Why the question of same-sex marriage sets an interesting precedent for bioethics...

Calls from the Vatican for civil servants to disobey a new law legalizing homosexual unions and giving the right of adoption in Spain to such "unions" have set and interesting precedent. On the one hand, responsibles of the Partido Popolar, have been rather hesistant to wholly support the initiative (read for instance the article here, where the Spanish leader of the PP, Mr. Mariano RAJOY did not fully endorse the mayors who announced that they would not "celebrate" such "marriages". On the other hand, a number of mayors of cities where the Partido Popolar rules have announced that they would not be obeying the new law.

The question of the objection of conscience is an interesting tool to question the legitimacy of some laws. However, I am not quite sure that it will succeed in this case. Besides the fact that many polls have indicated some degree of support for homosexual marriage in Spain, civil disobedience has some effect in reversing a tide when the consequences suffered by the disobedient citizen illustrate the injustice of the law he criticizes.

Here, there are no criminal law punishment foreseen for the civil servants who shall refuse to obey the law. The worst consequence might be the loss of their job - and yet, they may find another work at some point. It does not strike the minds as being truly scandalous and outraging - especially with the younger generations where relativism is a daily way of life.

I am not saying that the act is not worth of consideration, nor that it is useless. It may be a clamorous way of signifying to the public that perverting the spirit of marriage is not accepted by everyone. And for that to be truly efficient, mass demonstrations should follow, with outraged crowds demonstrating against the sanction taken. Then, there might be a sign that the hearts and souls have been touched by this courageous resistance.

There is one slight problem in the Spanish paradigm: one of the few parties opposing the law is growing more and more timid (you will have recognized the PP). If there is not a general and strong political initiative to follow up on popular reactions, then personal reactions are bound to have less echo....

But let us get forth to the core of my argument: why would this act of resistance set a precedent in bioethics?

Well, it is known that in some European countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands, euthanasia and stem cell researches have been authorised. Now, in the Netherlands, there has been a growing trend to consider euthanasia as a "right" (right "to die" for the patient, right to kill for the physician). Hence, some years ago, the Dutch Minister for Health Care had threatened to radiate definitively physicians who refused to organize the tranfer of patients wishing to be euthanized towards physicians ready to follow their "will".

On the plane of abortion, the European Court of Human Rights, refused some years ago the protection art. 9 (freedom of religion) of the Convention to pharmacists who had refused to sell contraceptives. The case was not even discussed on the merits, it was deemed unreceivable. You may read the case over here: Pichon & Sajous v./ France . The ratio decidendi may be found in these lines quoted from the case:

The Court would point out that the main sphere protected by Article 9 is that of personal convictions and religious beliefs, in other words what are sometimes referred to as matters of individual conscience. It also protects acts that are closely linked to these matters such as acts of worship or devotion forming part of the practice of a religion or a belief in a generally accepted form. (...)

However, in safeguarding this personal domain, Article 9 of the Convention does not always guarantee the right to behave in public in a manner governed by that belief. The word “practice” used in Article 9 § 1 does not denote each and every act or form of behaviour motivated or inspired by a religion or a belief.

The Court notes that in the instant case the applicants, who are the joint owners of a pharmacy, submitted that their religious beliefs justified their refusal to sell contraceptive pills in their dispensary.

It considers that, as long as the sale of contraceptives is legal and occurs on medical prescription nowhere other than in a pharmacy, the applicants cannot give precedence to their religious beliefs and impose them on others as justification for their refusal to sell such products, since they can manifest those beliefs in many ways outside the professional sphere.

The decision says a lot. While anybody may dissent or agree on the attitude of the two physicians as regards the sale of contraceptives (there is, in French law, a disposition which does not oblige pharmacists to sell abortive products), the Court has very strictly limited religious belief to the private sphere.

Thus, under the present case law, the Court would offer no protection to the mayors who would refuse "celebrating" same-sex "marriage". The interst of pushing the case of "homosexual marriage" before the ECHR might be in forcing the Court to reconsider the space it offers to religion in the public sphere.

There might be a drawback nevertheless: the Court might end up finding that when it is recognized by law, the "right to marriage" can be extended to homosexuals...

