't seek summit meetings or peace talks, since they don't want to be found.
They frequently change their laptop computers and cell phones to minimize detection of
messages they send to each other.
They use fake IDs, not exactly impossible to come by these days.
They heavily recruit inside mosques, which our government apparently deems off-limits for
infiltration.
These people live, breathe and think war 24 hours a day. And as long as they are outnumbered
and outgunned, at least here in the United States, they will plan terrorist acts with the utmost of
guile. That is why we must use every available tool of infiltration, including the roving wiretaps
authorized by the Patriot Act. Without those wiretaps, it would be far more difficult, absent
random luck, to gather evidence of a pending attack.
But hasn't the Act severely diminished our civil liberties? Critics who make this point, from
[journalist] Alexander Cockburn (Left) to [libertarian] James Bovard (Right), typically denounce
the law in terms of what it would do or might do. You'll notice, interestingly, that their
broadsides aren't in the past tense—as in "has done." That's because there's no hard evidence—
even anecdotal, much less systematic—that our liberties have been violated. A couple years ago
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) responded to a request by the ACLU [American Civil Liberties
Union] to monitor the use of the Patriot Act. Her response: "We've scrubbed the area, and I have
no reported abuses."
This finding should not come as a surprise. The law was written to set a very high bar of proof
for a judge to issue a search warrant, wiretap authorization, or some other surveillance tool. It
also authorized the creation of a civil liberties board, overseen by Congress, to ensure
compliance with existing laws that protect innocent citizens. Here's what the law has done. It has
brought terrorism-related charges against at least 400 people, many of whom are in this country
illegally; more than half those charges have led to convictions. It has broken up confirmed terror
cells in New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Florida. Through its information-sharing features, for
example, it has led to the arrest of a Kashmir-born Islamic fundamentalist (and naturalized U.S.
citizen) from Columbus, Ohio, Iyman Faris, who had been supplying al-Qaeda with information
on how to blow up New York City's Brooklyn Bridge.
Terrorists continue to strike—very recently in Israel and Egypt, and [summer 2005] in London,
murdering dozens of innocent people. But they haven't done anything in America since the 9/11
attacks and the anthrax letter attacks (also likely the work of Islamic extremists) in their
immediate wake. It strains the imagination to suggest the Patriot Act has had nothing to do with
the lack of attacks on our soil since 2001. If the Committee on American Islamic Relations, the
ACLU and convicted lawyer Lynne Stewart are enraged over the law's "insensitivity" toward
Muslims, that should be of no concern to anyone with patriotic instincts.
Conclusion: The Necessity of Scrutiny
To sum up, there are two separate issues at hand: First, should profiling be used to prevent
terrorism? Second, should the USA Patriot Act serve as a means of prevention? The answer in
both cases is "yes." As for the first consideration, there are inherent legal and political risks in
profiling. No matter how good the information, every cop runs the risk of questioning, frisking,
or arresting the wrong person. As for the second, while the Patriot Act may require amending,
that's a far cry from repeal.
The Patriot Act has shown it is capable of protecting us from Islamic terrorists, without violating
basic liberties. It is mild stuff, really. Unlike during World War II, for example, we don't have
rationing, rent control, endless war bond appeals, film and newspaper censorship, draft
registration, and other intrusive demands by the State for collective sacrifice. This is all to the
good. But until Muslims, the world over, cease in any way to take part in, or endorse, the mass
murder of Americans, I shall willingly put up with the Patriot Act's rather negligible excesses.
The long-range goal of America—and the rest of the West—should be defusing Islamic
aggression. Since this isn't about to happen anytime soon, we should focus on self-defense. The
necessity of deploying troops in the Middle East, and risking more of our men coming home in
body bags, is open to debate. The necessity of scrutinizing people who share ethnic and religious
traits of our avowed enemies should not be.
In the end, America is our country to defend. And this Northern paleoconservative is willing to
defend it. Thank you very much.
Source Citation:
Horowitz, Carl F. "Ethnic and Religious Profiling Is Necessary." Civil Liberties. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. San
Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Profiling in an Age of Terrorism."
Social Contract 17 (Fall 2006): 47-51. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Ethnic and Religious Profiling Violates Civil Liberties
"The war on terrorism has lent profiling the veneer of legitimacy...."
In the following viewpoint, Chisun Lee contends that ethnic and religious profiling in the wake of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks has rolled back civil rights. Lee insists that terrorist profiling of
Muslims is the same as discriminatory profiling of African Americans and Latinos. Lee contends that
thousands of innocent Arab, Muslim, and South Asian immigrants have been disproportionately
rounded up and jailed for minor infractions without resulting in any terrorist charges. Ultimately, the
author warns that such government bias and intrusion opens the door to sweeping discrimination
against individuals belonging to these groups. Lee is a contributing writer to the Village Voice.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. Why does the author insist that a major civil rights victory nearly occurred in 2000?
2. What "technical infractions" were immigrants profiled for terrorism jailed for, in Lee's view?
3. According to Lee, what is the state of profiling for African Americans and Latinos?
Four years ago [2000] the nation stood at the cusp of a major civil rights victory. Activists from
across the country rallied in Washington, D.C., to end racial profiling. Polls showed a majority of
Americans opposed the practice. Al Gore vowed that as president he would make a law banning
it, "the first civil rights act of the 21st century."
George W. Bush agreed with his opponent. "I can't imagine what it would be like to be singled
out because of race and stopped and harassed," he said during one 2000 debate. "That's just flat
wrong." Then he did Gore one better: "There is other forms of racial profiling that goes on in
America. Arab Americans are racially profiled.... People are stopped, and we got to do
something about that."
But today his administration's reaction to the 2001 terrorist attacks has not only betrayed Bush's
own rhetoric, but worse, it has undermined the political force of the anti-profiling movement in
general—the force that made it a profound civil rights cause, not just a policy debate. By
couching group-based profiling as necessary to homeland security, the government has traded
the principles of universal equality and individual dignity for the presumption of safety. Nearly
no one this election year [2004] has been bold enough to hint at the outrage that once powered a
bipartisan movement. It has become impossible to be righteous about racial profiling without
encountering the inevitable "But what about 9-11?"
What about it? Three years out, the question demands more than a knee-jerk nod. A thoughtful
look will show that the terrorist attacks did not make such profiling any less wrong than it was on
September 10, 2001. In fact, it is all the more insidious today, because the war on terrorism has
lent profiling the veneer of legitimacy—even urgency, after alerts such as the one regarding
financial centers last weekend [July 2004]. As this modern civil rights movement begins to put
itself back together, with a renewed push for federal legislation, it is important to realize that
racial profiling has not gotten any less wrong—the government is just more willing to do the
wrong thing. And to be willing to do the wrong thing is a devastating rejection of the values of
American life.
One and the Same
"Racial profiling is being stopped driving while black or driving while Hispanic. This is not
racial profiling," said Mark Corallo, spokesperson for the Department of Justice, when asked
about the administration's 9-11-related operations. He voiced precisely the kind of thinking that
has obscured the crisis of profiling for the past three years.
Trawling for terrorists and pulling over motorists in search of drugs are in fact the same thing.
While it may be acceptable to target people based on a racial or ethnic description if—and only
if—there is some specific indication that those particular people are actually criminals, broad
sweeps based on general traits are never OK. Not only are they unlikely to yield "hits" and
certain to humiliate innocent parties, but such dragnets also violate this nation's fundamental
principle that people will be treated as individuals and not according to stereotypes.
"You either have racial profiling, or you don't have racial profiling. You can't have it both ways,"
says LaShawn Warren, a leader in pushing for passage of the End Racial Profiling Act of 2004,
currently a bill with support from 124 members of the House and 16 of the Senate. As a national
legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, she has been struggling to show
Congress members that FBI questioning and immigration roundups of people who appear to be
Arab or Muslim—whatever that looks like—are "no different than the old kind of racial profiling
that we said was wrong."
There is little wonder that some people refuse to believe her. The Bush administration has led the
way. In his long-promised racial profiling ban, announced with great fanfare in June 2003, Bush
told federal law-enforcement agencies that "racial profiling is wrong and will not be tolerated"
and that "stereotyping certain races as having a greater propensity to commit crimes is absolutely
prohibited." (The directive, which is not a law, lacks any enforcement mechanism, so the
prohibition is absolute only in theory.) But he created a crippling exception: "The above
standards do not affect current federal policy with respect to law enforcement activities and other
efforts to defend and safeguard against threats to national security."
In effect, that "national security" loophole has become the exception that would erase the rule.
Like a political ray gun, it neutralizes any critic who would cry racism or xenophobia [fear of
foreigners] when it comes to 9-11-related profiling.
Corallo pointed out, "There were 19 hijackers who were from an Islamic background." Certainly
it makes sense to hunt for people like them—but like them how? There was once a time when
people defended the "driving while black" variety of profiling, because searching certain
minorities for drugs was said to make sense. But as public indignation mounted over the years,
the U.S. Customs Service, for example, scaled back its profiling and turned to behavior- and
intelligence-based investigations instead. Drug-runner apprehensions more than doubled.
This administration has not scored big points for its investigative depth. Nevertheless, it "outright
rejects" allegations that it engages in broad, stereotype-based profiling, Corallo said. "I
understand what they're saying when they feel there's a focus on them," he said of Arab, Muslim,
and South Asian immigrants and citizens who complain of biased treatment, "but there's not."
Maybe it depends on how one defines "focus."
Pervasive Pattern
Tens of thousands of people from Muslim, Arab, and South Asian backgrounds have been
targeted by the government in a slew of sweeps since 9-11. Teenage boys and men from 25
predominantly Muslim countries, none accused of any crime, at one point were ordered to report
to immigration offices for questioning and fingerprinting, or risk arrest and deportation. By the
end of the "special registration," over 82,000 individuals had complied and over 13,000 were
slated for deportation as a result.
The FBI initiated two official rounds of interviews it called "voluntary" with some 8,000
immigrants and citizens of Arab, Muslim, and South Asian backgrounds. Community advocates
claim that agents show up unannounced all the time—although Corallo said, "People are not
getting knocks on the door and questioned." In everyday encounters with local police, coworkers, and neighbors, thousands more have been reported to authorities and detained,
according to these advocacy groups. The Justice Department's own internal watchdog revealed in
2003 that scores of immigrants experienced physical abuse or due process violations while in
government custody.
No matter that exactly zero terrorism-related charges have emerged from these initiatives, and
that all the high-profile cases have resulted from real investigative work or pure accident. (From
Timothy McVeigh to John Walker Lindh, the most infamous national security threats do not fit
the Arab terrorist profile at all.) The roundups continue, according to weekly e-mail updates
among immigration lawyers and advocates.
Well, these are immigrants, one argument goes. They're not supposed to be here in the first
place, and they don't enjoy the same rights as citizens. Corallo claims that border control has
"stopped 12 known terrorists from getting into the country. We also caught hundreds of
convicted felons." (The Voice could find no mention of these figures, outside of Corallo's
comment.) The vast majority jailed as a result of the immigration crackdowns are, in fact, guilty
of something—although almost universally of technical infractions like staying past a visa
deadline or not taking enough class credits to fulfill the student-visitor requirements. Putting
aside the important debate about whether prolonged detention is the right response to a
paperwork problem, these folks technically are subject to monitoring by the U.S. government.
Yet this monitoring has hardly been equally applied. "They weren't calling in immigrants from
Great Britain," the ACLU's Warren points out. "There's a really unjustifiable distinction being
made."
That distinction is where 9-11-related profiling and the more traditional notion of racial profiling
meet. That distinction is stereotype. Whether based on race, religion, or national origin, the
special burden of a profiled person is being plagued by negative assumptions tagged to his or her
"type."
The result of such profiling is not just indignation but rank inequality. Says Leti Volpp, author of
a widely cited 2002 law article entitled "The Citizen and the Terrorist," "Being a citizen means
enjoying all the rights of a citizen. But 'driving while black' was a sign that African Americans
could only enjoy second-class citizen-ship." She explains that people who are perceived to be
Arab or Muslim face the same injustice. Instead of the right to be considered innocent until
proven guilty, for instance, they "have to prove themselves innocent."
Just last week [July 2004] it emerged that the Census Bureau had given detailed location and
national-origin data on Arab Americans—U.S. citizens—to the Department of Homeland
Security [DHS]. DHS claimed it wanted the information in order to post Arabic language signs
in the right airports. But as the news shot around civil rights listservs, people recalled how census
data was used during World War II to identify Japanese Americans who would be sent to U.S.
internment camps.
Though the administration may deny it, former federal appellate judge Timothy Lewis, who was
appointed to the Third Circuit by the first President George Bush, insists that there has been a
widespread pattern of unjustified profiling by the government since 9-11. He agreed to chair a
series of national public hearings on "war on drugs" and "war on terror" profiling last year for
Amnesty International USA, only after the organization agreed to invite law enforcement
representatives for fairness's sake.
"What struck me more than anything was the pervasiveness of the practice," said Lewis, who
was also once a federal prosecutor and is now of counsel at Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis in
Washington, D.C. "I'm talking about going after people without any criminal predicate. Racial
profiling is a national phenomenon. And the hearings barely scratched the surface."
The profiling of blacks and Latinos continues to thrive, even as the once robust opposition to it
has deflated "in the frenzied atmosphere after 9-11," as Lewis put it. From Massachusetts to
Missouri to Texas, studies as recent as this May [2004] showed that minorities were still
disproportionately—in one state as much as 40 percent more often—subjected to traffic stops, at
rates unjustified by their actual record of possessing drugs. In one egregious situation, police in
Charlottesville, Virginia, indiscriminately demanded DNA samples from area black men in their
hunt for a serial rapist. The dragnet continued for over two years before public scrutiny this
spring finally convinced authorities to stop.
Private Hate, Public Problem
For 9-11-related-profiling victims, the element of "foreignness" gives discrimination a special
twist, says Volpp. "People who look a certain way are assumed not to be citizens to begin with,"
but rather unwelcome outsiders, she says. That perception makes them especially vulnerable, not
just to government intrusions but to private acts of violence.
Over a thousand 9-11-related bias incidents, including harassment and physical attacks, have
been recorded since 2001 by groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations and the
Sikh Coalition, and by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division. They have included
assaults, arson, and even killings. And those are just the incidents that have been reported by
people confident or informed enough to seek out these resources.
Official profiling and private bias are connected, says Muneer Ahmad, an associate professor at
American University Law School. Although no one can legislate away personal prejudices, he
says, "The government sends signals and cues all the time as to what is permissible. The end of
racially discriminatory laws against African Americans didn't translate instantly into substantive
equality. But when the government said segregation was okay, it was communicating a lot about
what was appropriate. It's one thing for racial prejudice to be a part of society, but you provide
people license to engage in that kind of behavior if you don't have a policy that condemns it."
The federal government has vigorously prosecuted some hate crimes, for example one in which a
Sikh postal carrier in California was shot in the neck with a pellet rifle. And President Bush has
repeatedly admonished the nation not to engage in bias against Muslims and Arabs.
But Ahmad says those statements must be juxtaposed with the official profiling of people from
certain backgrounds. "Condemning the private violence gives the administration political cover.
If you morally condemn something, you elevate yourself."
