Should we ever justify creating a child with a dead person?

A British man has today won the right to use the embryo from him and his dead wife to try to have a baby using a surrogate. 

 Ted Jennings’ wife died in 2019 while carrying twins conceived through IVF, and since then he has fought for the right to use their remaining embryo to conceive a child through surrogacy.  

The HFEA originally denied the request, but today a judge ruled that he can use the embryo.  

I have numerous issues with this.  

Firstly, were it not for IVF, there would never have been an embryo, and the man’s choice to have a child with his now deceased wife would never have existed. 

While IVF is undoubtedly a medical miracle, the fact is that IVF is designed in order for people to become parents, without one of those parents, there surely shouldn’t be a baby.  

Secondly, he would be using a surrogate to carry the baby for him. Essentially he would be renting a woman’s womb, and she would be taking the risk of going through pregnancy and birth.  It should be remembered at this point that Ted’s wife died as a result of a uterine rupture during pregnancy, so he is all too aware of the potential risks, however rare they might be.  Is it ok to potentially put another woman at the same risk of happening what happened to his wife?  

I’ll be honest here, I don’t agree with surrogacy anyway, but even if I did, this just sounds like a step too far.  

And what of the child conceived of this arrangement? That child would be growing up without a mother. Not a mother who died when they were young, but a mother who, to all intents and purposes, never existed for them.  Given that the law changed to allow the children of egg and sperm donations to find their biological parents due to the feelings of lost identity many of them felt, how is this child expected to grow up knowing that their mother actually died several years before they were born, that their father rented another woman’s body in order to be able to have a child. A child who is growing up with no real identity.  

Ted Jennings is young enough to move forward, to fall in love again, and to have a baby with any future woman in his life.  Even if he is the one with the fertility issues, and we don’t know what that situation is, if he’s had IVF once, then he could do so again.  

Sometimes medicine is capable of miraculous things.  

But just because something can be done, doesn’t mean that it should.  

To the decent men out there, “not all men” are like that.

A discussion has emerged following the recent disappearance of Sarah Everard with regards to the way women often feel unsafe when out and about, and judged for not wanting to be the victims of sexual harassment and worse, sexual and physical violence. Many men have entered into the discussions with the statements that “not all men” are like that, and “men are victims too.” 

Now let me start by saying that we all know that not all men are sexual predators. And we all know that men can be victims of violence and crime. But when there is a discussion about women, then surely it stands to reason that it is women who are being discussed, and the way they feel, and yes, unfortunately that is normally because of the actions of men. 

Sarah Everard isn’t where the topic started. in truth whenever a woman is assaulted or even murdered there is talk of how women can be made to feel safer, and what to do with regards to sexual harassment and violence. And then the conversation is taken over by those who want to make it known that this isn’t women’s place to discuss because “men are victims too”, and thus the conversation ceases, until next time.  

A lot of the conversation in this instance has centred around how women can feel safer when out and about. How we can get to the point where women don’t feel they have to walk a certain route home, or be responsible for their friends getting home safely, But in truth the conversation goes so much deeper. 

It is indisputable that more women are victims of sexual crimes and domestic violence than men. In the past year 118 women died at the hands of men. 2 women are killed by a partner every week, and 97% of women say they have been victims of sexual harassment. 

And this is where it starts to be downplayed. A man wolf whistling at a pretty girl is seen as innocent. But actually it is objectifying that girl, but she would be told she was overreacting if she said that. So where does it stop being a woman’s “over reaction” and begin to be harassment? The truth is that it becomes harassment the instant the woman is uncomfortable with it, because the woman is the subject, and the perpetrator does not speak for her with regards to what she might find uncomfortable.  

And then we get to the point where women are expected to take responsibility. Rape trials still involve the cross examination of women where they are asked about what they were wearing, whether they might actually have consented, and what their sexual history is like. No other crime brings that kind of victim blaming so why this one? The rape conviction rate is pitifully low, partly because of the lack of evidence, but also because of the conditioning of people to believing that a woman who is assaulted was probably “up for it,” or that “well if she will go out dressed like that what does she expect?” And for every case where a rapist is found not guilty despite the fact he likely is, that rapist is back out on the streets, free to attack his next victim. Your sister, your daughter perhaps or your best friend. 

The solution here actually lies with men and not women. It is men who need to know what it is that makes a woman uncomfortable, and what behaviour is and isn’t ok. Most decent men already know that, and as such it is down to those decent men to stand up and be counted when it comes to defending women’s right to safety without blame or expectation.  

Women don’t need to be told that “not all men” are like that. We all know. My best friends are men and it goes without saying that I know they’re not like that. 

But where men need to say that “not all men” are like that is with regards to men who do feel that they have a right to a woman’s body. That a woman is something to be objectified, whose experiences need to be downplayed.  When those decent men out there think about those women and the message they feel they should be sharing, that message is that they need to stand up for what is right, because “not all men” are decent like that. 

Life and then death? Is this really the answer?

A man has been executed in Texas for the murder of his wife’s brother and parents nearly 30 years after being sentenced.  

Billie Wayne Coble is the oldest person to be executed in Texas since the death penalty was re-introduced in 1982.  