But then, it is up to each citizen to fight against dangerous deviations. The Court follows "public opinion" it is known (in a certain measure: it condemned measures against homosexuals on the basis of article 8 of the Convention - privacy - though there was widespread popular approbation for those laws). Why not to push forward "test cases", with a strong popular movement in favour of restricting controversial measures in the field of bioethics?

But it requires a strong mobilization, and it is fortunate that the Vatican seems to have decided to go on the offensive.

The new report of the French NCDS on police violence

Police controls are often the occasion of violence against the citizen.
Police road control in France

Police violence on the rise in France

Back to questions of police violence for this post, after a long period devolved to questions of end of life. This post takes up the occasion of the publication of the 2004 report of the French National Commission for the Deontology of Security (NCDS). I gave you the link to the integral version of the report but it is in French, in PDF version, and it takes about 3 MB to download.

In short, the NCDS noticed an increase in the levels of police violence towards citizen, mostly on simple occasions such as id controls, routine check-ups and so on. The NCDS also seemed to come across a phenomenon whichis already noticed in the litterature on police violence: the fact that in French suburbs (which are characterized by a strong criminality and a strong immigrant population), police tend to behave as rival gangs would do, and as though they were a militia in conquered territory.

That is actually a phenomenon well known in areas where the police consider that they are acting in hostile terrain. Litterature has shown such a behaviour to be chronical when the police are conscious that they do not enjoy popular support.

What is new in this report, is that the NCDS ascribes the problems in the behaviour of the policemen to their insufficient training. Until recently, it was generally considered that these problems of violence were often connected to hard-boiled old veteran policemen with a special problem of alcoholism.

It seems now that the training is also insufficient for the younger policemen... Now, we may also notice that police is a necessary and very useful profession. There are a number of members of the police who enter it, not because they wish to oppress citizens, but because they wish to be useful to the population. The greater problem I can see with violence is the passivity of other policemen when their colleagues get into a fit.

More broadly on the subject of police violence, there is an interesting review of a book on police violence in Canada available over here: http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:6MQ3KEkf6NYJ:www.vathek.com/ijpsm/pdf/jpsm.4.4.361.pdf+police+violence+studies&hl=fr

Joseph Ratzinger became the 265th Pope of the Catholic Church on April 19, 2005. May he lead for many years the fight for life in Europe and across the world.
Pope John Paul II

A new leader for Life in Europe

Pope Benedict XVI has been fortunately chosen by the Conclave against some more ill-advised choices.

In papers analysts wrote before his election, on possible policies which might be followed by the German Pope, some quoted the possibility of seeing Ratzinger pruning those "Catholic" institutions which violate the teaching of the Catholic Church, such as the UCL, in Belgium. In that article written by my colleague John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, it was reported that Benedict XVI had been strongly marked by the attitude of the Catholic Church during WW II. The article (which you may read online here) continued in noticing that the then Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his memoirs, Milestones:

“It dawned on me that, with their insistence on preserving institutions, [the bishops] in part misread the reality. Merely to guarantee institutions is useless if there are no people to support those institutions from inner conviction.”

He would thus pose hypocritical institutions before a dilemma: live according to the Gospel of Life, or face the loss of the quality of "Catholic". It might stop the St. Luc Clinics in Belgium from allowing the perpetratin of euthanasia on their patients... At any rate, it will bring a bit of clarity in the minds of people who believe that the quality of "Catholic" is compatible with dangerous meanderings.

Now, if you wish to understand the fear of the watered-down Catholics, you may read the interview of Cardinal Danneels after the conclave (in Flemish) here: http://www.standaard.be/Nieuws/Buitenland/index.asp?articleID=GJFE87R7

Cardinal Daneels did not participate to the dinner in the honour of Pope Benedict XVI, with other cardinals. In a few days, you will be able to read on the internet the reason for which Cardinal Danneels could not be elected by no means. It seems however that he sought to repair his mistakes in a homely of the 30 April 2005: http://www.catho.be/BenoitXVI/Homelie_30avr05.pdf

His spokesman told me on that occasion, that Cardinal Danneels was "exhausted" and "not at all disappointed". If Cardinal Danneels was so "exhausted" where was the point of rushing out a press conference?...


Try also reading the newspaper De Morgen of today: (I suppressed the link as it was broken).
It appears the rector of the KUL, the Flemish Catholic University also has some fears...