Racial profiling can only be eradicated by a renewed social movement that exposes and opposes
it. Politicians can't be trusted to buck 9-11 politics and challenge the practice on their own,
without strong popular support, since they fear being labeled soft on terror. And profiling victims
have almost never found justice in the courts, since judges are notoriously reluctant to apply the
Constitution's equal treatment mandate in a way that might interfere with police discretion.
Indeed, President Bush was oddly prescient when he said in 2000, "Racial profiling isn't just an
issue with local police forces. It's an issue throughout our society. And as we become a diverse
society, we're going to have to deal with it more and more."
He couldn't have known how much more urgent that message would become after four years of
his leadership. But at this moment when reasonable fears of terrorism too often find expression
in unreasonable fears of certain people, and the government flatly denies that it is part of the
prejudice problem, only a broad social movement can achieve the civil rights victory that seemed
so possible four years ago. The effort to end racial profiling is part of the ongoing struggle to
make the American dream of equality and dignity come true for everyone.
Source Citation:
Lee, Chisun. "Ethnic and Religious Profiling Violates Civil Liberties." Civil Liberties. Ed. Auriana Ojeda. San
Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2004. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Civil Rights Rollback." Village Voice 27
July 2004. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Alcoholism
Long-term heavy drinking can lead to alcohol addiction and a condition known as alcoholism, a
disease in which the effects of drinking alcohol become worse over time. Alcohol addiction
involves a physical and psychological dependence or need for alcohol. When a person addicted
to alcohol stops drinking, he or she often experiences withdrawal, a series of symptoms that may
include tremors, vomiting, and convulsions.
Hazards of Alcohol
The abuse of alcohol is very costly to society. In the United States, alcohol-related diseases,
accidents, lost time from work, and rehabilitation cost billions of dollars each year. The Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated there were 75,766 alcohol-related deaths in
2001. In addition to its role in about 39 percent of all motor vehicle fatalties in 2005, alcohol
abuse also contributes to injuries and deaths from falls, drowning, fires, and violence, and more
recent studies show that alcohol-related deaths are on the rise. According to a report published
June 26, 2009, in The Lancet, one in twenty-five deaths worldwide is the result of alcohol.
Effects on Physical Abilities and Health
Alcohol is a depressant, which means that it slows the functioning of all the organs in the central
nervous system, including the brain. The intensity of the effects caused by alcohol depends on
the concentration of alcohol in the blood, a measurement known as the blood alcohol content
(BAC) or blood alcohol level (BAL). BAC is determined using a person's body weight. For
example, a 150-pound man who consumes four drinks in an hour will have a BAC of 0.10
percent. The higher the BAC, the greater the level of intoxication, or drunkenness. At 0.25
percent BAC (about ten drinks in one hour) the man would be extremely drunk, and at 0.40
percent BAC he would lose consciousness.
Both acute (short-term) and chronic (long-term) use of alcohol pose great risks to individuals.
Acute intoxication stops the brain from functioning normally, leading to slurred speech, loss of
coordination, and impaired judgment. Acute intoxication can also cause vomiting and a
hangover, a condition that includes headache and nausea.
By impairing judgment and coordination, both acute and chronic heavy drinking increase the risk
of injury or death from motor vehicle collisions, falls, or other accidents. In the United States and
many other countries, efforts to reduce alcohol-related motor vehicle accidents have resulted in
various laws against drunk driving. In most U.S. states, operating a motor vehicle with a BAC
between 0.08 percent and 0.10 percent is a crime, and the driver may be arrested for driving
under the influence (DUI) or for driving while intoxicated (DWI). While in most states there is
no difference between a DUI and DWI, in some states a DWI means the driver had a higher level
of intoxication and may receive a stiffer penalty.
In addition to these problems, chronic alcohol use can lead to serious health problems, including
certain types of ulcers, high blood pressure, heart disease, and stroke. Because alcohol is
metabolized, or processed, by the liver, heavy drinkers are also at risk for cirrhosis, hepatitis,
cancer, and other diseases of the liver. Between 10 and 20 percent of heavy drinkers develop
cirrhosis, which ranks among the leading causes of death in the United States. In addition,
chronic alcohol use can damage the central nervous system, leading to problems in brain
function, such as memory loss, impaired learning ability, and general disorientation.
Symptoms of Alcoholism
Screening for Mental Health, an organization that conducts large-scale mental health screenings,
differentiates between alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence, or alcoholism. They explain that
"alcohol abuse is characterized by clinically significant impairment or distress but does not
include physical dependence," whereas alcoholism "is characterized by 10 diagnostic criteria
according to the DSM-IV." The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) criteria for alcoholism
include: withdrawal symptoms when one stops drinking, tolerance to alcohol, and continued
drinking even after one experiences alcohol-related problems. Approximately 8.5 percent of
Americans meet the criteria of either alcohol abuse or alcoholism.
Cause of Alcoholism
There are two basic views about the cause of alcoholism and the nature of drinking problems.
Some people believe that those who drink heavily do so because they lack good character or selfcontrol. Others, however, argue that alcoholism is a disease or physical disorder, possibly linked
to certain genetic factors that make some people particularly susceptible. Critics of the
alcoholism-as-a-disease theory argue that the research is not really scientific. They doubt that the
alcoholic has an irresistible craving for alcohol and that the condition gets worse with time. They
also challenge the notion that alcoholism is incurable and that some alcoholics can never return
to moderate drinking.
The modern notion of alcoholism as a disease gained acceptance mostly on humanitarian
grounds rather than on the basis of scientific evidence. Viewing alcoholics as sick people helped
overcome the idea that such people were immoral. This led, in turn, to greater compassion for
alcoholics and support for treatment rather than blame for the drinker.
Alcoholics Anonymous
One leading approach to overcoming alcoholism is a program called Alcoholics Anonymous
(AA), based on connecting alcoholics with recovered alcoholics. Founded in the United States in
1935, Alcoholics Anonymous views alcoholism as an incurable physical and mental illness. The
program provides a system of twelve steps that encourage alcoholics to admit their faults, make
amends to people they have hurt, and help other alcoholics become sober. A central idea of the
AA approach is the alcoholic's decision to stay away from alcohol "one day at a time."
The AA program considers recovery a lifelong process requiring constant vigilance and regular
attendance at the organization's meetings. Although it is difficult to know the exact number of
groups because not all are registered, there were an estimated 53,665 AA groups in 2009, and
worldwide membership was estimated at nearly 2 million. At AA meetings, members share their
experiences as a way of providing hope and strength to others struggling with alcoholism.
Alcoholics Anonymous has been quite successful at reaching people with drinking problems, but
the great majority of alcoholics remain untreated.
Many people are critical of AA because the organization rejects other types of treatment, such as
changing behavior or attempting to control drinking rather than stopping it completely.
Meanwhile, those in favor of controlled drinking have been sharply criticized by AA for even
suggesting an alternative to complete abstinence. Others are critical of AA's assumption that
alcoholics are powerless against alcohol and must submit to a "higher power." These critics
consider this idea self-defeating and a sign of helplessness. Instead, they prefer to emphasize
alcoholics' ability to use reason in choosing abstinence and adopting values that support a sober
lifestyle
Source Citation:
"Alcoholism." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Early Alcohol Consumption Puts Youth at Risk
The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institutes of Health
provides leadership in the national effort to reduce alcohol-related problems.
Despite a minimum legal drinking age of 21, many young people in the United States consume alcohol.
Some abuse alcohol by drinking frequently or by binge drinking—often defined as having five or more
drinks in a row. The progression of drinking from use to abuse to dependence is associated with
biological and psychosocial factors. This Alcohol Alert bulletin examines some of these factors that put
youth at risk for drinking and for alcohol-related problems and considers some of the consequences of
their drinking.
Prevalence of Youth Drinking
Thirteen- to fifteen-year-olds are at high risk to begin drinking. According to results of an annual
survey of students in 8th, 10th, and 12th grades, 26 percent of 8th graders, 40 percent of 10th
graders, and 51 percent of 12th graders reported drinking alcohol within the past month. Binge
drinking at least once during the 2 weeks before the survey was reported by 16 percent of 8th
graders, 25 percent of 10th graders, and 30 percent of 12th graders.
Males report higher rates of daily drinking and binge drinking than females, but these differences
are diminishing. White students report the highest levels of drinking, blacks report the lowest,
and Hispanics fall between the two.
A survey focusing on the alcohol-related problems experienced by 4,390 high school seniors and
dropouts found that within the preceding year, approximately 80 percent reported either getting
"drunk," binge drinking, or drinking and driving. More than half said that drinking had caused
them to feel sick, miss school or work, get arrested, or have a car crash.
Some adolescents who drink later abuse alcohol and may develop alcoholism. Although these
conditions are defined for adults in the DSM [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders], research suggests that separate diagnostic criteria may be needed for youth.
While drinking may be a singular problem behavior for some, research suggests that for others it may be
an expression of general adolescent turmoil that includes other problem behaviors.
Drinking and Adolescent Development
While drinking may be a singular problem behavior for some, research suggests that for others it
may be an expression of general adolescent turmoil that includes other problem behaviors and
that these behaviors are linked to unconventionality, impulsiveness, and sensation seeking.
Binge drinking, often beginning around age 13, tends to increase during adolescence, peak in
young adulthood (ages 18-22), then gradually decrease. In a 1994 national survey, binge drinking
was reported by 28 percent of high school seniors, 41 percent of 21- to 22-year-olds, but only 25
percent of 31- to 32-year-olds. Individuals who increase their binge drinking from age 18 to 24
and those who consistently binge drink at least once a week during this period may have
problems attaining the goals typical of the transition from adolescence to young adulthood (e.g.,
marriage, educational attainment, employment, and financial independence).
Risk Factors for Adolescent Alcohol Use, Abuse, and
Dependence
Genetic Risk Factors. Animal studies and studies of twins and adoptees demonstrate that genetic
factors influence an individual's vulnerability to alcoholism. Children of alcoholics are
significantly more likely than children of nonalcoholics to initiate drinking during adolescence
and to develop alcoholism, but the relative influences of environment and genetics have not been
determined and vary among people.
Biological Markers. Brain waves elicited in response to specific stimuli (e.g., a light or sound)
provide measures of brain activity that predict risk for alcoholism. P300, a wave that occurs
about 300 milliseconds after a stimulus, is most frequently used in this research. A low P300
amplitude has been demonstrated in individuals with increased risk for alcoholism, especially
sons of alcoholic fathers. P300 measures among 36 preadolescent boys were able to predict
alcohol and other drug (AOD) use 4 years later, at an average age of 16.
Childhood Behavior. Children classified as "undercontrolled" (i.e., impulsive, restless, and
distractible) at age 3 were twice as likely as those who were "inhibited" or "well-adjusted" to be
diagnosed with alcohol dependence at age 21. Aggressiveness in children as young as ages 5-10
has been found to predict AOD use in adolescence. Childhood antisocial behavior is associated
with alcohol-related problems in adolescence (24-27) and alcohol abuse or dependence in
adulthood.
Psychiatric Disorders. Among 12- to 16-year-olds, regular alcohol use has been significantly
associated with conduct disorder; in one study, adolescents who reported higher levels of
drinking were more likely to have conduct disorder.
Six-year-old to seventeen-year-old boys with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)
who were also found to have weak social relationships had significantly higher rates of alcohol
abuse and dependence 4 years later, compared with ADHD boys without social deficiencies and
boys without ADHD.
Whether anxiety and depression lead to or are consequences of alcohol abuse is unresolved. In a
study of college freshmen, a DSM-III diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence was twice as
likely among those with anxiety disorder as those without this disorder. In another study, college
students diagnosed with alcohol abuse were almost four times as likely as students without
alcohol abuse to have a major depressive disorder. In most of these cases, depression preceded
alcohol abuse. In a study of adolescents in residential treatment for AOD dependence, 25 percent
met the DSM-III-R criteria for depression, three times the rate reported for controls. In 43
percent of these cases, the onset of AOD dependence preceded the depression; in 35 percent, the
depression occurred first; and in 22 percent, the disorders occurred simultaneously.
Suicidal Behavior. Alcohol use among adolescents has been associated with considering,
planning, attempting, and completing suicide. In one study, 37 percent of eighth-grade females
who drank heavily reported attempting suicide, compared with 11 percent who did not drink.
Research does not indicate whether drinking causes suicidal behavior, only that the two
behaviors are correlated.
Parents' drinking behavior and favorable attitudes about drinking have been positively associated with
adolescents' initiating and continuing drinking.
Psychosocial Risk Factors
Parenting, Family Environment, and Peers. Parents' drinking behavior and favorable attitudes
about drinking have been positively associated with adolescents' initiating and continuing
drinking. Early initiation of drinking has been identified as an important risk factor for later
alcohol-related problems. Children who were warned about alcohol by their parents and children
who reported being closer to their parents were less likely to start drinking.
Lack of parental support, monitoring, and communication have been significantly related to
frequency of drinking, heavy drinking, and drunkenness among adolescents. Harsh, inconsistent
discipline and hostility or rejection toward children have also been found to significantly predict
adolescent drinking and alcohol-related problems.
Peer drinking and peer acceptance of drinking have been associated with adolescent drinking.
While both peer influences and parental influences are important, their relative impact on
adolescent drinking is unclear.
Expectancies. Positive alcohol-related expectancies have been identified as risk factors for
adolescent drinking. Positive expectancies about alcohol have been found to increase with age
(50) and to predict the onset of drinking and problem drinking among adolescents.
Trauma. Child abuse and other traumas have been proposed as risk factors for subsequent
alcohol problems. Adolescents in treatment for alcohol abuse or dependence reported higher
rates of physical abuse, sexual abuse, violent victimization, witnessing violence, and other
traumas compared with controls. The adolescents in treatment were at least 6 times more likely
than controls to have ever been abused physically and at least 18 times more likely to have ever
been abused sexually. In most cases, the physical or sexual abuse preceded the alcohol use.
Thirteen percent of the alcohol dependent adolescents had experienced posttraumatic stress
disorder, compared with 10 percent of those who abused alcohol and 1 percent of controls.
Advertising. Research on the effects of alcohol advertising on adolescent alcohol-related beliefs
and behaviors has been limited. While earlier studies measured the effects of exposure to
advertising, more recent research has assessed the effects of alcohol advertising awareness on
intentions to drink. In a study of fifth- and sixth-grade students' awareness, measured by the
ability to identify products in commercials with the product name blocked out, awareness had a
small but statistically significant relationship to positive expectancies about alcohol and to
intention to drink as adults. This suggests that alcohol advertising may influence adolescents to
be more favorably predisposed to drinking.
Consequences of Adolescent Alcohol Use
Drinking and Driving. Of the nearly 8,000 drivers ages 15-20 involved in fatal crashes in 1995,
20 percent had blood alcohol concentrations above zero.
Sexual Behavior. Surveys of adolescents suggest that alcohol use is associated with risky sexual
behavior and increased vulnerability to coercive sexual activity. Among adolescents surveyed in
New Zealand, alcohol misuse was significantly associated with unprotected intercourse and
sexual activity before age 16. Forty-four percent of sexually active Massachusetts teenagers said
they were more likely to have sexual intercourse if they had been drinking, and 17 percent said
they were less likely to use condoms after drinking.
Risky Behavior and Victimization. Survey results from a nationally representative sample of 8th
and 10th graders indicated that alcohol use was significantly associated with both risky behavior
and victimization and that this relationship was strongest among the 8th-grade males, compared
with other students.