But this is not about the rights and wrongs of the death penalty, this is more about asking the question as to whether, if the death penalty does not happen for 30 years,is doing so not then delivering two sentences instead of one?  

I am thankful that I live in a country where the death penalty does not exist,even for the most unthinkable crimes.  However I do recognise that in some instances there is definitely an argument for someone to be imprisoned for the rest of their life with no possibility of their release back into society,and I do recognise that in such instances justice is punitive rather than restorative.

However, in the case of individuals such as Billie Coble, he has served a 30 year sentence which essentially equates to life in prison, and only then has he been put to death.  

While I understand that the death penalty is often delayed due to the appeals processes etc, I think it’s fair to say that 30 years is surely a stretch by a modern society’s standards, and that if after 30 years the individual is still incarcerated then it’s safe to assume that he has paid his debt to society and should rather be left to spend the rest of his life in prison rather than being put to death as some kind of last statement.  

If a country has the death penalty, should that not mean that when someone is sentenced to death, they are then put to death, rather than serving a life sentence and then being put to death?  In that instance the death penalty seems more like a statement than the carrying out of a sentence.  

Grandparents’ rights? Who should decide?

MP’s are calling for an amendment to the children’s act to enshrine the right for grandparents to see their grandchildren after a divorce in law.  Currently if grandparents want to see their grandchildren they have to go to court to obtain access.  

There have of course been a number of people who have emerged telling their stories of how they have been prevented from seeing their grandchildren, although perhaps the most notable I have seen was a couple on ITV’s This Morning programme who talked about how it was in fact their own son who has ceased contact and has gone so far as to have the police send a letter ordering the couple to cease attempts to contact his family or to risk being charged with harassment after the father called the son’s place of work to deliver a message for him to call his mother at Christmas.  

Now, while I do feel that where possible family relationships should be encouraged, and I myself would never have discouraged any kind of relationship between my children and their grandparents or extended family on either side, I do think that giving grandparents rights in law is a step too far, especially when you consider that even parents don’t have rights as such but that it is the children who have the right to a relationship with them rather than the other way around.  

I also think that family relationships can be complicated, and that if a parent is preventing the grandparents from seeing the children there are more often than not valid reasons for this being the case.  

If for instance you take a case where the parents are divorced, it could be argued that it is the responsibility of each parent to ensure the relationship between the children and their extended family on each side. And while it could be argued that in some instances there are parents who deliberately withhold access to the children from the other parent and as such are likely to do the same with the extended family, it could also be argued that there are many parents who are absent through their own choice, and as such it should not be down to the resident parent to ensure a relationship with the extended family.  

Also, if for instance a relationship breaks down due to abuse either physical or emotional and the parents have (understandably) remained loyal to their child who was the abuser, it is perfectly understandable that the other parent might not want to encourage a relationship between their children and someone who has remained loyal to an individual who has hurt their other parent and in some instances perhaps even the children.  

And Then we look at those relationships where it is the actual children of the parents who are preventing a relationship with the grandchildren due to their own relationship having broken down for whatever reason.  

In the case I saw on This Morning, the couple stated that all they wanted was to see their grandchild.  Yet I think that anyone would argue that if an individual has sought legal advice in order to prevent their parents contacting even themselves, there are clearly some far deeper reasons for the limit in contact than that they are just being difficult.  

Many people do fall out with family for multiple reasons, very few go to the lengths of getting the authorities involved to prevent further contact, and it would have been interesting to hear the other side of that story, because I simply do not believe that this was just a case of the family being prevented from having contact for no valid reason, and the idea that these people be given rights to see the grandchildren in this situation is terrifying when you consider the lengths the parents have obviously had to go to to prevent contact until now.  

In an ideal world we would all benefit from relationships with family and extended family.  However, sometimes there are circumstances which we might not anticipate which prevents this from happening.  Just because someone is family after all does not mean that they should have rights over the children whom  there may be very valid reasons for them being prevented from having a relationship with.  

Whole or pre-prepared? That is the question.

UK retailer Marks and Spencer have announced that they are to withdraw their product cauliflower steak from sale after they came in for criticism about the amount of packaging.  

A M&S spokesperson confirmed that once the product had sold out in stores they wouldn’t be ordering in any more.  

The article confirming this was posted by the Huffington post on Friday, along with criticisms of other supermarkets who sell what it believes to be over-packaged pre-prepared vegetables such as cauliflower kous-kous, broccoli rice, and diced onions.  

Now, I would be the first to agree that on the whole we use far too much packaging, and I have in fact stated as much on various forms of social media, including blasting one manufacturer for packaging a pair of 42g headphones in a box and packaging which weighed approximately 900g, (unfortunately I can’t remember at this point who the manufacturer was, just in case it might be construed that I was protecting their identity.)

Where the critic has overstepped the mark however is in their further advice to consumers on how to chop and prepare your own vegetables so that you don’t have to resort to buying pre-prepared ones, including a “helpful” video to show you how to better your chopping technique.  