« Why do you have that pack on your laps doctor? - It is to better kill you my child »

There were shocking developments on the plane of the entrance of euthanasia in daily life: a firm specialised in the furniture of pharmaceutical products, the society Multipharma decided to announce the creation of special " euthanasia packs " with a combination of anaesthetics, penthothal, Norcuron, a form of curare, and a leaflet of instructions. Cynically a representative explained that the curare was necessary in some occurrencs to "finalise the euthanasic act". Price: 45 EUR (a little more in dollars).

The announcement came after claims that many pharmacists refused to sell products necessary to perform an euthanasia, in saying that they did not have the necessary products. The proponents of euthanasia presented this pack as an " advance " which would oblige pharmacists to clearly take position on euthanasia.

What is more worrying is that after becoming an ideal means of cutting health expenses, euthanasia is now becoming an occasion of earning more money for firms without scruples. In addition to recent news according to which, about 50 % of all children dead before the age of 1 year in Flanders had been " helped " to die by physicians (with 17 illegal euthanasias), this gives the setting of a frightful commercial and deadly society. Is that not being a sort of incitation to murder, and creating the means of killing people? Read the article of The Telegraph here , if you wish: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/04/09/weuth09.xml&sSheet=/portal/2005/04/09/ixportal.html

All is now in place to put in operation a deadly commercial logic to promote euthanasia in Belgium: the physicians are going to kill because they are convinced that they are doing it for the " best " of their patient; firms are selling the means of killing and have the luxury of taking the moral high ground, because in addition of earning the salary of the executioner, they are " helping " the patient and cutting into the expenses of health care; finally politicians, totally unconscious of the type of society they are creating, are pushing to widen always more the scope of euthanasia and of " mercy killing ".

This is a new nazism which is in its birth. It is the creation not of an immoral society, but of an amoral society, a society which will become dangerous for the whole of Europe. How to fight against? The question is: do we wish to have a European Union, completely incapable of talking of morals and of life? In my opinion, we are better without.

Keeping up to date with the French blog... A new condemnation for Turkey

After covering in length the Terri Schiavo case, and its tragic ending, I would like to return to another concern, and one of the main questions of interest for this blog: the question of police violence. I should like to precise that the French version of this blog (http://aurore-europe.blogspot.com does not cover the same information, nor are the contents always strictly the same.

Nevertheless, in a previous post on the French site, I had mentionned a new decision by Strabourg's European Court of Human Rights, which condemned Turkey for not having respect the article 2 of the European Convention of Human Rights (right to life) and the article 13 (right to a remedy).

The facts of the case are simple, and enlightening: neither the government nor the applicant disputed that the victim, a young Kurdish man, was killed during a police operation against members of the PKK (a Kurdish extremist party). The applicant (who was the brother of the victim) maintained that the police had purposely killed the victim, then tried to masquerade the crime into an incident with one of the suspects. The police alleged that the victim was killed by a person they wished to arrest, also a Kurd. The Court found that while there were no indications to say that the police killed the victim, or that the latter was tortured, however, by following the explanations given by the police, they had needlessly endangered the life of a person under custody, and had, in addition, failed to investigate the killing in a satisfying manner. That was held to be a breach of article 2 of the Convention. The Court also found that the absence of investigation was also a breach of article 13.

The decision is only available in French for the time being, and you may find it over here: Decision Gezici c./ Turquie, 17/03/2005 .

Now, in discussions with other people, when I raised the question of the lack of respect for human rights in Turkey, I received the reply that few are the countries which effectively respect those criteria in today's Europe.

The example set by John Paul II

Pope John Paul II has given a crucial example by his attitude to illness and death
Pope John Paul II

Two very different ends to calvary

The death of Pope John-Paul II, last week seems to have brought up two quite diferent responses to the calvary of the end of life. On the one side we saw this courageous and immense sovereign pontiff fighting until the last breath, and giving us the example that a suffering life is still worth living. On the other side, referring to the Schiavo case, it was difficult not to see an inadequate insistance to put an end to life. Maybe that the message of Pope John-Paul II was even greater because he taught us to live with suffering. Public response to his courage has illustrated the formidable lesson he gave to the younger generations.