Puberty and Bone Growth. High doses of alcohol have been found to delay puberty in female
and male rats, and large quantities of alcohol consumed by young rats can slow bone growth and
result in weaker bones. However, the implications of these findings for young people are not
clear.
Source Citation:
"Early Alcohol Consumption Puts Youth at Risk." Should the Legal Drinking Age Be Lowered? Ed. Stefan
Kiesbye. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. At Issue. Rpt. from "Youth Drinking: Risk Factors and
Consequences." Alcohol Alert. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
In Most Cultures, Youth Drinking Does Not Lead to
Alcoholism
"In a 'wet culture' where young people are early socialized to drinking, they ... learn how to drink
moderately."
In the following viewpoint, Dwight Heath maintains that the correlation between youth drinking and
alcoholism exists only in the United States, where adults try to prevent youth under age twenty-one
from consuming alcohol. The problem with such a policy is that American youth are not taught how to
drink responsibly, says Heath, and thus they often do end up abusing alcohol. In his opinion, the best
way to reduce alcohol-related problems is to socialize youth to alcohol at an early age. Heath is a
professor of anthropology at Brown University in Rhode Island.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. How do Orthodox Jews approach the issue of youth drinking, according to Heath?
2. Rather than viewing drinking as a risky act, what do children who drink with their families learn
about alcohol, in the author's opinion?
3. In Heath's opinion, what kind of problems result from the "just-say-no" approach?
Newspapers and magazines in the United States have just been crowded with another gloomy
piece of news about alcohol. The press-release that triggered this most recent wave of ominous
predictions grew out of a research project (sponsored by National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and
Alcoholism) concerning the correlation between "age-of-onset" and alcoholism. In simplest
terms, investigators discovered that those individuals who started drinking at an early age were
more likely to become alcoholics later in life to a statistically significant degree.
Correlation Does Not Mean Causation
One need not be a scientist to realize that correlation often has little to do with causation, but
most journalists wrote as if this were dramatic proof of the highly addictive quality of alcohol,
and of the dangers of drinking on the part of anyone under 21 years of age. However, to anyone
who has paid attention to life in contemporary Europe where children are frequently introduced
to drinking at an early age and where rates of dependency tend to be quite low the finding seems
counter-intuitive. Similarly, when one thinks of Orthodox Jews anywhere in the world it is
difficult to reconcile their famously low rates of drinking problems with the fact that male infants
are given wine on the occasion of their circumcision (on the 8th day of life), and men, women,
and children all drink at least twice a week to celebrate the beginning and end of the Sabbath.
In view of the vast panorama of human experience, the fateful findings about early drinking are
in fact not only counter-intuitive but would be factually wrong in most of the world. However, in
the contemporary US, there is little question that the findings are correct, and, when one thinks
about it for a while, quite logical.
The Problem with Protecting Children from Alcohol
The difference is that part of the way in which members of the new temperance movement have
tried to "protect American children from alcohol" has obviously been counter-productive. Given
a setting where it is deviant (or even illegal) to drink at an early age, it is no surprise that those
who do so are precisely those who choose to act in deviant, illegal, or other risky ways. By the
same token, moderate individuals who are willing to conform to norms, obey the laws, and
minimize risks are those most likely to defer drinking until later. The anti-drink constituency
have succeeded in structuring the situation in such a way that the fateful outcome ("early
drinking results in drinking problems") is all but inevitable!
By contrast, in most parts of the world, beverage alcohol has not been endowed with a mystical
aura of "forbidden fruit" in such a way that drinking it is expected by young people to
demonstrate their maturity, to make them more powerful or sexy or dynamic or sociable. Where
children are not "protected from alcohol," they show no need of such protection. They learn to
drink, usually at home and among their families. Drinking is a wholesome and enjoyable part of
everyday life, rather than a risky act which they should hide from their elders, and learn from
their ill-informed and inexperienced peers.
As an anthropologist, I often deal with patterns of small, isolated, or even tribal populations
whose exotic patterns of belief and behaviour would be impractical in a modern urban setting in
the industrial or post-industrial world. But this is not such a case. Some of the best illustrations
of my point are the middle-class cultures of contemporary France, Italy, and Spain (among many
others). It is in those well-studied and heavily documented contexts that I have repeatedly
demonstrated, using their own official statistics, that the occurrence of so-called "alcohol-related
problems" (whether physiological, psychological, social relational, economic, or other) is
inversely related to both "age-of-onset" and to average per-capita consumption.
As you know, this is just the opposite of what is claimed by the World Health Organization, US
[United States] National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and other organizations and
individuals that are primarily concerned with restricting or curtailing availability as a public
health policy.
Importance of Socialization to Drinking
Incidentally, the same context that guarantees that early-onset drinkers be deviant and willing to
flout the law, also guarantees that they will often do so surreptitiously, drinking too much and/or
too fast, among peers who lack knowledge about the specific risks of drunkenness or chemical
harm, and who may be reluctant to summon adults in the event that an acute problem should
occur. Here again, it is the "just-say-no" approach that makes for problems rather than reducing
the potential for harm.
In a "wet culture" where young people are early socialized to drinking, they simultaneously learn
how to drink moderately, how and why to avoid drunkenness, not to expect magical
transformations from drink, and to view excesses as inappropriate and illustrative of weakness
(generally the opposite of what supposedly "protected" youths in the US learn).
In short, the "early onset" theory is accurate but only in those few parts of the world in which the
legal and normative system makes it so. In the rest of the world, the opposite is the case!...
How ironic it is that an illogical scientific finding should hold, if only because an illogical legal
context structures the situation in a way that assures that perverse outcome.
Source Citation:
Heath, Dwight. "In Most Cultures, Youth Drinking Does Not Lead to Alcoholism." Alcohol. Ed. Andrea C.
Nakaya. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "'Age-of-Onset' as Risk: A
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy." Aim Digest. 2005. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Assisted Suicide
Since the 1960s medical science has made great progress in prolonging people’s lives, even
those suffering from terminal illnesses. Some people think that individuals should be allowed
access to medical assistance to end their lives voluntarily, when and how they choose. Known as
assisted suicide (or physician-assisted suicide), this practice involves helping a person who is
hopelessly ill to end his or her own life.
Assisted suicide has strong supporters and opponents. The issue is likely to gain importance as
scientists find new ways to prolong life, and the number of elderly people in the population
grows. People in many countries debate whether assisted suicide should be legal.
What Is Assisted Suicide?
In the past, patients did not have much say in the medical treatment they received. Then, during
the 1900s, doctors in the United States began to adopt the standard of informed consent. This
requires doctors to explain the available treatment options and to obtain the patient’s consent
prior to treatment. Although patients can draw on their doctors’ medical knowledge and
experience, they must ultimately make their own decisions. Those who cannot understand and
grant consent themselves, such as children and people who are unconscious or of unsound mind,
can be represented by family members or others close to them.
Some of these decisions involve treatments that will keep a patient alive. Increasingly, an
individual’s wishes are taken into consideration when doctors or hospitals face the question of
whether to start or stop using life-support treatment, such as respirators that help patients breathe.
The controversy over assisted suicide rests on the difference between letting someone die and
helping him or her die. Stopping life-support treatment, or not starting it in the first place, is both
legal and commonplace. Neither measure is considered killing, although the result is often the
death of the patient. But in the eyes of many people, and under the law in most places, assisted
suicide is killing and killing is illegal.
Assisted suicide occurs when a physician provides a patient with the means of ending his or her
life—usually a prescription for a fatal dose of drugs. The patient takes the drugs independently of
the doctor. This procedure differs from euthanasia, in which the doctor administers the fatal dose
or performs some other act, such as a lethal injection, that ends the patient’s life. Like assisted
suicide, euthanasia is illegal in most places. Allowing someone to die by not acting, such as not
restarting a heart that has stopped beating, is sometimes called passive euthanasia.
The Debate
Should society permit those who want to die to arrange an easy and comfortable death? Writer
Derek Humphry believes that it should. Humphry has helped start several organizations to
promote assisted suicide and euthanasia. His book Final Exit serves as a guide for people who
want to end their lives. Like most supporters of assisted suicide, Humphry desires to help
individuals with incurable, hopeless illnesses. However, critics fear that his efforts might make it
too easy for others—such as people suffering from treatable depression—to commit suicide.
Supporters of assisted suicide argue that people are already allowed to refuse medical treatment
even when they know that they will die without it. If people can choose death in this passive
way, why should they not be allowed to choose it more actively? Another argument is that an
individual determined to end his or her life may use painful, violent, or uncertain methods. Why
not allow a more certain, pain-free alternative? Supporters of this viewpoint claim that assisted
suicide respects the individual’s right to determine his or her destiny. Likewise, some physicians
feel that it is appropriate for them to end the suffering of a patient who is capable of making a
rational decision and asks to die.
Those opposed to assisted suicide believe that the taking of life is wrong in any circumstance.
They argue that there is no such thing as a "mercy killing." Various religious faiths maintain that
it is the business of God, not of doctors or patients, to determine the time of death. The
Hippocratic oath, a statement of medical ethics, tells physicians, "First, do no harm." Many
physicians regard assisted suicide and euthanasia as murder.
Opponents point out that legalizing assisted suicide and euthanasia could result in serious
consequences. One fear is that dying people might not receive proper care if euthanasia appeared
to be a cheaper, easier alternative. Another fear is that choice and the right to determine one’s
fate might not always be the deciding factors. Voluntary euthanasia might lead to the involuntary
euthanasia of individuals incapable of making the choice or thought to be unworthy of life. This
occurred during the 1930s and 1940s when the Nazi rulers of Germany euthanized mentally
retarded people and others they classified as "defective."
Legislation
Assisted suicide has been in the news frequently since the 1990s. Dr. Jack Kevorkian, a
supporter of the practice, played a supporting role in more than one hundred suicides before he
was charged with murder. Ironically, his highly publicized efforts may have done more harm
than good for his cause. Concern about his activities led to laws against assisted suicide in his
own state, Michigan, as well as in other states. In 1999 Dr. Kevorkian was convicted of seconddegree murder in Michigan for engaging in euthanasia, which is illegal in all states. He was
released from prison in 2007.
Physician-assisted suicide has been openly practiced in the Netherlands for some time. The
government adopted euthanasia guidelines in 1993, with the understanding that it would not
prosecute doctors despite the illegality of the practice. In 2001 the Netherlands became the first
country to legalize euthanasia. To qualify for euthanasia under Dutch law, a person must be
mentally capable of making the decision, act voluntarily, be ill without hope of recovery, and
have a lasting wish to die. Physicians performing euthanasia must consult with at least one other
doctor and must write reports on each case. In 1995, the Northern Territory of Australia also
legalized euthanasia, but the federal parliament overturned the law two years later.
In the United States, Oregon was the first state to legalize physician-assisted suicide. Oregon
voters passed the Death with Dignity Act in 1994, but a lawsuit blocked its enforcement until
1997, when it went into effect. During the first year the law was in force, twenty-four people
obtained a prescription for lethal drugs, and sixteen took the drugs and died. Some Oregon
lawmakers have opposed physician-assisted suicide, claiming that the desire to reduce medical
costs may put pressure on patients and caregivers to choose death.
In November 2008 voters in Washington approved Initiative 1000, making the state the second
in the nation to legalize physician-assisted suicide. The law, which went into effect in March
2009, was approved by 58 percent of the voters. Assisted suicide became legal in Montana in
December 2008, not by a referendum approved by voters, but by a court case. In Baxter v.
Montana, terminally ill Robert Baxter sued for the right to die, claiming that doctors who refused
to assist him were violating his rights. A lower court ruled that a patient has the right to end his
or her life and that doctors who assist cannot be prosecuted for homicide. The case was appealed
to the state supreme court which upheld the lower court’s decision in December 2009. In its
ruling the state supreme court said, "We find nothing in Montana Supreme Court precedent or
Montana statutes indicating that physician aid in dying is against public policy."
Source Citation:
"Assisted Suicide." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Individuals Should Have a Legal Right to Choose Death
Thomas A. Bowden is a legal analyst at the Ayn Rand Institute.
This month [October 2007] marks the tenth anniversary of Oregon's pathbreaking assisted
suicide law. But despite legislative proposals in California and elsewhere, Oregon remains the
only state to have provided clear procedures by which doctors can help end their dying patients'
pain and suffering while protecting themselves from criminal prosecution.
For a decade now, Oregon doctors have been permitted to prescribe a lethal dose of drugs to a
mentally competent, terminally ill patient who makes written and oral requests, consults two
physicians, and endures a mandatory waiting period. The patient's free choice is paramount
throughout this process. Neither relatives nor doctors can apply on the patient's behalf, and the
patient himself administers the lethal dose.
Elsewhere in America, however, the political influence of religious conservatism has thwarted
passage of similar legislation, leaving terminal patients with nothing but a macabre menu of
frightening, painful, and often violent end-of-life techniques universally regarded as too
inhumane for use on sick dogs or mass murderers.
Society Should Permit Assisted Suicide
Consider Percy Bridgman, the Nobel Prize-winning physicist who, at 79, was entering the final
stages of terminal cancer. Wracked with pain and bereft of hope, he got a gun and somehow
found courage to pull the trigger, knowing he was condemning others to the agony of
discovering his bloody remains. His final note said simply: "It is not decent for society to make a
man do this to himself. Probably this is the last day I will be able to do it myself."
What lawmakers must grasp is that there is no rational basis upon which the government can
properly prevent any individual from choosing to end his own life. When religious conservatives
enact laws to enforce the idea that their God abhors suicide, they threaten the central principle on
which America was founded.
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed, for the first time in the history of nations, that each
person exists as an end in himself. This basic truth—which finds political expression in the right
to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—means, in practical terms, that you need no one's
permission to live, and that no one may forcibly obstruct your efforts to achieve your own
personal happiness.
But what if happiness becomes impossible to attain? What if a dread disease, or some other
calamity, drains all joy from life, leaving only misery and suffering? The right to life includes
and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise—to declare that society must give
you permission to kill yourself—is to contradict the right to life at its root. If you have a duty to
go on living, despite your better judgment, then your life does not belong to you, and you exist
by permission, not by right.
The Right to Life Implies the Right to Death
For these reasons, each individual has the right to decide the hour of his death and to implement
that solemn decision as best he can. The choice is his because the life is his. And if a doctor is
willing (not forced) to assist in the suicide, based on an objective assessment of his patient's
mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way.
Religious conservatives' opposition to the Oregon approach stems from the belief that human life
is a gift from the Lord, who puts us here on earth to carry out His will. Thus, the very idea of
suicide is anathema, because one who "plays God" by causing his own death, or assisting in the
death of another, insults his Maker and invites eternal damnation, not to mention divine
retribution against the decadent society that permits such sinful behavior.
If a religious conservative contracts a terminal disease, he has a legal right to regard his own
God's will as paramount, and to instruct his doctor to stand by and let him suffer, just as long as
his body and mind can endure the agony, until the last bitter paroxysm carries him to the grave.
But conservatives have no right to force such mindless, medieval misery upon doctors and
patients who refuse to regard their precious lives as playthings of a cruel God.
Rational state legislators should regard the Oregon law's anniversary as a stinging reminder that
49 of the 50 states have failed to take meaningful steps toward recognizing and protecting an
individual's unconditional right to commit suicide.