I don’t doubt for a second that there are people who buy pre-prepared veg simply because they can and for convenience.  Although if that is what works for them then who is anyone else to criticise that?  However, there are also many people for whom the existence of pre-prepared vegetables is invaluable, as disabilities, co-ordination issues and other constraints which are frankly nobody’s business but theirs make it either difficult or impossible to prepare vegetables, and pre-prepared foods means the difference between being able to home cook a meal and having to resort to the ready meal option.  

Telling retailers that their products are over-packaged is one thing.  Telling people that they could prepare their own fruit and veg if only they watched this helpful video and brushed up on their technique is nothing more than patronising and judgemental.  

Let’s be honest here, the individuals responsible for writing the article didn’t really want to talk about excessive packaging or pretentious product naming.  What they really wanted to do was to pass judgement over people who buy pre-prepared fruit and veg and tell them how if only they did it “their” way they would be so much better for it.  Except to write an article purely to slate the buyers of diced onions when said buyer may have difficulties which make it impossible to chop onions for themselves, and not be in a position to invest in a food processor either due to financial or space constraints doesn’t exactly show one as someone who really cares about the planet or those who live on it, so the amount of packaging was a convenient way around it with half an article of self righteous judgement thrown in for good measure.  

So here’s the thing.  If you disagree with the amount of packaging that supermarkets and other retailers use for their products then join the cause and protest against it.  

However, if you disagree with the use of pre-prepared products such as fruit, vegetables and anything else which could be made by you personally but is available on the shelves of supermarkets for those who don’t have the ability or simply can’t be bothered, then don’t buy them.  But keep your judgements of those who do to yourself.  It says far more about you than it does about them.  

“Please like my post......” Should it really be down to schools to manage the use of social media by eight year olds?

Today the children’s commissioner has called for schools to take more of an active part in helping children to manage expectations on social media as they make the transition from primary to secondary school.  Anne Longfield said that she was concerned about the impact of social media on eight to twelve year olds and that they were too dependent on comments and likes, and that schools should assist in managing their expectations as they transition from primary to secondary school when social media starts to play a more important role in their lives.  

I don’t disagree that schools need to be more aware of children’s social media use, and indeed, many schools do have their own social media policies although many of them focus on the need to not bring the school into disrepute etc.  However, I also think that other adults in children’s lives have a part to play here in both managing the expectations of children as well as their own.  

It could be argued that for those of us with secondary-aged children many of us have entered the social media era at the same time as our children have, and as such many parents’ levels of both use and interaction on social media is not dissimilar to that of their children.  And for many adults, likes, comments and interactions can be seen as equally important albeit on a potentially different level.  

Also, a lack of either understanding or awareness of the potential impact of our own social media use is bound to have an impact on our children as, if we as adults are not managing social media effectively how can we possibly think that we can manage the use of our children’s social media accounts, especially on platforms which we as adults may not even have use or an understanding of.  

It is human nature to react positively to the approval of others.  As such numbers of followers, likes and comments is most definitely something that likely impacts on us all at some point.  When I publish this blog I will of course hope that people will read it, digest it and view it positively.  But for a twelve year old or worse, an eight year old, the ability to process lack of likes and comments or even negative comments is something which they don’t yet have the maturity to do, and if they don’t have an authority figure to tel them that it’s ok if they don’t get likes on their latest post or their snap or instagram picture hasn’t been liked or shared then that can make them feel less valued as individuals even though that picture is just one in millions out there.  

Additionally, social media affords us the opportunity to be seen by and to interact with people we otherwise wouldn’t, people who are strangers out there in the real world, and for whom distance would mean we would otherwise never have encountered them, but who are right there as names and pictures in our social media world, and although it can be said that many parents do keep a tight reign on their children’s social media accounts and only allow them to have friends who they know in the real world, it is certainly also true that for some children they are given unlimited access to a world they do not yet have the maturity to understand or to deal with on many levels.  And if the interaction they get from those strangers is negative they may find it difficult not to take it personally. 

When I blogged about Laura Plummer, the British woman who had been jailed in Egypt for bringing banned drugs into the country, I received a tweet from a complete stranger telling me what a horrible person I was and how they wished something awful would happen to me one day.  I laughed it off because firstly, I have no idea who the individual even was, and secondly, if you put yourself out there in the public world then the reality is that not everyone is going to agree with what you have to say.  But if the comments from strangers were numerous or indeed if negative comments from people who I know in person started mounting up then I may start to wonder about how I was being perceived out there in the social media world.  But for me I could potentially step away from the blog, from twitter etc, but for a preteen for whom social media is also becoming a huge part of their actual social life it’s not so easy to step away because it can feel like stepping away from your actual social life.  

And there is another side to all this.  Rightly or wrongly, there are people, adults even, who view the interaction of their friends on social media as far more of a part of real life than it should be.  I was reminded of this fact around a year ago when a friend of some 25 years or so posted what I would only describe as a modern-day chain letter on his social media account with the adage that only his real friends would respond.  The post begins with the words “today I’m gonna say bye bye to some of you,” and then goes on to state that if you’ve ever had anyone in your life who had cancer or mental health issues (the post can be adapted accordingly,) you will copy and past this to your status in recognission of what people go through.  It then goes on to state that only 5% of their friends will copy and past it because only they are true friends.  Truth is that the reason only 5% copy and paste is because it’s a chain letter designed to clutter one’s timeline.  However in this particular instance the friend in question took the post literally and removed anyone who hadn’t copied and pasted the status from his friend list.  So that’s a a 25 year friendship obliterated over a piece of spam.  

I’m afraid I laughed because in my view it said far more about him than about me. Had he been a much closer friend I might have had words about it in person, but in this instance I thought that he clearly wasn’t worth even being told how stupid he had made himself look.  However imagine being a primary aged child being subjected to rejection because you didn’t follow a protocol you never actually signed up to in the first place.  If adults take it this seriously, how can we expect children to cope with the rejection when it happens?  

In conclusion, children’s expectations on social media need to be managed far more closely, and in my personal opinion that should start with not allowing primary aged children on social media to start with, and then managing their use once they reach the age where they can have facebook, twitter etc without having to lie about their age to get there.  

Social media can be an immensely positive thing.  But that needs to be weighed against the need for acceptance, validation and the recognission of the fact that lack of either does not have any bearing on people as individuals and the people they are.  

Should freedom of speech have a limit?

There is outrage today  after a video of a dead body  in the Aokigahara forest in Japan was posted by an American vlogger   on the youtube video platform over the weekend.  

Logan Paul posted the video after he and his entourage discovered the body in the forest, which has a reputation as a destination where people go to end their own lives,  under the title “we found a dead body in the suicide forest.” Instead of alerting the authorities, Paul filmed the body while he and his friends laughed and joked, and then uploaded the video to his youtube channel over the weekend.  

This has sparked outrage from social media users, many of whom have called for Paul’s entire youtube channel to be removed.  However Paul has apologised saying that he made a mistake.  

Now, for me this raises several issues.  The fact that individuals now have the ability to upload their own content to the internet could potentially be seen as a double-edged sword.  On the one hand we as individuals now have the ability to capture parts of our lives, our opinions and our interactions to the internet in the form of vlogs, blogs and other social interactive sites.   Indeed, the fact that this ability exists means that I am able to write this blog and when I’ve done so I will be able to publish it to my platforms of choice.  

The other side to this ability however is the fact that if you are posting material online, not everyone is going to agree with you, and if you are posting controversial and/or offensive views or opinions or interactions you are likely to be called out on those by the people who disagree with your views.  This does mean that you and you alone are responsible for what you post, and if you are being deliberately offensive you also need to take responsibility for your inappropriate behaviour and/or comments.  

Logan Paul has apologised for his video saying that he made a mistake.  However it’s fair to say here that the video was not a snapshot, and that Paul would have actually had to watch the video again, edit it, and only then would it have been uploaded to the internet.  So it seems that he was comfortable with both the footage and the decision to upload it until he was called out on it and forced to issue an apology.  

The other side to this however is that while plenty of people would argue for free speech online, the viewing of offensive postings and material has created a sub-section of people who believe that if someone posts what is in their opinion offensive material, far greater action should be taken than just calling out the individual on their postings.  There have been calls for Logan Paul’s entire youtube channel to be removed when actually, the video has now been removed, he has apologised, and while it still goes without saying that the video in question was grossly offensive and raises some questions over what kind of person he might be, the suggestion that someone’s entire postings be removed off the back of what is one offensive posting takes it a step too far down the slippery slope of removing our right to free speech.  

After all, what to one is offensive may not be to someone else and vice versa, and so while a post about finding what will clearly have been someone who was pushed by their own story to the point where they felt they had no other option than to end their own life would arguably be seen as offensive by most of those who viewed it or were knowledgeable of its existance, it’s possible that other postings and topics posted online could garner a much more divided response, and if we took the view that these posts or the individuals responsible for them  should be removed from the platforms they are posted on we run the risk of entering into the realms of banning free speech, and the reality is that freedom of speech is something which we should aspire to, even if we don’t always agree with what that represents.  

“She was just doing a kind thing.” Should the British government become involved with Brits who knowingly commit, and are prosecuted for crimes abroad?

On Boxing Day a British woman,  Laura Plummer, was jailed for three years by an Egyptian court after being found guilty of smuggling drugs into the country.  

Plummer travelled to Egypt for a holiday with her boyfriend earlier this year and was found to be carrying 300 Tramadol tablets in her suitcase.  Tramadol is a prescription painkiller in the UK and is banned in Egypt.  In fact even in the UK Tramadol is considered to be a class C drug and as such its distribution to anyone other than the individual it has been prescribed for is illegal.  

In her defence Plummer claimed that she had taken the tablets over to give to her boyfriend who was suffering from severe back pain and that she was unaware of the law.  And this is a story which is being upheld by her supporters, who are calling for her release because, according to them, she just wanted to do a kind thing and fell fowl of the law and is being treated unfairly.  

Now I absolutely believe that if someone is wrongly imprisoned in another country our government should be in a position to intervene.  I also believe that in the event someone is imprisoned in another country with questionable human rights then the various human rights charities and organisations should become involved in order to secure their release.  The case of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe who is currently being held in an Iranian prison for allegedly plotting to overthrow the Iranian government springs to mind here, and various organisations are involved in her case.  