Source Citation:
Bowden, Thomas A., and Ayn Rand Institute. "Individuals Should Have a Legal Right to Choose Death."
Assisted Suicide. Ed. Karen F. Balkin. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Current Controversies. Rpt.
from "After Ten Years, States Still Resist Assisted Suicide." 2007. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context.
Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Legalized Assisted Suicide May Lead to Legalized
Euthanasia
Susan W. Enouen is a professional engineer who volunteers for the Life Issues Institute, a
nonprofit pro-life educational organization.
In 1994, Oregon voters approved the Death with Dignity Act (DWDA) by a vote of 51% to 49%.
It became effective in 1998, surviving court challenges and a repeal effort, to make Oregon the
first state in the country to legalize physician-assisted suicide (PAS). The law allows physicians
to prescribe life-ending drugs that are requested by terminally ill patients with six months or less
to live. In the nine years since then, DWDA records show that 455 people have requested lethal
drugs from their physician and 292 people have died from using them. The yearly numbers
continue to rise, beginning with 16 deaths in 1997, increasing to 38 in 2005, and reaching 46
deaths in 2006. Although these records show that relatively few Oregonians choose to use this
option, the lack of accountability and safeguards in the process have many people concerned that
the numbers are not telling the whole story. In addition to that, disturbing trends appear to be
developing.
For example, only 17 complications have been reported in the 292 deaths, and 16 of these were
regurgitation. However, in the Netherlands, where they have had many years to work on
overcoming complications in assisted suicide, serious complications are still reported. In fact, a
study found that Dutch doctors feel the need to intervene (by giving lethal injections) in 18% of
cases because of complications or problems. The lack of reported complications in Oregon has
caused even pro-assisted suicide physicians to question the credibility of Oregon's reported data.
One of the reasons to suspect the accuracy of the data is that the prescribing physician is not
required by law to be present when the drugs are taken. Since 2001, when this data was first
collected, prescribing physicians had only been present at 29% of the deaths. The recording of
complications is therefore dependent upon the self-report of a physician who, in most cases, was
not even present, and who must rely on second-hand information or guesswork to file a report.
The Oregon Department of Human Services (DHS), which collects the information, must depend
on the word of the doctors for the reliability of their data and "it has no authority to investigate
individual Death with Dignity cases."
What Happens to Unused Lethal Drugs?
Even more chilling is the fact that the Death with Dignity Act applies no penalties to doctors
who do not report that they have prescribed lethal drugs for the purpose of suicide. This means
that there is no way to know for sure how many assisted-suicide deaths may actually be
occurring in Oregon. Nor is there any way to know whether the prescribed drugs are being made
available to people other than the patient who requested them. Only 64% of patients who have
received the prescriptions are known to have died from taking them. What becomes of all the
other deadly drugs? It is possible the prescriptions have never been filled, or maybe the lethal
drugs are sitting in medicine cabinets unused, but clearly there is the potential for accidents, and
the law provides very little safeguard from abuse. So far, no one has been disciplined for
disregarding the safeguards that the law does provide. Complications are not investigated and
likely not reported in many cases, and the reality is DHS "has no regulatory authority or
resources to ensure compliance with the law."
According to the Oregon data, the majority of patients who choose assisted suicide have some
type of cancer, have a median age of about 70 years, are overwhelmingly white (98-), somewhat
more likely to be male (57-), have had at least a partial college education (63-), are enrolled in
hospice care (86-), and die at home (93-). The most common concerns given for choosing
assisted suicide are "losing autonomy" (87-), being "less able to engage in activities making life
enjoyable" (87-), and "loss of dignity" (80-). (The last category was added in 2003.) No category
is provided to indicate whether or not the patient might be depressed, yet all of these concerns
have much to do with a patient's gloomy appraisal of life, a possible indicator of treatable
depression. Still only 4-5% of patients were referred for psychiatric evaluation from 2003 to
2006, having dropped from 37% in 1999, to 13% in 2002 and reaching its lowest point of 4% in
2006. This indicates a weakening response on the part of prescribing doctors to ensure that the
patient is truly capable of making such a decision.
Prescriptions from Unfamiliar Doctors
There may be a reason for this trend. One of the safeguards touted by the promoters of assisted
suicide was that this decision would be made between the patient and his long-time trusted
doctor. This familiar doctor would discuss all other options with the patient and would be able to
evaluate the patient's true physical and psychological state. To prevent hasty decisions, the law
requires a patient to make two oral requests for the lethal drugs, at least two weeks apart, before
the physician can prescribe them. Yet for the past 6 years, the minimum recorded duration for a
patient-physician relationship has been 1 week or less. Not only does this indicate that at least
some doctors are not following the law's requirements, but with a median duration of about 12
weeks, it means that most patients are not receiving these prescriptions from a trusted doctor who
knows them well.
It is much more cost effective and easier to let people kill themselves, and it can be rationalized as a
compassionate approach.
In fact, many physicians are unwilling to write lethal prescriptions, causing at least one HMO
[health maintenance organization] to make an email plea to enlist doctors who would be willing
to act as the "attending physician" for patients requesting assisted suicide. And nurses'
organizations admit to sending patients to an assisted-suicide advocacy group when their own
doctor does not want to participate. These patients then find a doctor through the advocacy group
Compassion and Choices (formerly called Compassion in Dying, until it merged with the
Hemlock Society in 2005), which sees "almost 90% of requesting Oregonians."
Not only are assisted-suicide patients becoming disengaged from their trusted doctors and
relying heavily upon the aid of an assisted-suicide advocacy group, but HMO's are becoming
involved in administering assisted suicide, a much cheaper option for them than paying for
longer-term palliative care that would focus on alleviating a patient's pain.
It is much more cost effective and easier to let people kill themselves, and it can be rationalized
as a compassionate approach. One of the primary arguments for assisted suicide is the ending of
unbearable physical pain. Experience in The Netherlands, where euthanasia is legal, is revealing.
Concern that pain will become unbearable is common, this being a worry in one-third or more of
such patients. However, the Dutch experience is that of those actually requesting euthanasia,
only 5% list physical pain as their major reason, and typically when pain is controlled they
change their mind. As noted above, loss of autonomy and other psychologically "painful"
concerns are the overwhelming majority of reasons given.
Acceptance of assisted suicide can lead to involuntary euthanasia of the disabled and dying, which can
lead to legal euthanasia.
All in all, there are many troubling aspects of Oregon's assisted suicide law, and yet several
states have tried to follow suit with nearly identical bills. California, Hawaii, Arizona, Vermont
and Wisconsin have all faced assisted-suicide bills in their legislatures this year [2007], and for
some of these states it has been an ongoing attempt for several years. As assisted-suicide
proponents continue to lobby for this legislation, their language has evolved into less
threatening-sounding terms. Rather than "physician assisted suicide," the phrase is "physician aid
in dying" or PAD, so physicians now "induce PAD." In fact, the DHS has been threatened with
litigation if the state continues to use the word "suicide." Other euphemisms include "patient
choice," "control at end of life," "assisted death" and "death with dignity." This is all part of a
program to help people think of it as a compassionate approach to death.
From Assisted Suicide to Euthanasia
Where will the Oregon experiment go from here? The Netherlands' experience has shown that
acceptance of assisted suicide can lead to involuntary euthanasia of the disabled and dying,
which can lead to legal euthanasia. This melds easily into illegal but accepted euthanasia of
disabled and dying babies. It is then just a small baby step to legalize the infanticide of such
"suffering" little ones. This is where the thinking in The Netherlands has gone in the past 30
years. As Wesley J. Smith, an anti-euthanasia advocate, author, and an attorney for the
International Task Force on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide, says about the euthanasia
movement: "euthanasia and assisted suicide have gone ... from the unthinkable, to the debatable,
to the justifiable, on its way to unexceptional."
We would be wise to keep a very close eye on Oregon.
Source Citation:
Enouen, Susan W. "Legalized Assisted Suicide May Lead to Legalized Euthanasia." Assisted Suicide. Ed.
Karen F. Balkin. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2005. Current Controversies. Rpt. from "Oregon's
Euthanasia Law: It's About Far More than the Number of People Dying." Life Issues Connector (July
2007). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Book Banning
Book banning has been an active part of literary history perhaps since the first words were
written down on paper. It is a form of censorship that attempts to control the dissemination of
thoughts and ideas that some groups in society believe to be harmful. When books were
handwritten, the censorship of ideas was much easier, and book burning was an effective
method.
Government, Religion, and Book Bans
The printing press was invented in 1450, and shortly thereafter led to mass production and
distribution of popular books. Thus the practice of burning books to censor literature became
largely symbolic as it became virtually impossible to find and destroy every copy of a particular
book. That, however, did not stop attempts to control access to information. A mere forty years
after the printing press was invented in Germany, the country's first official censorship office
opened to suppress what religious authorities labeled "dangerous publications."
Centuries later, the battle continues. In the United States, the first book ban occurred in 1650 in
Springfield, Massachusetts. Ironically the Puritans, who had fled England less than fifty years
before to escape religious persecution, condemned and confiscated a religious text written by one
of their own members and had it burned in a public demonstration in the center of town.
Censorship and book bans were often supported at the national level in the United States. Federal
laws, such as the Comstock Law of 1873, made it a crime to distribute "obscene, lewd, and/or
lascivious" materials through the mail. Interpretation of what exactly constituted these materials
was left up to law enforcement officials. The banning, and often burning, of books continued
unchecked until the early 1920s when existing standards were challenged. The tide turned
against national laws and judgments during the 1930s as Americans witnessed the disturbing
activities in Nazi Germany surrounding censorship and mass book burnings.
First Amendment Rights vs. Censorship
For democratic societies such as the United States, book banning contradicts core beliefs. The
First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from making laws that impinge on
the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Americans have struggled with defining these
parameters since their adoption.
Although book banning continues, the arena of controversy has moved from the national to the
local level. The most common challenges today occur in school libraries and classrooms. Most of
the battles are fought at the school board level, but some cases have been legally challenged, and
several have made it to the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court ruled on one such case in 1982 in the Board of Education, Island Trees
Union Free School District v. Pico in what has been considered one of the most important
decisions regarding First Amendment rights and school libraries. The U.S. Supreme Court set
parameters under which a board of education could consider removing a book from its
collection. The board, said the court, was constrained by the students' First Amendment rights.
Justice William J. Brennan Jr. wrote in his majority opinion that local school boards may not
remove books from school libraries simply because they dislike the ideas contained in those
books and seek by their removal to "prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism,
religion, or other matters of opinion."
A significant point about the Pico decision was that the vote was 5–4 in favor of the students
who challenged the school board's removal of library materials. There was no one majority
opinion; seven out of the nine justices wrote opinions on the case. This reflects the mixed
feelings of the justices as well as the nation as it grapples with difficult questions regarding First
Amendment rights.
Banned Books Week Publicizes Challenges
Sex, profanity, and racism are the primary categories of objections according to Robert P. Doyle,
author of the list "Books Challenged and Banned in 2008–09," created as part of Banned Books
Week 2009. Banned Books Week, which launched in 1982, is an annual event sponsored by the
American Library Association, American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression, the
Association of American Publishers, the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the
National Association of College stores that celebrates the freedom to read and to select from a
full array of possibilities. "The challenges documented on this list are not brought by people
merely expressing a point of view," says Doyle. "Rather; they represent requests to remove
materials from schools or libraries, thus restricting access to them by others."
Book challenges are often launched by parents to protect their children. But every parent has
different opinions of what is appropriate for his or her child. Many times attempts to ban material
have more to do with its perceived suitability for a particular age group. For example, it might be
widely agreed that certain adult subjects should not be allowed in the young children's section of
a library, leading to restricted access rather than an outright removal. But as children get older,
the answers become a bit less clear—"unsuitable for this age group" becomes a weaker argument
when applied to teenagers about to enter adulthood.
Libraries and schools often encounter resistance to books and curriculum. They must strike a
balance between respecting individual opinions and the rights of others. "Individuals may restrict
what they themselves or their children read, but they must not call on governmental or public
agencies to prevent others from reading or seeing that material," asserts Doyle.
Sometimes book challenges can have unintended side effects. The challenge itself often draws
attention to the methods used in determining what books are included in school and public
collections. In this way, attempts at restricting material have led to examination of policies.
Actual practices are in the spotlight, and healthy discussion can result.
In 2008 a case of book censorship in New Rochelle, New York, led to a national debate and
much publicity for the book at the center of the controversy. The book was Girl, Interrupted, by
Susanna Kaysen. School officials tore pages out of student copies of the book that they deemed
inappropriate due to sexual content and strong language. Their actions became the subject of
intense scrutiny across the Internet as popular websites such as Boing Boing and Hot Air took up
the discussion online, along with many smaller blog sites dedicated to literary and free speech
issues. The New Yorkerand The Atlantic Monthly magazines also featured the incident. The
intent to shield New Rochelle students from inappropriate material clearly had the opposite
effect.
Book bans in the digital age may seem almost archaic given the many ways that information can
be accessed in the modern world. But the removal of books from school libraries or curriculum
can have an overall chilling effect on future decisions and discussions regarding book purchases.
The promoters of Banned Book Week estimate that 85 percent of book challenges go unreported
and unnoticed. Moreover, the number of books that are quietly passed over for inclusion in
collections because of fear of controversy cannot even be estimated.
Corporate Decisions Influence Availability
Public and school libraries are not the only ones who ban books. In the larger context, corporate
censorship in deciding what books it will sell may be far more dangerous. Online retailer,
Amazon, and big box competitors, such as Walmart and Target, have become a dominant force
in book sales as many independent bookstores have been forced to close their doors in the face of
competition. Some argue these are private industries and can do as they wish, but as available
book purchasing options shrink, their choice to sell or not sell a book can determine its success.
Walmart's 2004 decision not to carry Jon Stewart's book America, due to potentially offensive
images of the faces of Supreme Court justices pasted onto naked bodies, garnered much media
attention. It did not stop people who wanted to read the book from doing so, and ultimately may
have led to increased sales. But it also may have led Walmart to be more careful in revealing
what they do not sell in their stores. Fewer sales and less revenue can lead to a homogenization
of book offerings and can suppress freedom of speech and expression, a type of book censorship
using purchasing power as a determining factor.
Online book sales bring another host of challenges. Amazon and other Internet retailers have
tremendous control over what products are shown and in what order when a customer performs a
subject search. Books usually are shown according to their sales ranking, with best sellers at the
top of the list. Amazon also categorizes books by format and age group. An incident in April
2009 provided a glimpse into the power they can wield in censoring book availability. Hundreds
of gay- and lesbian-themed books disappeared from Amazon's sales rankings, leading to protests
from authors and activists who accused the company of stealth censorship. Amazon officials
later blamed it on an internal categorizing error, but the episode was not an isolated one for the
leading online retailer of books.
Although Amazon and other online book retailers remain a dominant force on the Internet,
increasingly independent bookstores are establishing online stores to replace or compliment their
brick and mortar ones. Using the same sales techniques and tools as Amazon, they can
potentially provide the more diverse offerings they are known for, but in an online setting. Book
challenges and bans may always be with us, but the greater transparency and easier access
afforded by the Internet make it difficult to ultimately regulate the publications people want to
read. As Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas said in 1953, "Restriction of free thought
and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could
easily defeat us."
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale, Cengage Learning.
Source Citation:
"Book Banning." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Book Banning Protects Family Values
Rebecca Hagelin is the author of Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That's
Gone Stark Raving Mad and a vice president of communications and marketing at the Heritage
Foundation.
While we as a society have been taught to believe that any reading is good for adolescents, it is
important to consider the kinds of books that children are reading. The American Library Association
(ALA), for instance, recommends books for young readers, but these recommendations reflect the
organization's liberal values. Books recommended by the ALA contain curse words and graphic sexual
information. In order to guarantee that a child is reading quality books—books that a parent approves
of—a parent should review a child's reading material beforehand. It is a parent's responsibility—not the
ALA's and not an educational institution's—to decide what a child should read.
Reading isn't always good for our kids.
How's that for an opening sentence to stir a little controversy among the educational elites?
We've been bombarded by so many messages about how reading expands the mind, excites the
imagination and enhances the vocabulary (all of which are true) that many parents have forgotten
that the benefit of reading for our children very much depends on what they're reading. And, I'm
afraid that many children spend hours reading what often turns out to be pure rot.
With school starting all over the country between last week and just after Labor Day, it's time for
a reading warning: Parents, beware.
In many cases the very liberal American Library Association exerts great influence over what
reading materials teachers assign their students. But that material may be highly inappropriate for
your child. Don't let the following scenario unfold in your home:
Mrs. Jones hands out a book report assignment that includes several books for her class to
choose from. Mom dutifully drives Suzi to the local library and browses while Suzi selects her
book. Within half an hour, book in hand, everyone is feeling rather satisfied that they have been
so responsible in starting on the project early. Mom and Suzi arrive home, and while mom begins
making dinner, the conscientious and responsible Suzi heads to her room and begins to consume
what turns out to be highly sexualized, vulgar garbage, filled with four-letter words and enough
verbal porn to embarrass even an ol' salt.
Mom doesn't have a clue that her daughter's innocence has just been molested in the privacy of
her own bedroom. She won't ever know because Suzi, a bit stymied by the fact that Mom took
her to get a book that her teacher assigned, will be too embarrassed and confused to ever tell.
Yet, she's just had sexuality, relationships and acceptable behavior defined for her by some
perverted author most folks have never heard of. And the kid was simply trying to get her
homework done.
Inappropriate Books for Young Readers
While researching my book, Home Invasion: Protecting Your Family in a Culture That's Gone
Stark Raving Mad, I took an ALA-recommended reading list for 13- and 14-year-olds to my
local library and headed to the "Young Adult" section (code for "pre-teen" and "teen"). I found
some books from the list; others were already checked out. One book, the librarian told me, had
just been returned, but hadn't been re-shelved, so I patiently waited while she went into the back
room to retrieve it.
With several items in hand, I headed back to the Young Adult section, where I couldn't help but
notice pre-teen and teen girls and guys in various stages of development and maturity, dutifully
searching the shelves for assigned books. I sat down on a reading bench and began flipping
through the pages of the book that had just been returned.
There's something very moving about holding a book in your hand that a child has just finished
reading. But the warmth in my heart soon turned into a sickening feeling in my gut when I began
to read passages so cheap and trashy that I could scarcely believe my eyes. I only had to get to
page four before the first of many uses of the term "motherf—" showed up. Several scenes
described, in graphic detail, sexual acts between teenagers.
In the interest of decency, there's no way I can give you word-for-word examples. And I refuse
to give the trashy book and its loser author free publicity in a column that often gets forwarded
around the World Wide Web. I'd rather parents and other adults who care about our children and
their education—and whether ... educational elites indoctrinate them in immorality—actually go
to their local library and research the reading lists themselves.
Lest you think the first book was put on the list in error, the next recommended teen item I
thumbed through was equally as nauseating. A sexual act between fourth-graders was a
"highlight," as well as graphic details of sex between teens, including a homosexual encounter.
And this is the garbage that today's educators pass off as great literature for our children? The
great classics, meanwhile, are all but missing. One list I reviewed for eight-graders contained
about 20 authors—none recognizable save the lone great Mark Twain. And they call this
education?
The lesson here is simple. Moms and dads: Don't just naively drive your kids to the library—you
must be careful to help them choose books that reflect your values. Even if your kids are in
private school, you're hardly safe—many of the best schools blindly use ALA lists. Of course, if
you home school your kids, you're probably already aware of the moral problems of many ALA
decisions, but even if you're using a good curriculum guide, it's always best to preview the books
first.
The ALA is quick to call anyone who questions its decisions a "censor." But remember, part of
our responsibility and privilege as parents is to be the ones who determine what is and is not
appropriate for our own children.
Source Citation:
Hagelin, Rebecca. "Book Banning Protects Family Values." Book Banning. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford.
Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Rpt. from "Are Your Kids Reading Rot?" Townhall (16 Aug.
2005). Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Book Destruction Controls Ideology
Rebecca Knuth is an associate professor in the Library and Information Science Program at the
University of Hawaii.
In the 20th century, fascist and communist ideologues attempted to destroy democratic and humanistic
thought by destroying books. Books disseminate ideas, and many of these ideas form cultural myths and
identities; censoring books, then, is one way to eliminate ideas and myths that oppose a particular
ideologue's philosophy. A number of modern conflicts, like World War II, pitted ideologues against
humanists. Ideologues believed that destroying offending books and libraries—both their own and those
of an enemy—encouraged the correct thinking of the reigning regime.
"Utopias have their value—nothing so wonderfully expands the imaginative horizons of human
potentialities—but as guides to conduct they can prove literally fatal. Heraclitus was right, things cannot
stand still."
In the most general sense, one could say that the ultra-nationalists and Communists of the
twentieth century effectively replaced traditional systems of ethics and morality by a single
means: the leveraging of ideology. Nationalism and socialism, in themselves compelling belief
systems, were transformed by merciless leaders into totalistic dogmas that reduced what is sacred
to a single notion of predestined collective potential. Familial loyalties were subordinated to
loyalty to the state. A sociopolitical environment was engineered to snuff out alternative ideas.
Violence was instituted as necessary, and even desirable, in the quest to maintain the totalitarian
structures that would deliver a purified and transformed society.
Fueling the impulse toward violence was the ideologues' conviction that enemies—animate or
inanimate, a person, even a book—surrounded them. When a book's content contradicted an
ideologue's dominance over ideas and seemed to support cosmopolitanism, democracy, or
humanism, that book was labeled a tool of the enemy and in itself, a dangerous thing. Such a
book, therefore, became a candidate for censorship, which ran the gamut from blacklisting to
burning or pulping. Similarly, when libraries were identified as hindering ideological
transformation and impeding progress toward the desired utopia, they were attacked and
sometimes eliminated, along with their human possessors. Perhaps the most astonishing part of
this phenomenon was the inclusion of a nation's own possessions as enemies to the cause. The
Nazis first censored and destroyed those German books that they considered problematic, then
destroyed the books of those they considered pathological (the Jews), inferior (the Poles), and
resistant (the British). When ideological fervor intensified in China, the Communist radicals
destroyed classic Chinese texts and intellectuals and in Tibet, both texts and resistant Tibetans.
With progress narrowly defined as achieving ideological goals, print materials often came to be
associated with cultural or political intransigence and their destruction a war effort on the same
two fronts. The violence and public nature of destruction often obscured the fact that the ruin
was a practical means of destroying information that contradicted the myths of the regime or
substantiated the claims of other ethnic or political groups to resources and territory.
Books were destroyed as part of the process of homogenizing discourse, suppressing individualism in
the interest of the collective, and co-opting or purging the intellectuals.
Books as Ideas
Books were destroyed as part of the process of homogenizing discourse, suppressing
individualism in the interest of the collective, and co-opting or purging the intellectuals. The goal
of extremist regimes was complete control, and books and libraries were compromised by their
association with humanism, the creed of enemy democracies. Indeed, the twentieth-century
ideologues despised humanists, who valued books and libraries for precisely those qualities that
pitted them against ideologues. Regardless of their individual agendas, books ultimately, by their
very existence and coexistence with the entirety of the world's print literature, support
individualism, pluralism, creativity, rationalism, freedom of information, critical thinking, and
intellectual freedom. The ideologue must reject traditional knowledge in order to look to the
future, while the humanist actively seeks inspiration from the past. Humanists believe that
written materials are fundamental to the maintenance and progress of culture; ideologues seek to
politicize and overturn existing culture. Ideologues view libraries as problematic, their potential
as instruments of indoctrination compromised by their humanistic or reactionary nature and
ability to pose alternate realities or ideas. World War II was fought between ideologues and
humanists, and books and libraries played no small role. The jubilant Nazi book burnings and the
ensuing wartime devastation of cultural institutions throughout the world resulted in the United
Nations' orientation toward the preservation of humanism. The cultivation of a world in which
cultural resources are safe became a declared goal of both and technology by preserving and
disseminating the information necessary for scientific inquiry, technological development, and
the systematic advancement of knowledge. These functions, which made libraries the
quintessential representation of humanism, were problematic for extremists. For example,
Chinese Communist radicals of the 1960s and 1970s wanted industrialization based not on
scientific and technological expertise but on revolutionary will and zeal. Libraries suffered as a
consequence. The Nazis sought to rationalize racism, and German libraries flourished only when
they aligned with this goal.
Extremists need to control humanist institutions and transform them from cultural resources into
political tools, part of the overall machine of the revolution. Ideologues censor and then
reconstruct their own libraries and those of conquered enemies, or they destroy books or entire
libraries outright because they fear the connection between libraries and alternate belief systems,
especially humanism, which allow for pluralism. Books and libraries are destroyed not only
because of their functions within a society, but because, by the twentieth century, books,
libraries, and all intellectual pursuits had become clearly linked to humanism. Their destruction
was part of an overall system of eliminating the influence of humanism in the sociopolitical
arena, particularly as concerned intellectuals, scholarship, science, history, and foreign relations.
Ideologues censor and then reconstruct their own libraries and those of conquered enemies. ...
Source Citation:
Knuth, Rebecca. "Book Destruction Controls Ideology." Libricide: The Regime-Sponsored Destruction of
Books and Libraries in the Twentieth Century. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 2003. 236-238. Rpt. in
Book Banning. Ed. Ronnie D. Lankford. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2007. At Issue. Gale Opposing
Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Capital Punishment
Capital punishment is literally a life-and-death issue. Sometimes called the death penalty, it is the
execution of people who have been found guilty of offenses considered to be capital crimes.
Supporters of capital punishment believe that some crimes, especially murder, are so serious and
so destructive to society that the perpetrators deserve the most severe punishment. Many of these
people believe that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime.
Opponents of capital punishment argue that there are no circumstances under which taking a
human life is justified. They think that society’s interests are better served by placing criminals
in jail, where they can do no further harm. Other important issues regarding capital punishment
include the wrongful execution of innocent people and lack of uniformity in applying the death
penalty.
Capital Punishment and the Law
Today Americans on both sides of the death penalty issue look to the U.S. Constitution to
support their positions. However, because of varying interpretations of the law by state
governments and the U.S. Supreme Court, the use of the death penalty has been inconsistent.
The Constitution and the States
The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution recognizes the existence of capital punishment and
outlines conditions for trying individuals accused of capital crimes. The amendment states that
no person "shall be deprived of life … without due process of law." This means that before an
execution, certain legal procedures—such as formal arrest, charges, and a trial—must be
followed.
The first known execution in what is now the United States occurred in the colony of Virginia in
1622. By the 1800s, the law in the United States not only accepted capital punishment but also
required it. Execution was the automatic penalty for anyone convicted of murder or several other
serious crimes. A jury that believed a defendant guilty of murder had no legal power to avoid the
death penalty. As a result, a jury that considered a defendant guilty of a serious crime but did not
think he or she deserved execution might find the defendant not guilty—an outcome known as
jury nullification.
Over time, state legislatures rejected the automatic death penalty, partly because of a growing
feeling that some defendants deserved legal mercy, even if guilty, and partly to end jury
nullifications. By the early 1900s, most states had adopted a new type of death penalty law that
gave juries a choice between the death penalty and a life sentence in prison. This policy
remained in effect until 1972, although a few states banned capital punishment completely.
Executions in the United States peaked at about two hundred a year in the 1930s and remained
fairly frequent until the 1960s. By that time, however, the death sentence began to face growing
moral and political opposition. Critics of capital punishment cast serious doubt on its value as a
deterrent to crime. They also argued that the death penalty was applied unequally. Similar cases
were not treated alike, and race appeared to play a part in sentencing. Blacks who had committed
crimes against whites received a proportionally greater share of death sentences than other
convicted criminals. The Supreme Court faced increasing pressure to regulate or set limits on
capital punishment.
Supreme Court Decisions
In 1972, in the case of Furman v. Georgia, the Supreme Court delivered a crucial decision on
capital punishment. By a vote of five to four, the justices overturned the death sentence of
William Furman, declaring it to be cruel and unusual punishment according to the Eighth
Amendment. Furman was a mentally retarded African American whose trial lasted less than one
day. The ruling put a stop to future executions until better standards could be set. While the
decision pointed out the problems associated with the death penalty, it offered no immediate
solution.
The Furman case opened the way for each state to try to develop sound capital punishment laws
that might address some of the problems. Executions were suspended for a few years while about
three-fourths of the state legislatures revised their laws.
In 1976, in five cases handed down on the same day, the Supreme Court ruled on the states’
efforts. The Court decided that automatic death penalty laws were too rigid, that capital
punishment did not violate the Constitution, and that retribution was a justifiable basis for
execution. The Court also indicated that random and racially biased sentences could be prevented
through penalty hearings held after the trial to determine punishment. At penalty hearings, the
prosecution and the defense present information about the defendant’s character and background
and call for stern or merciful treatment. In most states, a jury decides the penalty, although in
some states the judge either makes the decision alone or can overrule the jury.
Capital punishment returned to the United States with the execution of Gary Gilmore in Utah in
1977. The rate of executions remained low for some time, and death penalty laws were required
to follow due-process rules strictly. During the late 1970s, the Supreme Court handed down
decisions that expanded defendants’ rights in capital offense trials and also limited the death
penalty to murder cases. Although the Court had taken steps toward regulating the practice of
capital punishment, the justices changed course again in the 1980s. The Court narrowed the
grounds on which capital defendants could claim legal error, and the rate of executions began
slowly but steadily increasing.
During the 1980s a majority of the Supreme Court justices attempted without much success to
detach the Court from its role in the day-to-day administration of capital punishment. During this
same period, the nation revealed its mixed feelings about execution. More than half of all federal
appeals court decisions in death penalty cases resulted in death sentences being overturned, and
many states delayed resuming executions.
Executions began to increase during the 1990s, while the Supreme Court continued to withdraw
from active monitoring of the death penalty. In 1994 Justice Harry Blackmun came to the
conclusion that it was impossible to balance the two goals associated with the death penalty:
eliminating arbitrary or random sentencing and ensuring sentencing appropriate for the
individual case. "From this day forward," he wrote, "I no longer shall tinker with the machinery
of death."
Supreme Court decisions throughout the 1990s tended to limit defendants’ opportunities to have
their cases reviewed and, in general, favored the continuance of capital punishment. In early
2010 capital punishment was legal in 36 states. The 2001 execution of Timothy McVeigh,
convicted for his role in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in
Oklahoma City, marked the first federal execution to be carried out in twenty years.