However drug smuggling is an open and shut case.  The laws on these crimes are very clear, and ultimately if you are caught with illegal drugs then that is because you didn’t avail yourself of the laws in the country you were travelling to at the time you made the decision to pack over 300 illegal tablets into a suitcase and carry them into the country in question.  

I think that a lot of people have been Sympathetic to Ms Plummer because the drugs she was carrying were painkillers rather than illegal hard drugs.  As part of her defence she argued that the tablets were for her boyfriend who was suffering from back pain, and so her supporters would argue that all she did was take painkillers to a man for a medical condition.  However the fact that the drugs were illegal in Egypt stands regardless of what drugs they were.  And as a foreigner travelling into that country, it was her responsibility to know that, and to know that if she were caught, she would be liable to be prosecuted under the laws of that country.  This is a fact which has clearly not actually escaped Ms Plummer’s knowledge as she stated during her trial that it was a friend in the UK who had obtained the tablets for her, so still not taking personal responsibility for her part in the crime.  

I can see how, in some instances, many people are sympathetic to the plight of people who carry drugs.  Often if they are carrying them into the UK for instance they are travelling from countries where they are desperate to escape severe poverty, and as such are easy targets for drug dealers who use them as mules for their iffy products, often required to put their own lives at risk by being required to swallow packages of cocaine etc which are liable to burst causing instant death or serious illness.  The carrier is then merely a bi-product, easily sacrificed in the name of whatever drugs the dealer stands to profit from, and if they are caught they are the ones who go to jail, or worse, if they die because of a split package the dealer is never found and will simply find someone else for his next delivery.  

I absolutely still believe that these people should be brought to justice here in the UK.  However I can also see how desperation and often lack of education can lead someone into committing a crime from another country because they feel there is no other way out of a life of extreme poverty.  

But a Brit carrying prescription drugs to a country she has visited before, knowing the laws, knowing that she is carrying the drugs because they are illegal in the country is travelling to has no excuses, especially when you take into account that she was carrying 300 tablets, far more than are available on one single prescription.  

Laura Plummer knew exactly what she was doing. Perhaps she was coerced by what she thought was a charming boyfriend, although that’s assuming he actually was a boyfriend and that this is not merely a term being used as a cover for his being the dealer she was supplying to.  But the fact doesn’t change that she was aware that dealing drugs in Egypt carries a harsh prison term, and that the painkiller she carried into Egypt was available on prescription only, and as such, she knew they were illegal drugs as soon as she asked a friend to obtain them for her.  

Ms Plummer might also want to consider while she is spending time at the behest of the Egyptian judiciary, that the penalty for distribution of class C drugs in the UK is up to fourteen years in Prison.  And right now there are also calls for her to be prosecuted once she does come back to the UK.  

Charly Gard - Should parents have the ultimate say in whether their child lives or dies?

Tonight judges at the European court of human rights have ruled that a ten month old baby should be kept on life support in order that his parents be given time to present evidence in order to allow him to travel to America for experimental treatment.  

Charly Gard  was born with Mitochondrial Depletion Syndrome which has left him unable to sea, hear, cry or move, and he has been on life support at the Great Ormond Street hospital in London since October 2016.   But doctors at the hospital feel that he should be allowed to die peacefully as there is no hope of any kind of recovery. 

The parents have been to court on numerous occasions in order to be allowed to take Charly to America for experimental treatment at a cost of over £1m, however doctors at GOSH have argued that this would not be in his interests and that any treatment would merely prolong his suffering and not reverse any existing brain damage.  

I think at this point it needs to be said that there are no winners in this case.  For a parent, allowing your child to die goes against every parental instinct you possess. No-one expects to out-live their child, and so actively making a decision to allow that child to die is something which most parents would never be able to anticipate having to do.  And for the doctors arguing that a peaceful death would be in Charly's best interests, this too goes against the oaths they sign up to when qualifying from medical school.  No doctor wants to be making the decision to switch off a baby's life support, let alone be the one having to do it. 

However, I think it can also be said that parents are very rarely able to make such decisions objectively, as this is their child they are talking about, and this is why these cases so often end up in the courts.  

So the question that we need to ask ourselves is: should a baby be kept alive because it is the parents' wish that he be kept alive?  When making decisions which make allowances for the withdrawal of treatments, should there not be only one outcome - what is in the best interests of the patient?  

I know that many people have argued that the decision should be the parents' to make, however can any parent really say that they could objectively make the right decision which was in the interests of their child and not based in some part on their own sense of loss or failure to be able to do something?  Even if logically there was nothing which could be done?  

And how many people wanting this baby to be kept alive, taken to America on a journey which he may not survive, and subjected to treatment which has no possibility of success other than potentially lengthening this baby's already difficult life?  A life where he is unable to communicate even whether he is in pain would want another adult to be making those same decisions about them or on their behalf?  I know I wouldn't.  

In conclusion, I hope that were I ever in the same position, I could make the right decision for my child, and I hope that were I in the same position as an adult, the other adults in my life would make the right decision for me.  

I only hope I never have to find out, and wish nothing but peace to Charly and his family.  

The human face of the migrants we choose to dehumanise.

Over the past few months there have been increasing numbers of stories in the news about the migrants at Calais who are attempting to come to Britain through the Channel tunnel.  There has been increasing footage of refugees attempting to gain access to lorries, or storming the fences at the entrance of the tunnel in the hopes of being able to come here  to claim asylum.  

And with the footage there has been increased amounts of criticism, of the government for "making Britain a desirable place to come to," of the French police for not doing more to prevent refugees from coming over the border, and mostly the refugees themselves for daring to try to escape from circumstances which most of us cannot even imagine, and to risk their lives and those of their children, in order to find a safe and better life for themselves in a European country.  

Even the BBC received a number of complaints for filming a make-shift church in the Calais refugee camp for Songs of Praise, because it showed the refugees as being too human for some elements of the media to want to contemplate.  

As a society we have reduced human beings to animals in order to justify the hatred of them.  

But in the past week the news has covered a different angle to the migrant crisis.  Earlier this week around 200 refugees were thought to have drowned when two boats sank off the coast of Libya, and on Thursday there were shocking reports of the discovery of 71 bodies of what are thought to be Syrian refugees in a refrigeration truck in Austria.  And suddenly society is in shock, and asking why we are not doing more to prevent these tragic deaths, and why traffickers are able to exploit the desperation of people who are prepared to climb into a lorry with their children, and allow themselves to be sealed inside, not knowing whether they will actually ever make it to their intended destination.  

But we seem to have a double standard  approach to all this.  We can sympathise with the plight of people drowning off the coast of Libya, and the idea of people suffocating in a truck in Austria is abhorrent.  But those things have happened somewhere else, and as such we find ourselves empathising with what they have gone through.  And yet for every boat which sinks off the coast of Libya there are hundreds more which make it to the other side, and for every death in a lorry there will be hundreds more people who make it through alive, and some of those will inevitably end up in the refugee camps of Calais, where they will hope to make it across the border into Britain.  

The people of Calais who we as a society have dehumanised all started their journeys on boats like the ones in Libya, or lorries such as the one in Austria.  A different boat, a different lorry, and any one of the dehumanised refugees of Calais could be one of the mourned dead of Libya or Austria.  

In order to gain the empathy of our society it seems that people have to die, but daring to live, to make it through the harshest, most unimaginable conditions means that instead of deserving of empathy for where they have come from, these people are now seen as a  scourge on our society, a threat to our jobs, houses and benefits.  

I can't help wondering whether people would still be expressing upset and shock if the Austrian lorry had instead been discovered in Dover, or whether people would actually identify the people they may have seen on a news broadcast running towards the tunnel as the same people who could lose their lives on the back of a lorry they might hope to gain access to.

Why would you want Christian Grey as your valentine?

This weekend is valentines.  And along with all the romance this brings, we will also see the release of the film 50 Shades of Grey.  

100 million women bought and digested the books, and it is anticipated that they will be going to see the film in their droves, to watch as 21 year old Anastasia is swept off her feet by the rich, handsome, and incredibly controlling and manipulative Christian Grey.  Romantic?  apparently some people seem to think so.  But leading women's abuse charities have begun a campaign to encourage women to boycott this film as it is seen by them as normalising domestic abuse.  

So let's give a bit of background for those who have not read the books.  

Ana is a 21 year old student who agrees to interview prominent and influential businessman Christian Grey on behalf of a friend who is ill and needs the interview as part of her university dissertation.  Ana is in awe of the fact she will be interviewing Grey.  He is well known, he is attractive, and he is extremely rich.  

From the outset it seems clear that Christian Grey is a man who is used to getting what he wants, and from the beginning it is evident that he wants Ana.  

So, having interviewed him, Ana goes back to her life as a student, and as an assistant in a hardware shop, and just days later christian Grey appears at her till, where he has bought a variety of products, rope, cable ties, and some kind of tape.  Well it is a hardware store after all.  The fact he actually lives hours away is seemingly inconsequential, and over the coming days and nights he seeks to sweep Ana off her feet, by firstly rescuing her from the advances of a male friend after she had had too much to drink, taking her back to his hotel where he in true gentleman style does not take advantage of her, and then whisking her off to his flat by private plane for a nice dinner.  

So far, so romantic.  After all, Christian Grey is extremely powerful, he could choose any woman, and yet he has chosen Ana.  

This could be the beginning of a beautiful love story.  One where man meets woman, where they discover themselves and each other, and where their relationship grows as they get to know each other.  

Except that the next morning Christian Grey presents Ana with a contract.  A contract in which she must agree to be his submissive and he her dominant, where she will agree to wear the clothes he specifies, eat the food he tells her, and most importantly, submit to him in every other way.  Before she signs the contract he first takes her to see his playroom.  A room in his apartment which is full of the various whips, chains, handcuffs, and other implements used as part of the submissive/dominant relationship.  