Issues
While most Western nations have eliminated capital punishment, many people in the United
States continue to believe that this type of justice—summed up by the biblical phrase "an eye for
an eye"—is appropriate. Others, however, want to abolish capital punishment because they
believe it is immoral, unfair, or both. The moral argument is simply that killing is wrong.
Furthermore, killing as retribution is wrong because societies should hold themselves to a higher
standard than that of individual murderers. The issues of fairness have to do with the way the
death penalty is applied and its possible consequences.
Race and Capacity
In 1987, in the case of McCleskey v. Kemp, the Supreme Court dealt with the difficult issue of
race and capital punishment. Statistical studies showed that African Americans in Georgia were
4.3 times more likely to receive death sentences when they killed whites than when they killed
other African Americans. A black man named McCleskey was convicted of killing a white
police officer during an armed robbery. McCleskey claimed that the fact that his race made it
more likely that he would receive the death penalty was a violation of equal protection
guarantees and of the Eighth Amendment’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
The Court determined that statistics alone could not determine whether a particular individual
had faced discrimination. Its ruling stated, "McCleskey must prove that the decision makers in
his case acted with discriminatory purpose." But, for many people, the well-established pattern
of racial bias in sentencing remains a strong argument against capital punishment.
Another death penalty issue concerns the mental capacity of convicted felons. Should mentally
retarded criminals face the death penalty? By 2001, eighteen states had banned execution of the
mentally retarded. In the 2002 case Atkins v. Virginia the Supreme Court ruled that execution of
the mentally retarded violated the cruel and unusual punishment clause of the Eight Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution.
Preventing Wrongful Executions
"If statistics are any indication," said Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in 2001, "the
system may well be allowing some innocent defendants to be executed." She was referring to the
fact that, since 1973, ninety death row inmates had been freed after a review of evidence proved
their innocence. In many cases this evidence consisted of DNA tests that showed there was no
way that the convicted criminal could have committed the crime.
Advances in technology, such as new and improved methods of DNA testing and other
laboratory procedures, have shown that the justice system can make mistakes. Another source of
errors is identification or testimony by eyewitnesses to crimes. Countless experiments in
psychology have shown that witnesses frequently misinterpret or misremember what they see. If
the wrongful conviction of an innocent person is a tragedy, that tragedy increases immeasurably
when an innocent person is put to death. The mere possibility of taking the life of an innocent
person is, to some, sufficient reason to abolish capital punishment.
Source Citation:
"Capital Punishment." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010.
Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished
"An execution cannot be used to condemn killing; it is killing."
In the following viewpoint, Amnesty International argues that government use of the death penalty as a
form of punishment violates human rights as defined by the United Nations' Universal Declaration of
Human Rights, and that because of this, the death penalty should be abolished. Additional factors
Amnesty examines to support its call for the abolition of the death penalty include the possibility of an
innocent person being sentenced to death and the lack of evidence supporting the claim that the threat
of death as punishment deters crime. Amnesty International is a global organization dedicated to
ensuring the preservation of human rights worldwide.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. What fraction of countries worldwide has abolished the death penalty, according to Amnesty
International?
2. Why does Amnesty International believe the death penalty might encourage people to commit
politically motivated crimes or acts of terror?
3. What does the "argument for retribution" boil down to, in Amnesty International's view?
The time has come to abolish the death penalty worldwide. The case for abolition becomes more
compelling with each passing year. Everywhere experience shows that executions brutalize those
involved in the process. Nowhere has it been shown that the death penalty has any special power
to reduce crime or political violence. In country after country, it is used disproportionately
against the poor or against racial or ethnic minorities. It is also used as a tool of political
repression. It is imposed and inflicted arbitrarily. It is an irrevocable punishment, resulting
inevitably in the execution of people innocent of any crime. It is a violation of fundamental
human rights.
[Since the late 1990s] an average of at least three countries a year have abolished the death
penalty, affirming respect for human life and dignity. Yet too many governments still believe
that they can solve urgent social or political problems by executing a few or even hundreds of
their prisoners. Too many citizens in too many countries are still unaware that the death penalty
offers society not further protection but further brutalization. Abolition is gaining ground, but not
fast enough.
The death penalty, carried out in the name of the nation's entire population, involves everyone.
Everyone should be aware of what the death penalty is, how it is used, how it affects them, how
it violates fundamental rights.
The death penalty is the premeditated and cold-blooded killing of a human being by the state.
The state can exercise no greater power over a person than that of deliberately depriving him or
her of life. At the heart of the case for abolition, therefore, is the question of whether the state has
the right to do so.
A Human Rights Issue
When the world's nations came together [in 1945] to found the United Nations (UN), few
reminders were needed of what could happen when a state believed that there was no limit to
what it might do to a human being. The staggering extent of state brutality and terror during
World War II and the consequences for people throughout the world were still unfolding in
December 1948, when the UN General Assembly adopted without dissent the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
The Universal Declaration is a pledge among nations to promote fundamental rights as the
foundation of freedom, justice and peace. The rights it proclaims are inherent in every human
being. They are not privileges that may be granted by governments for good behaviour and they
may not be withdrawn for bad behaviour. Fundamental human rights limit what a state may do to
a man, woman or child.
No matter what reason a government gives for executing prisoners and what method of execution
is used, the death penalty cannot be separated from the issue of human rights. The movement for
abolition cannot be separated from the movement for human rights.
The Universal Declaration recognizes each person's right to life and categorically states further
that "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
punishment". In Amnesty International's view the death penalty violates these rights.
Self-defence may be held to justify, in some cases, the taking of life by state officials: for
example, when a country is locked in warfare (international or civil) or when law-enforcement
officials must act immediately to save their own lives or those of others. Even in such situations
the use of lethal force is surrounded by internationally accepted legal safeguards to inhibit abuse.
This use of force is aimed at countering the immediate damage resulting from force used by
others.
The death penalty, however, is not an act of self-defence against an immediate threat to life. It is
the premeditated killing of a prisoner who could be dealt with equally well by less harsh means.
State Subsidized Torture
There can never be a justification for torture or for cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or
punishment. The cruelty of the death penalty is evident. Like torture, an execution constitutes an
extreme physical and mental assault on a person already rendered helpless by government
authorities.
If hanging a woman by her arms until she experiences excruciating pain is rightly condemned as
torture, how does one describe hanging her by the neck until she is dead? If administering 100
volts of electricity to the most sensitive parts of a man's body evokes disgust, what is the
appropriate reaction to the administration of 2,000 volts to his body in order to kill him? If a
pistol held to the head or a chemical substance injected to cause protracted suffering are clearly
instruments of torture, how should they be identified when used to kill by shooting or lethal
injection? Does the use of legal process in these cruelties make their inhumanity justifiable?
The physical pain caused by the action of killing a human being cannot be quantified. Nor can
the psychological suffering caused by fore-knowledge of death at the hands of the state. Whether
a death sentence is carried out six minutes after a summary trial, six weeks after a mass trial or
16 years after lengthy legal proceedings, the person executed is subjected to uniquely cruel,
inhuman and degrading treatment and punishment.
Internationally agreed laws and standards stipulate that the death penalty can only be used after a
fair judicial process. When a state convicts prisoners without affording them a fair trial, it denies
the right to due process and equality before the law. The irrevocable punishment of death
removes not only the victim's right to seek redress for wrongful conviction, but also the judicial
system's capacity to correct its errors.
Like killings which take place outside the law, the death penalty denies the value of human life.
By violating the right to life, it removes the foundation for realization of all rights enshrined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
As the Human Rights Committee set up under the [UN's] International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights has recognized, "The right to life ... is the supreme right from which no
derogation is permitted even in time of public emergency which threatens the life of the nation
..." In a general comment on Article 6 of the Covenant issued in 1982, the Committee concluded
that "all measures of abolition [of the death penalty] should be considered as progress in the
enjoyment of the right to life within the meaning of Article 40".
Many governments have recognized that the death penalty cannot be reconciled with respect for
human rights. The UN has declared itself in favour of abolition. Two-thirds of the countries in
the world have now abolished the death penalty in law or practice....
Amnesty International's statistics also show a significant overall decline in the number of
reported executions in 2006. In 2006, 91% of all known executions took place in a small number
of countries: China, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Sudan and the USA. Europe is almost a death penaltyfree-zone—the main exception being Belarus; in Africa only six states carried out executions in
2006; in the Americas only the USA has carried out executions since 2003.
Justifying the Death Penalty
Unlike torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions, most judicial executions are not
carried out in secret or denied by government authorities. Executions are often announced in
advance. In some countries they are carried out in public or before a group of invited observers.
No government publicly admits to torture or other grave violations of human rights, although
privately some officials may seek to justify such abuses in the name of the "greater good". But
retentionist governments, those that keep the death penalty, for the most part openly admit to
using it: they do not so much deny its cruelty as attempt to justify its use; and the arguments they
use publicly to justify the death penalty resemble those that are used in private to justify other,
secret abuses.
The most common justification offered is that, terrible as it is, the death penalty is necessary: it
may be necessary only temporarily, but, it is argued, only the death penalty can meet a particular
need of society. And whatever that need may be it is claimed to be so great that it justifies the
cruel punishment of death.
The particular needs claimed to be served by the death penalty differ from time to time and from
society to society. In some countries the penalty is considered legitimate as a means of
preventing or punishing the crime of murder. Elsewhere it may be deemed indispensable to stop
drug-trafficking, acts of political terror, economic corruption or adultery. In yet other countries,
it is used to eliminate those seen as posing a political threat to the authorities.
Once one state uses the death penalty for any reason, it becomes easier for other states to use it
with an appearance of legitimacy for whatever reasons they may choose. If the death penalty can
be justified for one offence, justifications that accord with the prevailing view of a society or its
rulers will be found for it to be used for other offences. Whatever purpose is cited, the idea that a
government can justify a punishment as cruel as death conflicts with the very concept of human
rights. The significance of human rights is precisely that some means may never be used to
protect society because their use violates the very values which make society worth protecting.
When this essential distinction between appropriate and inappropriate means is set aside in the
name of some "greater good", all rights are vulnerable and all individuals are threatened.
No Evidence for Deterrence
The death penalty, as a violation of fundamental human rights, would be wrong even if it could
be shown that it uniquely met a vital social need. What makes the use of the death penalty even
more indefensible and the case for its abolition even more compelling is that it has never been
shown to have any special power to meet any genuine social need.
Countless men and women have been executed for the stated purpose of preventing crime,
especially the crime of murder. Yet Amnesty International has failed to find convincing evidence
that the death penalty has any unique capacity to deter others from commiting particular crimes.
A survey of research findings on the relation between the death penalty and homicide rates,
conducted for the UN in 1988 and updated in 2002, concluded: "... it is not prudent to accept the
hypothesis that capital punishment deters murder to a marginally greater extent than does the
threat and application of the supposedly lesser punishment of life imprisonment".
Undeniably the death penalty, by permanently "incapacitating" a prisoner, prevents that person
from repeating the crime. But there is no way to be sure that the prisoner would indeed have
repeated the crime if allowed to live, nor is there any need to violate the prisoner's right to life for
the purpose of incapacitation: dangerous offenders can be kept safely away from the public
without resorting to execution, as shown by the experience of many abolitionist countries.
Nor is there evidence that the threat of the death penalty will prevent politically motivated crimes
or acts of terror. If anything, the possibility of political martyrdom through execution may
encourage people to commit such crimes.
Every society seeks protection from crimes. Far from being a solution, the death penalty gives
the erroneous impression that "firm measures" are being taken against crime. It diverts attention
from the more complex measures which are really needed. In the words of the South African
Constitution Court in 1995, "We would be deluding ourselves if we were to believe that the
execution of ... a comparatively few people each year ... will provide the solution to the
unacceptably high rate of crime ... The greatest deterrent to crime is the likelihood that offenders
will be apprehended, convicted and punished".
The Dangerous Logic of Retribution
When the arguments of deterrence and incapacitation fall away, one is left with a more deepseated justification for the death penalty: that of just retribution for the particular crime
committed. According to this argument, certain people deserve to be killed as repayment for the
evil done: there are crimes so offensive that killing the offender is the only just response.
It is an emotionally powerful argument. It is also one which, if valid, would invalidate the basis
for human rights. If a person who commits a terrible act can "deserve" the cruelty of death, why
cannot others, for similar reasons, "deserve" to be tortured or imprisoned without trial or simply
shot on sight? Central to fundamental human rights is that they are inalienable. They may not be
taken away even if a person has committed the most atrocious of crimes. Human rights apply to
the worst of us as well as to the best of us, which is why they protect all of us.
What the argument for retribution boils down to, is often no more than a desire for vengeance
masked as a principle of justice. The desire for vengeance can be understood and acknowledged
but the exercise of vengeance must be resisted. The history of the endeavour to establish the rule
of law is a history of the progressive restriction of personal vengeance in public policy and legal
codes.
If today's penal systems do not sanction the burning of an arsonist's home, the rape of the rapist
or the torture of the torturer, it is not because they tolerate the crimes. Instead, it is because
societies understand that they must be built on a different set of values from those they condemn.
An execution cannot be used to condemn killing; it is killing. Such an act by the state is the
mirror image of the criminal's willingness to use physical violence against a victim.
Innocent People Will Be Executed
Related to the argument that some people "deserve" to die is the proposition that the state is
capable of determining exactly who they are. Whatever one's view of the retribution argument
may be, the practice of the death penalty reveals that no criminal justice system is, or
conceivably could be, capable of deciding fairly, consistently and infallibly who should live and
who should die.
All criminal justice systems are vulnerable to discrimination and error. Expediency, discretionary
decisions and prevailing public opinion may influence the proceedings at every stage from the
initial arrest to the last-minute decision clemency. The reality of the death penalty is that what
determines who shall be executed and who shall be spared is often not only the nature of the
crimes but also the ethnic and social background, the financial means or the political opinions of
the defendant. The death penalty is used disproportionately against the poor, the powerless, the
marginalised or those whom repressive governments deem it expedient to eliminate.
Human uncertainty and arbitrary judgements are factors which affect all judicial decisions. But
only one decision—the decision to execute—results in something that cannot be remedied or
undone. Whether executions take place within hours of a summary trial or after years of
protracted legal proceedings, states will continue to execute people who are later found to be
innocent. Those executed cannot be compensated for loss of life and the whole society must
share responsibility for what has been done.
Abolition Is the Only Answer
It is the irrevocable nature of the death penalty, the fact that the prisoner is eliminated forever,
that makes the penalty so tempting to some states as a tool of repression. Thousands have been
put to death under one government only to be recognized as innocent victims when another set of
authorities comes to power. Only abolition can ensure that such political abuse of the death
penalty will never occur.
When used to crush political dissent, the death penalty is abhorrent. When invoked as a way to
protect society from crime, it is illusory. Wherever used, it brutalizes those involved in the
process and conveys to the public a sense that killing a defenceless prisoner is somehow
acceptable. It may be used to try to bolster the authority of the state—or of those who govern in
its name. But any such authority it confers is spurious. The penalty is a symbol of terror and, to
that extent, a confession of weakness. It is always a violation of the most fundamental human
rights.
Each society and its citizens have the choice to decide about the sort of world people want and
will work to achieve: a world in which the state is permitted to kill as a legal punishment or a
world based on respect for human life and human rights—a world without executions.