I won't go into too much more detail, other than to say that throughout the course of the book it appears that Ana and Grey are actually falling in love.  However the story is littered with instances of where he takes absolute control of her life, and where the term consent appears to have very little meaning.  She can say no to anything, of course, but when she does she's told that actually, she can't.  And throughout the trilogy, Ana decides that actually, this isn't the relationship she wants, so she makes a stand and lets it be known what she wants, and  in the end, love conquers all and Christian Grey changes into the man Ana wanted him to be.  , leaving the message that if a relationship is controlling and abusive in the beginning that can change as long as you stick around.  

Now it would be a bit simplistic to suggest that a film alone mmight be able to influence people into entering into, or staying in abusive relationships believing that it's normal to be treated like that.  However it is also true to say that we are influenced by what we see in the media on an every day basis.  

Many, many women stay in abusive relationships believing that their abuser could change, because even abusers have  a nice side to their personalities, something which attracts their victims to them, so if Christian Grey is portrayed as a generally nice guy who has a bit of a past which explains his attitude towards women, but who dictates to his girlfriend where she can go, who she can see, what she can eat and how the rest of their relationship should be conducted and he can change, then surely it stands to reason that any man can change?

But this is a fantasy.  Most abusers do not change.  I won't go so far as to say they can't because with the right kind of therapy anyone should be able to change.  But I think it's fair to say that most abusers do not change, and for most victims of abuse the only way they can gain control is by leaving the abuser.  

50 shades is of course not marketed as a film depicting an abusive relationship.  It has been marketed as a romantic film which leads someone into the world of BDSM.  But we have heard from critics that it is not an accurate portrayal of BDSM, and as such, the behaviors exhibited in the book are those of a controlling and abusive man rather than one who has absolute respect for his partner.  

But perhaps the question would simply be why?  Why would you want to watch a film where a woman is dominated and controlled in this way and dress it up as romance?  Why would anyone want to fantasise about having a Christian Grey type in their life?  A lot of films are pure escapism from life, and of course most don't depict reality.  But surely escapism should be something positive and uplifting, or even if it's negative such as a drama or thriller, something with a  positive ending where the killer gets what they deserve.  But why would anyone want to escape into the realms of fantasy where someone is essentially taken from her world of innocence and thrown into one of sadistic control?  

It's not a thriller or a drama, neither is it particularly romantic, so what is it then?  

And if none of those are good enough reasons not to watch, then surely the fact that the books were so spectacularly badly written are good enough reason not to want to watch them played out on screen?  

three person babies - do we have the right to play God?

Today MP’s voted in favour of allowing the UK to become the first country to create babies using two women and one man.  The procedure is aimed towards being able to create babies who are free from mitochondrial disease, a devastating genetic condition which results in death. 

 

In this procedure, the mitochondria will be removed from the egg of the woman who carries the condition, and replaced with the mitochondria from the egg of a donor woman, thus resulting in a baby which will be genetically related to three people.

 

For me this brings up several issues.  The first is the deeply emotive possibility of being able to ensure that a baby does not carry a genetic condition from which he or she will almost certainly die, or being born a carrier of a condition which might be passed to future generations. 

 

Eradicating disability is controversial, because those who have a disability often see this as society’s desire too eliminate people like them from existence.  However choosing to have a baby knowing that it might carry a genetic condition and thus could be born with a disability is one which most people do not take lightly.  When the condition in question is one which will ultimately result in early death many parents opt to not have a baby at all rather than go through the process of falling pregnant and the subsequent heartbreak of losing their child. 

 

It is therefore understandable that parents would want to have a baby that did not carry such a devastating condition, not only for themselves, but because no parent willingly wants to put their child through any kind of pain and much less an agonising early death. 

 

However the other issue that this procedure raises is one of moral and ethical concern.  In order to create an embrio free from mitochondrial disorder that baby will in effect be related to three people, rather than two.  And while it has been confirmed that no character traits of the third person will be transferred to the baby, there is no escaping the fact that we are tampering with the laws of nature in order to create a baby free from a disease.

 

I’ve heard arguments that every time we treat an illness, create a vaccine, invent a new medical treatment we are tampering with nature.  But this is different.  This is creating life at the very beginning, interfering with the common building blocks of life by creating a baby from not two parents as nature intended, but three.  Regardless of the fact that there are currently no physical or personality traits involved in this process, we are none the less re-defining the process of procreation.

 

And once you start down this route, where does it end?  People talk of designer babies, a term which I personally do not like, however it is surely only a matter of time before a process designed to eradicate certain conditions will be open to misuse.   

 

We already have procedures to eliminate certain disabilities through a process called pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (pgd), whereby embrio’s carrying certain conditions are discarded during an IVF cycle, and only those embrio’s which do not carry the condition are implanted back into the uterus.  This process is already being used in other countries such as Spain and Cyprus to allow parents to select the gender of their baby, so the “designer” possibility has already begun to be a reality.

 

And what of the future?  This treatment is still in its inphancy, and so it is therefore not possible to know what will happen in the future with regards to an adult who has three genetic links having children of their own.  By the time the ramifications of this treatment become truly known, those who pioneered it may no longer be around, and we will face the possibility of genetically modified adults having to face a whole new problem with conditions related to genetic modification which cannot become known until they emerge, by which time genetic modification will not be able to be undone. 

 

Most of us wouldn’t want to buy genetically modified products in the supermarket, so why are we so on board with creating genetically modified human beings? 

 

The reasons for doing so are of course emotional, and I can of course only sympathise with anyone who has been through the loss of a child due to a genetic condition which could in future be iradicated.

 

But while I think it is possible to marvel at what can be achieved through science, I also think that sometimes, just because something can be done, doesn’t mean that it should.

take your bets on the pestorius trial while you watch it live... have we lost sight of why this is even happening?

Tomorrow sees the start of the murder trial of South African paralympic champion Oscar Pestorius.  Pestorius, who won two gold and one silver medals in the 2012 Paralympics shot and killed his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp at his home on 14 February 2013, but maintained that he believed her to be an intruder hiding behind a bathroom door, and didn’t realise that it was his girlfriend until he had fired four bullets through it. 

 

It is of course natural that the world will be taking an interest in this trial, both because pestorius is somewhat of a hero for his Paralympic achievements but also because he has overcome adversity to get where he is, and the thought of someone doing that and then turning out to potentially be a murderer does not, as a general rule, sit well with people.

 

However,, it would seem that this trial is entering a new dimension of world interest due to the fact that it was announced last week that large parts of the trial will be broadcast both on television and radio.  This of course means that the world’s press will have access to this broadcast and they will, of course, be able to broadcast it on news outlets around the world.  Our own Sky News have in fact been advertising the fact that coverage of the Pestorius trial will be broadcast during the day and at 9:00 every night. 

 

It’s not unusual for criminal trials to be televised.  In the US the televisation of trials is in fact quite common and has been for a number of years. I remember in fact that the OJ Simpson trial was televised in the mid 90’s, as was the trial of Louise Woodward, the British Nanny who was found guilty of murdering a baby in her care, a conviction which was subsequently reduced to manslaughter.

 

But this is the first time that South Africa has broadcast a trial, and I can’t help wondering why A, there seems to be the need to do so, and B, who wants to watch it and why. 

 

Perhaps it is because South Africa does unfortunately have a reputation for having a rather corrupt legal system, and the televisation of this trial could show the world that their legal system is in fact firm and fair and that Pestorius will receive a fair hearing.  Or perhaps it is because the television company who will be broadcasting this sees this as an opportunity to gain a bit more world recognission.  Or perhaps, in fact, it is being broadcast because someone somewhere feels that as Oscar Pestorius is a world recognised figure, broadcasting his trial is somehow in the public interest.  Or perhaps it interests the public...

 

But I have to wonder about this need for the public to follow the trial and possible conviction of a man who killed his girlfriend as if it is some kind of courtroom drama. 

 

It is one thing to follow the details of  a trial when the case is high profile.  As human beings we have a fascination both with crime and with celebrities.  Throw those two together and you end up with an almost irresistible combination. 

 

But it is quite another to sit in front of your television and watch the coverage as it unfolds, taking in the detail, perhaps making your judgements while you do so.  And it is also worth bearing in mind at this point that much of the evidence (and a considerable amount of speculation) is already in the public domain due to the fact that the bail hearing, which took several days, presented much of the evidence which was then published widely in the international press. 

 

But there is another turn to this.  This week bookies Paddypower have been criticised for advertising the fact that they are taking bets on the outcome of the Pestorius trial, with 7-4 odds for him to be found guilty and 4-2 not guilty.  Today they have gone one further by offering refunds on any bets if pestorius “walks.” 

 

Naturally complaints have been made to the Advertising Standards Authority, however it is too late as the advert has already been broadcast and no doubt there are people out there who will have gone into paddypower and placed bets to that effect.

 

It is like a boxing match, with people waiting for the action and placing their bets while they do so. 

 

And at the centre of all of this a young woman was shot and killed by the man she believed loved her, a man she may (or may not) have trusted.  Yet she has seemingly been forgotten in the feeding frenzy that is the media and the general public, desperate to catch every detail of this trial, desperate to know whether or not Oscar Pestorius did in fact mean to murder his girlfriend.

 

This trial is not in fact about Oscar Pestorius.  There is no question that he pulled the trigger of the gun which killed Reeva Steenkamp. If he is found guilty he will hopefully serve a significant sentence for his crime.  If he is found not guilty of murder he will be left to rebuild his life in the knowledge that he killed a young woman. 

 

This trial is not about needing to show the world’s press that South Africa has a true and fair justice system.

 

It is not about providing entertainment for the world’s voyeurs and rubberneckers desperate to  see whether their hero did it or not, or as something to watch with the morning cup of tea.

 

It is not about opportunities for the likes of Paddypower to make money by encouraging people to place their bets as to whether he did or didn’t do it.

 

In truth this trial is about Reeva Steenkamp, and the justice which she deserves.  She is not here to tell the court what happened on that fateful night, and therefore the evidence has to do that for her.  We can only hope that it will do just that, and that somewhere in the media circus that is the Oscar Pestorius trial, someone will actually take a step back and remember that all this is only made possible due to the fact that a young woman is dead.