Source Citation:
International, Amnesty. "The Death Penalty Should Be Abolished." Criminal Justice. Ed. David Haugen
and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "The Death
Penalty v. Human Rights: Why Abolish the Death Penalty?" 2007. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context.
Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
The Death Penalty Should Not Be Abolished
"Capital punishment produces a strong deterrent effect that saves lives."
In the following viewpoint, David B. Muhlhausen argues that capital punishment should not be
abandoned because it deters crimes, saves lives, and the majority of American citizens support its use.
Additionally, he maintains that evidence does not support claims that racial discrimination results in a
disproportionate number of African Americans incarcerated on death row. David B. Muhlhausen is a
senior policy analyst in the area of criminal justice for the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public
policy research organization.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. According to the 2006 study conducted by the RAND Corporation, what affects whether the
death penalty is sought as punishment for a crime?
2. What are the three findings of Joanna M. Shepherd's analysis of data from 1977 to 1999 on the
death penalty?
3. Based on research conducted by H. Naci Mocan and R. Kaj Gittings, how many murders result
from each commutation of a death row sentence?
While opponents of capital punishment have been very vocal in their opposition, Gallup opinion
polls consistently demonstrate that the American public overwhelmingly supports capital
punishment. In Gallup's most recent poll, 67 percent of Americans favor the death penalty for
those convicted of murder, while only 28 percent are opposed. From 2000 to the most recent poll
in 2006, support for capital punishment consistently runs a 2:1 ratio in favor.
Despite strong public support for capital punishment, federal, state, and local officials must
continually ensure that its implementation rigorously upholds constitutional protections, such as
due process and equal protection of the law. However, the criminal process should not be abused
to prevent the lawful imposition of the death penalty in appropriate capital cases.
Crime Characteristics More Important Than Race
As of December 2005, there were 37 prisoners under a sentence of death in the federal system.
Of these prisoners, 43.2 percent were white, while 54.1 percent were African-American. The fact
that African-Americans are a majority of federal prisoners on death row and a minority in the
overall United States population may lead some to conclude that the federal system discriminates
against African-Americans. However, there is little rigorous evidence that such disparities exist
in the federal system.
Under a competitive grant process, the National Institute of Justice awarded the RAND
Corporation a grant to determine whether racial disparities exist in the federal death penalty
system. The resulting 2006 RAND study set out to determine what factors, including the
defendant's race, victim's race, and crime characteristics, affect the decision to seek a death
penalty case. Three independent teams of researchers were tasked with developing their own
methodologies to analyze the data. Only after each team independently drew their own
conclusions did they share their findings with each other.
When first looking at the raw data without controlling for case characteristics, RAND found that
large race effects with the decision to seek the death penalty are more likely to occur when the
defendants are white and when the victims are white. However, these disparities disappeared in
each of the three studies when the heinousness of the crimes was taken into account. The RAND
study concludes that the findings support the view that decisions to seek the death penalty are
driven by characteristics of crimes rather than by race. RAND's findings are very compelling
because three independent research teams, using the same data but different methodologies,
reached the same conclusions.
While there is little evidence that the federal capital punishment system treats minorities unfairly,
some may argue that the death penalty systems in certain states may be discriminatory. One such
state is Maryland. In May 2001, then-Governor Parris Glendening instituted a moratorium on the
use of capital punishment in Maryland in light of concerns that it may be unevenly applied to
minorities, especially African-Americans. In 2000, Governor Glendening commissioned
University of Maryland Professor of Criminology Ray Paternoster to study the possibility of
racial discrimination in the application of the death penalty in Maryland. The results of Professor
Paternoster's study found that black defendants who murder white victims are substantially more
likely to be charged with a capital crime and sentenced to death.
In 2003, Governor Robert L. Ehrlich wisely lifted the moratorium. His decision was justified. In
2005, a careful review of the study by Professor of Statistics and Sociology Richard Berk of the
University of California, Los Angeles, and his coauthors found that the results of Professor
Paternoster's study do not stand up to statistical scrutiny. According to Professor Berk's reanalysis, "For both capital charges and death sentences, race either played no role or a small role
that is very difficult to specify. In short, it is very difficult to find convincing evidence for racial
effects in the Maryland data and if there are any, they may not be additive." Further, race may
have a small influence because "cases with a black defendant and white victim or 'other' racial
combination are less likely to have a death sentence."
The Death Penalty Deters Crime
Federal, state, and local officials need to recognize that the death penalty saves lives. How
capital punishment affects murder rates can be explained through general deterrence theory,
which supposes that increasing the risk of apprehension and punishment for crime deters
individuals from committing crime. Nobel laureate Gary S. Becker's seminal 1968 study of the
economics of crime assumed that individuals respond to the costs and benefits of committing
crime.
According to deterrence theory, criminals are no different from law-abiding people. Criminals
[economist Paul H. Rubin writes] "rationally maximize their own self-interest (utility) subject to
constraints (prices, incomes) that they face in the marketplace and elsewhere." Individuals make
their decisions based on the net costs and benefits of each alternative. Thus, deterrence theory
provides a basis for analyzing how capital punishment should influence murder rates. Over the
years, several studies have demonstrated a link between executions and decreases in murder
rates. In fact, studies done in recent years, using sophisticated panel data methods, consistently
demonstrate a strong link between executions and reduced murder incidents.
The rigorous examination of the deterrent effect of capital punishment began with research in the
1970s by Isaac Ehrlich, currently a University of Buffalo Distinguished Professor of Economics.
Professor Ehrlich's research found that the death penalty had a strong deterrent effect. While his
research was debated by other scholars, additional research by Professor Ehrlich reconfirmed his
original findings. In addition, research by Professor Stephen K. Layson of the University of
North Carolina at Greensboro strongly reconfirmed Ehrlich's previous findings.
The Death Penalty Saves Lives
Numerous studies published over the past few years, using panel data sets [statisticians make
distinctions between panel sets vs. what they call "one-dimensional," or "cross-sectional" data
sets] and sophisticated social science techniques, are demonstrating that the death penalty saves
lives. Panel studies observe multiple units over several periods. The addition of multiple data
collection points gives the results of capital punishment panel studies substantially more
credibility than the results of studies that have only single before-and-after intervention
measures. Further, the longitudinal nature of the panel data allows researchers to analyze the
impact of the death penalty over time that cross-sectional data sets cannot address.
Using a panel data set of over 3,000 counties from 1977 to 1996, Professors Hashem
Dezhbakhsh, Paul R. Rubin, and Joanna M. Shepherd of Emory University found that each
execution, on average, results in 18 fewer murders. Using state-level panel data from 1960 to
2000, Professors Dezhbakhsh and Shepherd were able to compare the relationship between
executions and murder incidents before, during, and after the U.S. Supreme Court's death penalty
moratorium. They found that executions had a highly significant negative relationship with
murder incidents. Additionally, the implementation of state moratoria is associated with the
increased incidence of murders.
Separately, Professor Shepherd's analysis of monthly data from 1977 to 1999 found three
important findings.
First, each execution, on average, is associated with three fewer murders. The deterred murders
included both crimes of passion and murders by intimates.
Second, executions deter the murder of whites and African-Americans. Each execution prevents
the murder of one white person, 1.5 African-Americans, and 0.5 persons of other races.
Third, shorter waits on death row are associated with increased deterrence. For each additional
2.75-year reduction in the death row wait until execution, one murder is deterred.
Commuting Death Penalty Sentences Is Deadly
Professors H. Naci Mocan and R. Kaj Gittings of the University of Colorado at Denver have
published two studies confirming the deterrent effect of capital punishment. The first study used
state-level data from 1977 to 1997 to analyze the influence of executions, commutations, and
removals from death row on the incidence of murder. For each additional execution, on average,
about five murders were deterred. Alternatively, for each additional commutation, on average,
five additional murders resulted. A removal from death row by either state courts or the U.S.
Supreme Court is associated with an increase of one additional murder. Addressing criticism of
their work, Professors Mocan and Gittings conducted additional analyses and found that their
original findings provided robust support for the deterrent effect of capital punishment.
Two studies by Paul R. Zimmerman, a Federal Communications Commission economist, also
support the deterrent effect of capital punishment. Using state-level data from 1978 to 1997,
Zimmerman found that each additional execution, on average, results in 14 fewer murders.
Zimmerman's second study, using similar data, found that executions conducted by electrocution
are the most effective at providing deterrence.
Using a small state-level data set from 1995 to 1999, Professor Robert B. Ekelund of Auburn
University and his colleagues analyzed the effect that executions have on single incidents of
murder and multiple incidents of murder. They found that executions reduced single murder
rates, while there was no effect on multiple murder rates.
In summary, the recent studies using panel data techniques have confirmed what we learned
decades ago: Capital punishment does, in fact, save lives. Each additional execution appears to
deter between three and 18 murders. While opponents of capital punishment allege that it is
unfairly used against African-Americans, each additional execution deters the murder of 1.5
African-Americans. Further moratoria, commuted sentences, and death row removals appear to
increase the incidence of murder.
The strength of these findings has caused some legal scholars, originally opposed to the death
penalty on moral grounds, to rethink their case. In particular, Professor Cass R. Sunstein of the
University of Chicago has commented:
If the recent evidence of deterrence is shown to be correct, then opponents of capital punishment will
face an uphill struggle on moral grounds. If each execution is saving lives, the harms of capital
punishment would have to be very great to justify its abolition, far greater than most critics have
heretofore alleged.
Americans support capital punishment for two good reasons. First, there is little evidence to
suggest that minorities are treated unfairly. Second, capital punishment produces a strong
deterrent effect that saves lives.
Source Citation:
Muhlhausen, David B. "The Death Penalty Should Not Be Abolished." Criminal Justice. Ed. David Haugen
and Susan Musser. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2009. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "The Death
Penalty Deters Crime and Saves Lives." Heritage Foundation. 2007. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context.
Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
Censorship
Censorship is the regulation or suppression of writing or speech that is considered harmful to the
common good or a threat to national security. Although censorship can be carried out by private
individuals or corporations, the term is typically used to refer to government efforts to control
speech or media content. The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that "Congress
shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press." There are exceptions to
this guarantee of freedom of expression, however, with some classes of speech enjoying greater
protection than others.
History of Censorship
The modern idea of censorship first emerged in Western Europe shortly after the invention of the
printing press in the late 1400s. Before that time, most books and manuscripts in Europe were
created in monasteries, which controlled what could be written. The printing press ended the
monasteries’ control over the written word and resulted in the publication and distribution of a
greater variety of written materials. Governments soon took over the task of censorship. Many
countries established offices to monitor the media and to prohibit the publication of materials
considered offensive, undesirable, or a threat to the state.
As democratic ideas became more widespread, so did resistance to censorship. Many English
and French philosophers of the 1700s argued that freedom of expression was essential to the
practice of democracy. They claimed that suppressing ideas denied citizens access to information
they needed to participate effectively in a democratic system. British common law reflected this
view, banning government control of speech and published materials. The framers of the U.S.
Constitution followed the British example in trying to protect citizens’ freedom of expression
from interference by the government. However, the limits of this protection were soon tested,
and they have been the subject of debate ever since.
Protected and Unprotected Speech
Not all forms of speech are entitled to equal protection under U.S. law. Cultural, social, or
religious expressions have the highest value in the eyes of the law, and authorities must provide a
compelling reason to limit or censor such speech. Political speech in particular cannot be
regulated unless it is likely to spur people to lawlessness. However, government agencies can
limit the publication of or access to material that could compromise national security.
Some other forms of expression come under stricter rules of censorship. Pornographic or obscene
material, for example, enjoys very little protection under the law. Congress and state
governments have the right to censor such works. State law and local community standards are
used to determine whether a work is obscene, allowing for different interpretations from place to
place. Child pornography, on the other hand, is prohibited throughout the United States and in
most other nations.
Commercial speech, such as advertising, was once viewed as not protected by the First
Amendment and was often strictly regulated. Although commercial speech now enjoys greater
protection, the government can still censor false or misleading advertising if it can prove that the
harm caused by censorship is less than that caused by the advertisement.
In recent years there has been much debate over the censorship of hate speech, which demeans
someone’s race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. Some people feel it should be treated as
"fighting words"—words meant to provoke a fight—a form of speech that the Constitution does
not protect. Others fear that allowing censorship of hate speech would lead the government to
suppress other ideas it finds undesirable.
Media Censorship
Although the Supreme Court has been reluctant to regulate print media, such as newspapers,
magazines, and books, it has been more willing to place restrictions on broadcast media. There
are three main reasons for this. First, the paper and presses used by print media are privately
owned, but radio and television airwaves are publicly owned. Second, anybody who can set up a
press can produce a newspaper, but the limited availability of broadcast frequencies restricts the
number of possible radio or television stations. Finally, people can easily control the content they
read, but it is much more difficult for people to control the content they or their children might
hear or see in a radio or television program.
Government control of the airwaves occurs in many ways, the most basic of which is licensing.
Radio and television broadcasters must be licensed by the Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) and must renew their licenses periodically. The government also requires that
broadcasters serve the public interest. This includes airing local news programs and public
service announcements, as well as running all political advertisements, not just those that support
the broadcaster’s point of view. The FCC can also restrict, in the public interest, programs that it
finds "indecent."
International Perspectives
While citizens in democratic countries enjoy considerable freedom of speech, people in many
nations experience censorship on a daily basis. Authoritarian governments often use censorship
as a way to restrict the information their citizens receive and to maintain power over people.
Perhaps the most widespread method is through government control of the press. Many
governments also suppress opposing viewpoints by requiring journalists to be licensed by the
state, managing the distribution of newsprint, or withholding government advertising.
Some governments try to prevent citizens from receiving news from outside sources. For
example, they may prohibit the ownership of satellite dishes. However, the expansion of the
Internet presents a serious challenge to the control of information. It is very difficult to restrict
access to the Internet. In addition, because computer-based communications play a central role in
today’s economy, denying people access to these communications may endanger the strength
and health of the state.
As the U.S. media becomes increasingly dominant around the world, some governments are
seeking to limit the amount of American movies and television programming that can enter their
countries. Those who support such efforts feel that U.S. culture threatens to overwhelm local
cultures or to undermine their values with scenes of violence and sex and of a lifestyle well
furnished with material goods. Such concerns are likely to intensify as nations become more
involved in the global marketplace.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2012 Gale, Cengage Learning.
Source Citation:
"Censorship." Current Issues: Macmillan Social Science Library. Detroit: Gale, 2010. Gale
Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
The Arts Should Be Censored
"The public has an interest in preventing the pollution of its artistic culture—and the law should reflect
that interest."
In the following viewpoint, columnist Ben Shapiro argues that laws must be enacted to set limits on free
artistic expression. He cites several examples of artists whose unbound "free expression" has crossed
the boundaries of acceptable public expression. Unless regulations are enacted, he insists, artists will
continue to create art that is obscene, vulgar, and demeaning to human beings. Moreover, he fears that
this "art" will become the norm, to the detriment of the culture at large.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. How does Ben Shapiro describe Aliza Shvarts's so-called art project?
2. What rights besides artistic freedom have limits, according to Shapiro?
3. Who were some of the past artists that flourished despite the imposition of restrictions on free
expression, as noted by the author?
Art, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. No one has come up with a workable definition of art
that can universally separate garbage like Karen Finley's body goo1 from Michelangelo's David.
And because art is so difficult, so amorphous and difficult to define, civilized people have shied
away from attempting to place limits on it. The best policy, we have decided, is to allow
everything into the artistic marketplace, and let history and time sort it all out.
There's only one problem with this strategy: If you pollute the artistic marketplace with
unmitigated crap, no one will want to visit the marketplace. Art itself will die, or at least be
relegated to the few, proud elitists who busily wade through mountains of manure, proclaiming it
intellectual gold.
The Need for Limits
Art thrives most when it has reasonable limits. When there are no hard limits, artists who push
the envelope are given the most attention. Those "artists" attract the most imitators. And so the
"artist" who drops a crucifix in a jar of urine [a reference to a work by photographer Andres
Serrano] breeds the "artist" who douses herself in chocolate syrup [Finley]. The "artist" who
douses herself in chocolate syrup breeds the "artist" who engages in acts of sodomy before a live
audience [a reference to the play The Romans in Britain, which contains a scene in which a man
rapes another man].
And all of these artists breed the "artist" who supposedly artificially inseminates herself, induces
her own miscarriages, films those miscarriages, saves the blood, mixes it with Vaseline, spreads
the mixture on saran wrap and then projects the video of her miscarriages onto the saran wrap
screen.
Last week [April 2008], a national furor arose over Yale student Aliza Shvarts's "art" project,
which contemplated doing just that: projecting abortion videos onto abortion leftovers. The
political right was understandably outraged—the immorality of the abortions is sick-making on
its own. The political left was, somewhat puzzlingly, also perturbed—they condemned Shvarts's
"approach and presentation," though one struggles to see their problem, considering Shvarts's
repeated abortions are legal only due to their adamant support for abortion-on-demand.
The Art World's Response
The art world was largely silent on Shvarts's project. They were not silent, however, on the
prospect of censorship. "Public media has been practicing vigilant self-censorship ever since
(Sept. 11, 2001)—in my opinion, a very irresponsible choice," said performance artist, Yale
lecturer and probable Shvarts-advisor Pia Lindman. "I am still waiting for this self-aggrandizing
mass psychosis; the uncritical belief in the omnipotence and goodness of the American people,
troops and government, to dissolve and have it replaced with sober self-reflection."
Cary Nelson of the American Association of University Professors was more circumspect:
"Academic freedom for faculty and intellectual freedom for students give them the right to
speech that shocks and challenges." Helaine S. Klasky, spokeswoman for Yale, stated, "The
entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity
surrounding form and function of a woman's body. (Shvarts) is an artist and has the right to
express herself through performance art."
All rights have reasonable limits. The right to bear arms does not include a right to own a nuclear
weapon. The right to free exercise of religion does not include a right to ritualistic child sacrifice.
The right to free expression in art should not include a right to film yourself having an abortion;
neither should it include a right to use feces, urine or any other bodily fluid in public, nor should
it include a right to engage in sex acts before live audiences.
The public has an interest in preventing the pollution of its artistic culture—and the law should
reflect that interest. As for the "boundary-pushing" performance "artists," those "artists" who
cannot work within the bounds of common decency should find another line of work. [William]
Shakespeare somehow worked within the strict guidelines of his time; so did da Vinci, and so did
Beethoven, Brahms, Bach and Mozart. If Aliza Shvarts, Robert Mapplethorpe [a controversial
photographer whose work is sometimes sexually explicit], Andres Serrano and other "artists"
cannot do the same, they ought to consider going into the demolition business. After all, they're
so good at destroying worthwhile ideas and limits already.
Footnotes
1. 1. Karen Finley is a controversial performance artist whose shows have included smearing her
body with chocolate and other substances.
Source Citation:
Shapiro, Ben. "The Arts Should Be Censored." Censorship. Ed. Byron L. Stay. San Diego: Greenhaven
Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "No Bodily Fluids in the Public Square." Human Events.com.
2008. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
The Arts Should Not Be Censored
"Artists have a right—and sometimes a duty—to offend their audiences."
Dominic Cooke is an English theatre director, playwright, and the artistic director of the Royal Court
Theatre in London. In the following viewpoint, he argues that while official censorship of the arts has
decreased, a dangerous self-censorship has taken its place. He notes several attempts by fundamentalist
religious groups to censor art they consider offensive. These efforts, he believes, have led artists to stifle
their own views out of fear of offending overly sensitive religious groups, thus diminishing the power of
their art to provoke thought and dialogue on important issues.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. How did William Gaskill evade the censors, according to the author?
2. Why is Terence Koh's exhibition controversial, as reported by Dominic Cooke?
3. How do liberals complicate the issue of self-censorship of the arts, as explained by the author?
Forty years ago, the Theatres Bill removed from the Lord Chamberlain [the senior officer of the
Royal Household] his centuries-old power to censor the British stage. Under a law unchanged
since 1843, every work intended for production in British theatres had first to be submitted to,
and approved by, his office. Each work came back with a report from one of the censors, who
became renowned for their hypersensitive ability to read sex and subversion into the most
innocent of dialogue. Kenneth Tynan quotes some choice reports in his famous 1965 polemic
The Royal Smut-Hound: the phrase 'balls of the Medici' is banned, for example (although the
report does give the helpful suggestion that 'testicles of the Medici' would be acceptable).
Another personal favourite, also quoted by Tynan, is the following masterpiece of straight-faced
absurdity: 'Page 14: Omit "the perversions of rubber". Substitute "the kreurpels and blinges of
the rubber". Omit the chamber pot under the bed.'
As well as Tynan, the Royal Court Theatre, under its artistic director William Gaskill, fought
bitterly against the Lord Chamberlain's office, even, on occasion, openly flouting the censor's
demands. At performances of Edward Bond's Early Morning, Royal Court patrons were charged
a 'membership fee' on the door, rather than being sold a ticket, thereby exploiting a loophole
which exempted private theatre clubs from censorship.
Aside from the more comical aberrations of the censor's pencil, there is, of course, a sinister side
to the limiting of freedom of speech by a government-appointed official. Peter Hall has written
wisely about the function of censorship as 'a means of exerting power, preventing debate and
discouraging challenge'. It is a despicable form of bullying, made all the more hurtful and
infuriating when legitimised by the state, or other institutions.
At last, in September 1968, common sense prevailed and the law was changed. The single
biggest limit on the freedom of expression in British theatre was abolished, and new worlds of
possibilities opened up to writers and directors.
The Danger of Self-Censorship
But censorship remains. A whole generation of playwrights has grown old without the
amendments of the blue pencil, but the limits placed on our speech now come not from the
government, but from our own fear of repercussion in the face of religious extremism. Artists
have a right—and sometimes a duty—to offend their audiences. And audiences have a right—
and sometimes a duty—to be offended by what they see or hear. But when it is generally
assumed that an audience has a right not to be offended, then the restrictions imposed upon an
artist are just as stifling as the Lord Chamberlain's.
I say this because Terence Koh's recent exhibition, which includes a statue of Christ with an
erection, has re-inflamed the debate about the rights and wrongs of art which offends. I have not
seen the exhibition, but I support the Baltic Centre in presenting it. The ongoing battle against
the suppression of free expression will not be won by fearing to cause offence. Nevertheless, it is
true that sometimes the reaction to a piece will deny it the chance of a fair appraisal,
necessitating a painful act of self-censorship on the part of arts programmers.
One does not need an encyclopaedic knowledge of British culture to be able to name an example
of modern attempts at censorship. The fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the pickets outside Jerry
Springer—The Opera, the violent protests against Behzti at the Birmingham Repertory
Theatre.1In all these cases, religious fundamentalists have attempted and, in the example of
Birmingham, won their attempt to deny freedom of expression to artists, and to audiences the
opportunity to make up their own minds.
Of course, the claims are specious. To fear that a centuries-old faith might be endangered by one
play, or that a person's strongly held beliefs may be devalued by somebody else disagreeing, or
even satirising them, reveals a hatred of plurality that is common to all fascist ideologies.
However, it is made more complex by the fact that many liberals, out of a fear of appearing
racist, and with shared sympathy for many of the political causes that also motivate those with a
fundamentalist agenda turn a blind eye to such intolerance.
Examples such as the ones above are rare. And the groups that cause them are small, and led by
literalists rather than the majority of religious believers. Nevertheless, such actions, especially
when successful, foster fear in artistic organisations of the possible ramifications of producing
work that criticises religion. This is a profoundly insidious form of censorship, unspoken and
therefore hard to criticise.
A Self-Perpetuating Climate of Fear
Sometimes this is a result of a genuine safety threat posed to arts organisations. The management
of Birmingham Rep, faced with credible threats of violence against their staff, and without
adequate protection from the police, had no choice but to pull Behzti. I do not blame them for
that. But I believe we are in danger of reaching a situation where a fear of offending has become
so internalised and automatic that it isn't even noticed. It may appear well intentioned, but it is no
less harmful to free speech than the Lord Chamberlain. The only way we can establish our
boundaries is by testing them, and the overly sensitive suppression of anything that even brushes
against those boundaries creates a self-perpetuating climate of fear and timidity.
For once arts organisations cease to present work that might offend, artists will cease to create it.
Then the small-minded, the bigoted, and the self-righteous can celebrate their victory, and the
arts world can only count its losses.
But every morning when I arrive at work, I long to find in that day's post good plays that are not
hampered by fear of what they can and can't say, or by fear of causing offence. Plays like
Christopher Shinn's Now or Later, which is accurate in its analysis of the complex question of
the limits of pluralism and its conflict with fundamentalism. The theatre I run exists to produce
exactly those plays. They're out there. They've probably already been written, and I am
convinced that there are hundreds of people who could yet write them, even if they have never
considered doing so. I want that play, and I want the Royal Court to produce it. And when we do,
we may fear the consequences, but if we feel the play can bear it, that certainly wouldn't stop us.
Footnotes
1. 1. In 1989, the Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of Iran, issued a fatwa, or religious decree, calling
for the death of author Salman Rushdie for his book The Satanic Verses, which he deemed
blasphemous toward Islam. In 2005, Jerry Springer—The Opera, a musical comedy based on the
Jerry Springer TV show, was deemed blasphemous by Christian groups. In 2004, riots broke out
on opening night of Behzti, a play that was viewed as offensive to Sikhs, leading to cancellation
of the play.
Source Citation:
Cooke, Dominic. "The Arts Should Not Be Censored." Censorship. Ed. Byron L. Stay. San Diego:
Greenhaven Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "An Insidious Form of Censorship." Spectator
(11 Oct. 2008): 49. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.
The Arts Should Be Censored
"The public has an interest in preventing the pollution of its artistic culture—and the law should reflect
that interest."
In the following viewpoint, columnist Ben Shapiro argues that laws must be enacted to set limits on free
artistic expression. He cites several examples of artists whose unbound "free expression" has crossed
the boundaries of acceptable public expression. Unless regulations are enacted, he insists, artists will
continue to create art that is obscene, vulgar, and demeaning to human beings. Moreover, he fears that
this "art" will become the norm, to the detriment of the culture at large.
As you read, consider the following questions:
1. How does Ben Shapiro describe Aliza Shvarts's so-called art project?
2. What rights besides artistic freedom have limits, according to Shapiro?
3. Who were some of the past artists that flourished despite the imposition of restrictions on free
expression, as noted by the author?
Art, they say, is in the eye of the beholder. No one has come up with a workable definition of art
that can universally separate garbage like Karen Finley's body goo1 from Michelangelo's David.
And because art is so difficult, so amorphous and difficult to define, civilized people have shied
away from attempting to place limits on it. The best policy, we have decided, is to allow
everything into the artistic marketplace, and let history and time sort it all out.
There's only one problem with this strategy: If you pollute the artistic marketplace with
unmitigated crap, no one will want to visit the marketplace. Art itself will die, or at least be
relegated to the few, proud elitists who busily wade through mountains of manure, proclaiming it
intellectual gold.
The Need for Limits
Art thrives most when it has reasonable limits. When there are no hard limits, artists who push
the envelope are given the most attention. Those "artists" attract the most imitators. And so the
"artist" who drops a crucifix in a jar of urine [a reference to a work by photographer Andres
Serrano] breeds the "artist" who douses herself in chocolate syrup [Finley]. The "artist" who
douses herself in chocolate syrup breeds the "artist" who engages in acts of sodomy before a live
audience [a reference to the play The Romans in Britain, which contains a scene in which a man
rapes another man].
And all of these artists breed the "artist" who supposedly artificially inseminates herself, induces
her own miscarriages, films those miscarriages, saves the blood, mixes it with Vaseline, spreads
the mixture on saran wrap and then projects the video of her miscarriages onto the saran wrap
screen.
Last week [April 2008], a national furor arose over Yale student Aliza Shvarts's "art" project,
which contemplated doing just that: projecting abortion videos onto abortion leftovers. The
political right was understandably outraged—the immorality of the abortions is sick-making on
its own. The political left was, somewhat puzzlingly, also perturbed—they condemned Shvarts's
"approach and presentation," though one struggles to see their problem, considering Shvarts's
repeated abortions are legal only due to their adamant support for abortion-on-demand.
The Art World's Response
The art world was largely silent on Shvarts's project. They were not silent, however, on the
prospect of censorship. "Public media has been practicing vigilant self-censorship ever since
(Sept. 11, 2001)—in my opinion, a very irresponsible choice," said performance artist, Yale
lecturer and probable Shvarts-advisor Pia Lindman. "I am still waiting for this self-aggrandizing
mass psychosis; the uncritical belief in the omnipotence and goodness of the American people,
troops and government, to dissolve and have it replaced with sober self-reflection."
Cary Nelson of the American Association of University Professors was more circumspect:
"Academic freedom for faculty and intellectual freedom for students give them the right to
speech that shocks and challenges." Helaine S. Klasky, spokeswoman for Yale, stated, "The
entire project is an art piece, a creative fiction designed to draw attention to the ambiguity
surrounding form and function of a woman's body. (Shvarts) is an artist and has the right to
express herself through performance art."
All rights have reasonable limits. The right to bear arms does not include a right to own a nuclear
weapon. The right to free exercise of religion does not include a right to ritualistic child sacrifice.
The right to free expression in art should not include a right to film yourself having an abortion;
neither should it include a right to use feces, urine or any other bodily fluid in public, nor should
it include a right to engage in sex acts before live audiences.
The public has an interest in preventing the pollution of its artistic culture—and the law should
reflect that interest. As for the "boundary-pushing" performance "artists," those "artists" who
cannot work within the bounds of common decency should find another line of work. [William]
Shakespeare somehow worked within the strict guidelines of his time; so did da Vinci, and so did
Beethoven, Brahms, Bach and Mozart. If Aliza Shvarts, Robert Mapplethorpe [a controversial
photographer whose work is sometimes sexually explicit], Andres Serrano and other "artists"
cannot do the same, they ought to consider going into the demolition business. After all, they're
so good at destroying worthwhile ideas and limits already.
Footnotes
1. 1. Karen Finley is a controversial performance artist whose shows have included smearing her
body with chocolate and other substances.
Source Citation:
Shapiro, Ben. "The Arts Should Be Censored." Censorship. Ed. Byron L. Stay. San Diego: Greenhaven
Press, 1997. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "No Bodily Fluids in the Public Square." Human Events.com.
2008. Gale Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 9 Apr. 2012.